Arts & Crafts

During counselling sessions I like to involve art and crafts, especially in the early sessions. This allows for a slow and proper building of trust, for the client and I to get to know each other a bit better and to build a safe place to share, listen, hear, witness, validate, recover and heal. Art allows expression, for a story to be told without mastery of verbal language. Art and craft creates a space for mindfulness and encourages using all senses and a more complete engagement. It also gives a chance for the areas of the brain that hold or are reacting to trauma, past and present to switch off, even if momentarily and allow other parts of the brain that switch on. I also do my best to ensure that each session has fun, failure, success, a therapeutic framework and most of all, connection. Keeping all this in mind, I thought it may be helpful, especially for families who are locked in, to share some of the arts and crafts that they may be able to do at home. Some of these are for doing together and some of them are for doing together. Choose whatever suits you and your family; you are the expert in what works in your home.

Rock painting is a great place to start. There is a bit of a worldwide 'thing' happening at the moment where you can share your painted rock in various parks and gardens. Here is a list of several facebook pages you may be interested in:

Now the rock painting I do is so rough compared to some of the talented artists shown in the facebook pages; that doesn't matter. All that matters is whether you or your family members enjoy doing it. Click here to find a document on how to get started.



Some feedback from a valued colleague is that there is a cheaper alternative to buying the rocks and paint separate and that is to but a rock painting kit. Here are some links:


I reckon that these kits may be even better in more than one way. Not only do they have everything to get you started at a very good price, most come with an instruction booklet to inspire your visions into reality. Thanks Kath.

Glass jar painting. Essentially this is the same process of painting rocks. However there is not a community for sharing your artwork at this stage. At least not one that I am aware of. Be careful when handling glass. I find that if I am using a thinner Gesso (primer for acrylic paint) that it is helpful to have three layers of Gesso before start to apply any acrylic paint. Often I use the painted glass jars as candle holders; either I make my own or buy off the shelf ones at discount stores that fit in nicely.

Remember that with standard acrylic paints the glass jars are no longer suitable for food handling or storage. Here are a few YouTube clips with different methods and ideas for painting glass jars:




Emotions Jar
As an extension to painting on glass, you may want to try a combination of glass jar painting and an emotions chart - an emotions jar. Full instructions here.


DIY play dough. There are a number of different recipes for home-made play dough. All have their strengths. Some are easier to make, some a bit harder. The harder ones usually involve heating in a saucepan on a stove but they last a lot longer. This version does require heating but has a shorter shelf life. It needs to be stored in an airtight container and kept cool in the refrigerator to last. If left out to dry, it becomes hard. Perhaps you can use this method as a form of modelling clay? Click here for the full recipe and instructions. Keeping a good batch of play dough in the fridge and encouraging a child to bash it, knead it and shape it when they are angry or frustrated may prove to be a helpful too for regulating their own emotions.

DIY stress balls. Its easy enough to find videos and instructions to make your own stress balls but to include a bit of a challenge, I like to stick with flour and balloons and experiment with different ways of getting the flour into the balloon. A video on this will be coming soon ... In the meantime, click here to visit the very special tales website page on making stress balls.

Painting on blank canvas frames. This is an extremely helpful way for children to express themselves, even more so when you add a theme, such as paint yourself as a fish. Then paint your family as creatures in aquarium. This allows children to explore their own identities and their perceptions of family. There is no need to ask questions, let the children paint and tell you what they think.

Remember with any painting and children, take away the large brushes. Let them take their time and develop their fine motor skills.

Buying canvas frames can be expensive. I always buy mine on special. At Aldi or Spotlight when they are on special they can easily be half price or better. Most recently I was able to score a 40 pack of frames 20 cms x 25 cms for $50.00, making each frame just over $1.00 each. This is a good size for children to paint with and with a bit of care, the cheaper poster paints can be used instead of acrylics. Poster paint usually sells for $3.00 to $5.00 for 500 mls, whereas acrylics go for $3.00 to $12.00 for a 75 ml tube.


If using poster paints, a good setup only needs the three primary colours of red, blue and yellow as well as black and white. All the colours of the rainbow can be mixed up with these five colours and fun, failure, success and connection can be found in this experimentation.

Painting on a Colouring Canvas. Some people - including myself - don't know where to start. Not confident in their drawing ability or find the decision making process to confronting. One one into hours of mindfulness is to use a colouring canvas. These are canvases that already have the lines drawn on, you just need to fill them in. A large range is available from simple to complex. Here is one from Mont Marte for children:


Below is another one from Mont Marte as a before and after. If you are using Mont Marte brand, be aware that these are designed for different mediums including crayons and pencils and may need extra preparation. For example the picture on the bottom was done with acrylic paints and so I did three layers of transparent gesso first. I also find that you may need to have something behind the canvas if you are using pencils.


There are several other brands available. This one by Johanna Basford is available from the Art Shed Online and comes pre-primed for acrylic paint. It also has a strong backing board which makes much easier to use pencils or markers. At the moment I am colouring mine with a mixture of fine tip marker and really enjoying the experience.


Therefore you can get started painting without applying gesso. Other places you can by coloring canvases are the Reject Shop, OMG, Target, PricesPlus and other discount and art supplies stores. Prices range from $9.00 to $30.00. That may seem expensive but each one can take hours and hours to do. I have one the is 30 cms by 30 cms that took a month to complete and whilst I was doing it, I could feel the worries of the day just slip away. Cheaper than any prescription medicine.

Pom Pom shooters. Up for a really fun physics project today? Pom Pom Shooters are pretty much one of the most fun ways to learn about physics! And since these days it’s good to use what you have, here are three different ways to make them. And don’t have pom poms? Lots of things can be fired out of these, too! Click here to be taken to leftbraincraftbrain.com website.
https://leftbraincraftbrain.com/three-fun-easy-ways-to-make-pom-pom-shooters/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Friday+fun+with+pom+pom+physics%21&utm_campaign=LBCB+040320+-+Pom+Pom+Shooters+Live
;
Pick a stick. The picture says it all. Click on it for a larger view.



Origami - the ancient Japanese art of paper folding. I can remember my school teacher showing us hours of fun in simply folding paper. There is no doubt that this is also a form of mindfulness that can really help slow down and calm a mind that is running at high speed. A really good start and a fun way to get the children started is paper planes. Hold a competition to see who's plane is the fastest or goes the longest distance:



How about  a dragon?



Origami usually starts with a square piece of paper. Aldi have had bundles of these on special in the past but you can also get them from almost any discount store and Officeworks. There are a couple of origami website listed at the bottom of this page.

Candles. Warning, lots of danger, lots of fun. If you would like to have a go at experimenting with making your own candles, click here to open a new document to help you get started. It is a lot of fun but take proper precautions appropriate for flames and heat.



Colour-in. There is plenty of science around today that explains how something so simple can be so calming. You can purchase mindfulness colour-in books from nay stores and I recommend having a good look at these.

 However, I have observed that from time to time, people prefer images that have more relevance to them. So to help with that, I have a few options for you to download and print out for yourself or you children that can be found on this Google drive location.

As at 8th May 2020 all of the images are cars and motorcycles. This will change but for now, my focus was to provide a focus point for younger boys with emotional regulation needs. All of the pages are standard A4. Most of these images are also small enough to be printed out and transferred to a 25 cm x 20 cm canvas frame for acrylic painting. Spotlight often has this size on sale for packs of 40 frames for $50.00, which is extremely cheap.

 Here is an example of a completed colour-in picture from the library, Click on the picture for a full sized image:
Here is an example of one of the colour-in master being transferred to a 20 x 25 frame and then painted. Again, click on the picture for a full sized image:

Cross Stitch. This is an amazingly calming and engrossing craft to do. Kits are available online on eBay or in store at Spotlight, Lincraft and other stores. The example below was completed by one of my clients who graciously gave me permission to share this image.

Tips:

  • Always allow plenty of time and it does not matter if the art or craft is not finished. The same for the children's creations.
  • Its going to get messy sometimes. So what? The best therapy has failure, success, mess and laughs.
  • It's your creation, no-one else's. Who cares what other people think and what does it matter anyhow? This advice was given to me by an extremely wise fellow motorcycle rider when we were talking about customising bikes and equally applies here.Thanks Rob.
  • Gesso is a primer used a lot with acrylic paints, no matter if you are painting on a canvas, a glass jar or a rock. One way to first save money but to also experiment with colour is to make your own gesso. Click here to jump to a page on Megan Weller's blog on DIY gesso. It is very cheap and allows you to use a different base colour. Most recently I tried a gesso with a semi-transparent yellow on a colouring canvas and it is brilliant.
Clips and websites:
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