This year we’ve partnered with our lovely friends at MindForYou
to host a #createyourchristmascard competition! This competition is
specifically for anybody living with dementia to enter and get creative with a festive
card design!
Closing date for entries is Wednesday 27th November with the winning designs announced on SUNDAY 1ST DECEMBER. We are very excited to announce we have a celebrity judge to decide the winners of the competition…. none other than THE Tony Christie!
The lucky winner will experience a MindforYou holiday at NO COST,
in-house art therapy sessions with Creative Minds, along with their Christmas
Card design being printed and sent out to them and their family, as well as to
all MindforYou guests! The winning designs will also be made available for
anyone to purchase online, with all proceeds going to Creative Minds and
MindforYou, allowing us both to benefit more people living with dementia!
Go on, get creative, YULE LOVE IT! Remember to tag us in your
designs on social media (@creativemindsan) and Mind for You (@MindForYou1) and
don’t forget to use the hashtag #createyourchristmascard in your posts.
Competition rules:
All designs must be done on A5 paper or larger
You can use ANY medium to create your design
Applicants must take a photo of their artwork and either send it to MindforYou, 5 The Willows, Burton on the Wolds, Loughborough, LE12 5AP or via email to creativemindsforyou1@gmail.com
Please either scribble on the back of the photo or in your email a short answer to ‘Why you have you chosen to enter the competition?’ along with your name and age
If you are announced as one of the 12 short-listed, we will be in touch to ask for a small blurb about yourself to go along with your design for judging
Right click on our flyer consent forms below and ‘Save image as…’ to download them for printing. Or request a PDF from creativemindsforyou1@gmail.com
Exciting new partnerships for Creative Minds in 2019!
11/04/2019
Throughout the year we’ve formed some exciting new
partnerships with a number of organisations that are passionate about the
benefits that creativity brings to people’s wellbeing. These have opened up
some great opportunities for our artists to expand their businesses into new
fields and reach out and touch the lives of others.
Colostomy UK
Since the beginning of this year, we’ve been working closely
with Colostomy UK, delivering therapeutic art sessions to Stoma Support Groups
across the country as part of their “active ostomates” programme – designed to
empower people with a stoma to participate in activities to increase both
physical and mental wellbeing.
These sessions have been hugely popular – some with as many
as 35 participants attending! These always make for a wonderful social
occasion, and we’ve had some great feedback from attendees on how much they’ve
enjoyed it, and how therapeutic the sessions are. Our artists have thoroughly
enjoyed delivering sessions at the Stoma Support Groups too.
Giovanni, the Fundraising & Development Manager with Karen U, CM Artist
CM Artist David delivered a session in Salisbury and said; “Everyone
loved working with watercolours – it was a lovely atmosphere with lots of fun
and banter.”
Colostomy UK Salisbury group
CM Artist Rhiannon delivered a session in Sheppy and she said; “It was a pleasure working with the Stoma Support Group in Sheppy. They astounded me with their positivity and creativity. They really encouraged each other and gave great feedback on each other’s work. Some fabulous art was created!”
Back in the summer, we formed a partnership with MindForYou,
a wonderful company who organise holidays for folks living with dementia to
enjoy with their nearest and dearest. Their holidays span across England,
Scotland and Wales.
CM Artist Tracy ran a session in Hathersage, Derbyshire. Holiday goers used soft pastels and inktense pencils to draw views of the beautiful Derbyshire countryside.
CM Artist Liz ran a lovely session near Honiton in Devon. The
sun shone into the room as holiday goers had a great time creating bold
sunflower canvases.
Throughout the summer we delivered sessions at holidays across the country, with groups from anywhere from 15-35 participants, and our artists will be delivering sessions at many future holidays to come!
The Chatty Café Scheme is a brilliant initiative, founded by
Alex Hoskyns, in which cafes can join the scheme and allocate a table or two
within the establishment to be a ‘chatter and natter’ table to encourage people
in the community to talk to one another reducing loneliness and isolation.
The scheme has really off and in just two years, there are now over 1000 cafes across the UK and globally, in the US, Canada, Gibraltar, Malta, Australia and more!
CM Artists Caroline and Judy set up their own Chatty Art Café at Greengages Coffee Shop in Salisbury earlier in the year. Since then, Creative Minds founder James got in touch with the founders of the Chatty Café Scheme and they loved the idea of forming a partnership to run Chatty Art Cafés as part of the initiative. This has opened up another exciting avenue for CM Artists to pursue and we’re looking forward to seeing Chatty Art Cafes popping up across the country in the coming months.
In the meantime, CM Artists Caroline and Judy’s Chatty Art Café in Salisbury is continuing to grow from strength to strength. They have a solid group of regular attendees and some wonderful new friendships have formed. It’s lovely to hear that some of the regulars are already making Christmas plans together!
A Day In The Life of Creative Minds Artist: Laura Novak
06/25/2019
When did you join Creative Minds? October 2018
What attracted you most to the franchise opportunity? The opportunity to combine my love for helping people with my love for art, all in the time my children would be at school.
Tell us what you’ve been up to today… Today I have been running my Mini Makers art session at the Whale of a Time Soft Play in Bar Hill, Cambridgeshire. They have a perfect party room that runs along side the soft play, decorated with a fun mural. The children can come to me and go crazy with all my art materials, having lots of fun and parents don’t need to do any tidying up! I always set up paints, stickers, pastels and bring a various amount of tools to paint with. The most popular being wheels to roll with, mixed with glitter! Each week I will also bring new ideas and mediums to experiment with.
I absolutely love drawing animations so I often ask the little ones who their favourite character is and we draw it together, they can then experiment with different mediums to finish off their artwork! I encourage mixing up the colours, playing around with lots of mediums and just generally having lots of fun!
How do you fit work around your two young boys and busy family life? Being a Creative Minds Artist fits really well around family life. I am still able to do every school run, which I want to do while my children are young. Being mummy is and will always be my most important role in life. I plan my art sessions in advance and prepare anything that needs doing before the session either in the evening or a day I’ll have at home for administration and playing with my equipment.
What inspires the themes that you run in your art sessions? It could be the time of year with what season it is, or if it’s Christmas etc. We have a wonderful Creative Minds network, where the artists share their art sessions and ideas. This is very inspiring. I also ask the participants if there is anything they would like to try in the next session.
What do you like best about being a Creative Minds Artist? Seeing the joy and happiness on participant’s faces during an art session. It’s the most rewarding feeling in the world!
Our CM Artist Rhiannon, based in Kent, held her first parent-toddler ‘Mini Makers’ art session recently. As a mum of a two-year old herself, she found a lot of the toddler activities in her area rather dull, and mostly music orientated. So she took it upon herself to set up her own creative parent-toddler art session.
The children were aged from just 10 months to 3 years, and their task was to decorate their own paper crown. She displayed an example of what she wanted them to make, then gave them each a pallet of paint and a bowl with sequins, glitter, paper shapes and glue. She put on some music, and let the fun commence.
The children loved the sensory experience and really got stuck in, exploring the different artistic materials, how they felt to touch and the effects they made. They had a great time getting messy with acrylic paints, and layering the shapes to decorate their crowns. They then added some sparkle to their creations with sequins and glitter. The parents loved seeing their children’s reaction to the range of different materials on offer and witnessing their children’s process of discovery through the creative session.
All the children were thrilled with the end results and proudly paraded around the garden with their crowns on after!
Parents often need a bit of encouragement when it comes to letting their little ones go wild and get messy with creative play. However, after the session the parents said they loved the opportunity to be creative with their children and not to worry too much about the mess they make. It made for a wonderful bonding activity and the toddlers certainly enjoyed themselves too!
We hope to deliver more ‘Mini Makers’ art sessions very soon!
