On Saturday I held a Crafternoon – a crafting afternoon, in aid of Mind, the mental health charity. I chose to host the crafting event because Mind, while I have not used all of their services, have found their on-line resources to be really helpful and informative. 1 in 4 of us, in our lifetime will experience some kind of mental health problem and its charities such as Mind that can help when these problems arise. I believe that Mind do a really good job offering support, advice and campaigning to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding of mental health issues and wanted to support them to continue to carry out the work that they do.
My Mind Crafternoon started with signing up for the event via the Mind website which was a really simple process of form filling with your name, address, email and the date of your Crafternoon (if it is to be held on another day aside from 1st December – the official Crafternoon date). Once you have submitted your information Mind will then send out a kit that includes ideas of things to make including instructions, ways to raise money, bunting to cut out and make along with balloons and a money-box to keep the donations in. They also supply the paying in forms for you to use when banking the money raised. When I received my pack I was really amazed by how informative and helpful the pack was, there were so many tips and ideas so even the least crafty person would be able to hold an event like this!
I first set up a Facebook event and invited some friends and then bought some notecards and invites, wrote a bit about Mind and my Crafternoon in the cards and wrote out the details of the party onto the invites then sent them out to the attendees the week before the event.
The notecards and invites
The notecards and invites
I then put my Christmas decorations up, dug out all my craft things and set them up on the table. Sam and I baked a Vegan Devil’s Food chocolate cake and my friend Jez made some cakes and things for my event too. My lovely neighbour, Heather, made earrings and wine glass charms to sell and I had some sets of nails that I’d decorated to sell as well so we could raise extra money for Mind.
I decided to have a raffle, originally I was going to buy a tub of chocolates to raffle but decided to make a Christmas Mulled Wine scented soy candle to raffle instead.
The Activities
Jez showed us how to decorate compact mirrors and I decorated a phone case. We used Mod Podge, glitter and 3d elements such as bows, flowers and pearl flat back beads to decorate them. I’d never done this before and it was really fun! Everyone got stuck in and it was really lovely to see how each persons style and taste came out when we all used similar elements in our work.
Everyone’s work looked really fab and I think everyone was really pleased with the outcome! I know I’m super happy with how my phone case turned out! Jez was a really good teacher to have!
I led a Snowflake Making Masterclass using white paper, double-sided sticky and scissors to make 3d snowflakes. It was fun to be able to share what I’d learned with my friends and see how happy they were to have been able to make something so lovely from simple sheets of paper.
I then showed my friends how to make paper Christmas flowers from folded paper, scissors, a stapler and cotton thread. They all agreed that it would be something fun that they could do with their children as a Christmas activity.
And finally I did a brief demonstration showing everyone how to make Christmas Snowflakes and trees from toilet roll tubes.
It was a really fun day, there was a lot of chat and getting to know each other, laughter and fun, cake eating and wine drinking! I think I will definitely be hosting another one in the future! In fact I’ve already started thinking of different Crafternoons I could hold and the sort of themes that I could base them on!
My Colourful Life 