Lucy Painter Books, the Crafts Council , Wellbeing and Mental Health

Last month the British Crafts Council published " Four Reasons Why Crafts Is Good For Your Mental Health" , a blog post  about how Crafts are vital in maintaining general wellbeing and successfully fighting Anxiety, Depression and other mental health problems.

The article indicates that Crafts can also improve the general wellbeing by bringing people together, as so well illustrated in this picture of women crafting a Church banner featured in the Crafts Council Gallery . 

In future expositions  the Crafts Council Galleries aims to include the crafter by allowing exposure and presentation of the story behind the craft.

This is fantastic because crafters are given the opportunity without being put forward and scrutinised  under an academic or commercial criteria, there is only the love for crafts as a hobby or professional occupation and the folklore manifestation viable through the expositions.

Other opportunities include grants and studio place. Three opportunities listed in the CC official site close this week .You can access the listing here .

 

Lucy Painter Books: BOOK BEST EVER CRAFTS ( 1999) & BOOK PAPER CRAFTS & ORIGAMI ( 2003), HERMES HOUSE

Today we review two books by the artist, designer and author Lucy Painter . We start with the following book:

          

I bought this book 18 years ago, on the 18th of December 2002 and through this book , following this projects I brushed up the following skills,

*Hand sewing

* Embroidery

* Needlepoint

* Crochet

* Knitting

* Embroidery

* Decoupage

* Stencilling

*Drawing 

* Painting

*Recycling and renovating

*Cooking

*Baking

This book is ideal for readers who like recycling, transforming, creating and quick embroidery and needlepoint. The yarn used for baby blanket is 4ply cotton so quite common to find in shops and even to have stored at home as often magazines supply 4ply cotton for quick projects featured in their issues.

Here are my favourite projects as per photos I took using my mobile,

Next , I review the book Paper Craft and Origami by Lucy Painter.

The book Paper Crafts & Origami is suitable for adults and children encouraged and supervised by adults. It has origami projects identical to Usborne Origami books for children ( however please note Lucy Painter books were published way before any of these books came along). 

Some projects under the label Papercrafts might require specific "hard to find" materials like Japanese hand made paper , however there are other alternatives available. For example, I used fabric for a lampshade project requiring the use of this paper mentioned above. Also, for the satchel bag you can use amazon delivery boxes as is still cardboard.

Here are my favourite project as per photos I took using my mobile,

These books , or any other crafts are not a must, even because there are online " Craft Along " groups and activities like the British Crafts Council The Summer Craft Challenge- 6 weeks, 6 projects, 6 crafters! 

We are now on week 1 of the Series of 6 projects and the second project will be released on the 5th of August 2020 . So far is quite inexpensive as only requires paper and scissors! I will let you find out what it is by yourself by inviting you to access the Craft Along here  .

Best wishes,

Ariane