Craft Project Week 8: Winter Warmers

We’ve recently launched a new Craft Project with Diana Ching who will set a series of creative projects every Thursday on our website and social media to give you ideas of things you can work on at home to build your own piece of art over a period of weeks.

This week’s project is called: Winter Warmers.

Thank you to those who responded to the recent survey asking what you’d like to see in this blog. I’ve been working on some ideas for Christmas cards and simple tree/table decorations, and also a couple of painting projects, so watch this space. It may not be possible to please everyone every week but hopefully, over a period of time, there has been or will be something to appeal to most of you!

I often try to tie projects in to the time of year and here’s a nice easy idea that’s a neat little self-help tool too. We have to face it – not only summer but autumn is well and truly over… Despite the glorious colour still in the trees, there’s more than a hint of winter in the air. We’re getting out our coats and boots, planning warming meals, and resigning ourselves to a good few months of cold, short days.

Winter isn’t the easiest of times to get through, but we can help ourselves to an extent by thinking positive. Instead of focusing on the downsides of the season, we can remind ourselves of what we like about it (there are definitely some good points!). For this week’s craft project, I’ve gone back to the simple collage idea – it’s a technique that people enjoyed with the summer and autumn versions, and although we’re not actually in deep midwinter yet, this might be a good time to prepare a winter collage to help us think of what we can enjoy about the coming months.

It’s a good idea to start by writing a list of things you like about winter – cosy jumpers, woolly scarves and hats, hearty soups, log fires… there are lots of things when you start thinking. You might have more time to bake, read books, or watch films (TV is better in the winter too!). Writing a list will help to focus your mind about the positives, and then you can start to go through some old magazines etc to find images that match up.

There’s no right or wrong way to start a collage, but it may help to find a largeish picture and arrange your other images around it. In the sample here, I’ve started with a scene advertising Winter’s Gold (a whisky) – I’m not a whisky drinker but I liked the picture so I started with that. You’ll see that I’ve added a photo of a roaring fire, bowls of soup, and drawings including cups of steaming hot chocolate… you’ll get the idea. The image of birds on bare branches of a tree reminds me that birds need us to feed them in the cold weather.

So see what you can do with this idea. Winter needn’t be too gloomy if we focus on what we like about it. Make your collage very personal to you and maybe add some of your own drawings or journaling (text) between the pictures. Put your finished work somewhere that you will see it often to remind you that there is good in everything!

Don’t forget to share pictures of your creations with us so we can admire them! If you’re happy for MFT to share them on social media too to inspire others to take part, email them to Connie Ridout, Communications Lead at MFT, at connie@maryfrancestrust.org.uk

Thank you!

Diana

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