Find out how the Visitor Team wrapped up this year and have a look at some of our creations.

It’s not often that the Visitor Team get to come together and have a day of fun at the gallery. Making sure that our exhibition spaces and visitors are looked after is our first priority but the calmer, slower days just before Christmas can provide us with an opportunity to get together. With this in mind, our Visitor Team Coordinator Zoe organised a Skill Share Day on Thursday 21^st December. Some of the Visitor Team Assistants, Bria, Rebecca, Rosie and Steph, ran different craft workshops.

Rosie’s craft workshop was based around the creation of junk journals. She shared her knowledge of book binding with us and, using recycled materials, some of us had our very own junk journals at the end of the session.

First we had to choose the materials which would become the cover and pages of our junk journals and then trim them until they were all roughly the same size, before arranging them in the order we wanted and folding them in half. After clipping our pages together, we marked where we were going to pierce our journals with an awl in order to stitch them together. It was a fiddly process at first for those of us new to the craft but, with Rosie’s guidance, we soon got the hand of it.

After stitching our journals together, we were free to neaten up any messy edges and then decorate our journals.

You can see some of our junk journals below.

You may recall that, earlier on in this free online Advent Calendar, Rosie provided a tutorial on how to create your own junk journal. The New Year is fast approaching, so how about making a journal of your own? You can find Rosie’s tutorial here.

Rebecca shared her knowledge of drawing and her paper craft skills with us during her workshop. We created baubles made from chocolate wrappers, wallpaper, wire and wooden beads and embellished our baubles with gold foil. We also made some large paper snowflakes- a Christmas favourite! Making baubles is a great use for any leftover wallpaper you may have lying around, as it often can’t be recycled.

In addition to being a Visitor Team Assistant, Rebecca is one of our creative practitioners. Rebecca has run multiple workshops for Claire (our Age Friendly Producer) for her Creative Responses to the Menopause project.

Bria, a wordsmith, facilitated a letter writing workshop. We think that we can all agree that letter writing is a bit of a lost art in today’s digital age! How often do any of us take the time to sit down and craft a well-worded letter these days?

Steph ran a session on block printing, a craft which has a long history in India in particular. Using carved printing blocks and water-based fabric paints, we printed on cotton bags and gift tags.

We also printed on some cotton fabric scraps cut into rectangles. Once dry, the printed fabric rectangles can then be folded in half after ironing over the printed side to seal the fabric paints. The ‘right’ or printed side should be on the inside. A seam can be sewn along the three open edges using backstitch (and remembering to leave a small gap) before turning the piece inside out/ the right way round to create a hand-warmer (when filled with rice) or a lavender bag. The gap used to turn the piece the right way round and then fill it with rice or dried lavender can be sewn shut using hidden stitch/ ladder stitch.

Block printing is an easy craft and one which allows you to add a quick personal touch to something, which is handy if you only have a couple of days to finish your festive preparations. Always remember to use lighter coloured paints if you’re printing on darker coloured fabrics!

Here are some of our block printed creations:

Much fun was had by all throughout the day. We’d definitely recommend a Skill Share Day as a fun way to catch up before the Christmas holidays, learn something new and relax a bit. It’s a good way to end a year on a high note!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of us on the Visitor Team!

Resources

If you’re interested in taking up block printing yourself, Steph recommends The Indian Block Print Co.