How To Use Creativity For Healing & Wellbeing

The Why...

It has long been said that keeping the hands busy is a great way to calm the mind. Studies have shown it has a beneficial impact on the neural pathways in the brain, and although it isn't a magic panacea, I certainly found that crafting helped me to cope better with the circumstances surrounding the death of my partner a few years ago. I think there is something very therapeutic about tackling a craft you are unfamiliar with and following it through to it's ultimate creation, there's a degree of having control over something, when other things in your life have left you feeling out of control. 

I would switch between crocheting, knitting, creating multi-media pictures, upcycling furniture, anything to occupy my mind and distract me from my grief. There is a reason why a whole therapeutic industry has been built around this concept. ​ It also helped me keep weight off, and even lose some!  You are not using your hands to stuff your face (and in my case I didn't want to get my work dirty!)!

Occupational Therapy is a tool used by the medical profession to help people get over a trauma. Crafting, Creative arts or home-making could be considered the non-medically prescribed version! For some people, the idea of seeking help to overcome their grief is abhorrent to them, yet it is often the case that these are the very people who desperately need it. There is no shame in seeking help to surmount your emotional pain. Be it in the form of prescribed counselling or occupational therapy or even via the pharmaceutical route. But if this is not something that you feel you need for, or even if you have turned to these but feel the need to change, then I highly recommend crafting. ​

As mentioned earlier, I started to crochet. Knitting I could do (as long as it was a scarf!). Crocheting I had no idea! A close friend, with the patience of a saint, tried to teach me the basics, but I didn't want to stretch the bounds of our friendship so far that they snapped due to my inability to crochet anything but a long chain! So I looked it up on YouTube, there are many different sites that can show you how to start with the basic stitches. At the end of last year, I crocheted a rather nice cardigan that was longer than I thought it would be but looked brilliant nonetheless. This year things have been different and I have found myself creating gifts, with love, for those that I love.​

Nowadays my crafting has extended to creating gifts to sell at craft shows, upcycling furniture to order and I'm now trying to teach my eleven year old daughter to crochet.  When she lost her father she turned to crafting to help her with her grief, she would draw pictures for Papa and she drew a beautiful one of the three of us together that we had placed in his coffin.  Crafting helps her to deal with the emotions she has had to deal with and with the fast approaching puberty period on the horizon, I hope she will continue to craft and create instead of obsessing with boys, her looks (she's beautiful already, but I'm biased!) and all things social media.  She already knows how to sew, I bought her a lovely starter sewing machine and she can spend days designing and creating dresses for her dolls.  In the not to distant future she'll soon be growing out of the "playing with them" phase, but hopefully she will still use them as her models, this will help her, I hope, to develop a style that is unique to her and not to follow the crowd.  We have decided to earmark craft projects that we are going to undertake together. Giving us some mother daughter time and learning a new skill in the process.

The How...

​So if you want to try crafting, and believe me, if I can do it anyone can! Then these resources could be a great fit for you. ​

Ultimate Bundles for a super discounted pack of patterns, etc... ideal for those with a bit of savoir-faire, but with some easy starter ideas, and ideas for when you've mastered your crafting. They often have bundles of patterns for knitting, crocheting, embroidery, etc... Their homemaking bundle is usually released in October, and it is well worth the wait, if they are not offering a bundle for sale at the moment, you can register with them and they'll email you when it is due to begin.  You can make some very healthy savings, learn new crafts and create homemade items that will make you puff up with pride!

HobbyCraft for those in the UK who want to get their hands on most of the tools you could need to start your crafting journey. If you are lucky enough to live near a HobbyCraft shop, they regularly run courses which you can be notified of if you sign up for their newsletters. ​They have an extensive range of items for the debutante and experienced crafter and they often have starter kits available which make learning a new craft a lot easier.  And, BONUS, they deliver outside the UK too, so if you are an English speaker and you live far from a good craft store, or you are unable to find what you want locally, give them a try.

Joann for those in the USA who are keen to start their crafting journey, they too have pretty much all you'll need to get going. Like
 HobbyCraft in the UK, Joann has courses in their stores, you can either sign up online or in-store and they also have a newsletter that you can register to have sent to you by email. 

Craftsy is an online site with courses for pretty much any craft under the sun! The benefit of this site is you don't have to leave home to learn!! Ideal if you have a family, live out of town or have commitments that don't necessarily coincide with the more traditional on-site classes.

Bluprint, like Craftsy is an online site based in the USA with a range of online courses and tutorials for beginners through to experts.  They offer a membership scheme and they sell the items needed to create their fabulous creations, with a healthy discount for members. 

YouTube for videos like this, this or this is a great place to learn a craft if you are a visual learner, just be prepared to keep pausing and rewinding (a lot!). ​

To be honest, when I log on to any of these sites I'm like a child in a sweet shop, often so overwhelmed I can't even make my mind up! The kits are a good beginners choice and when you feel more confident you can create something completely unique, with love and the knowledge that you have done it yourself.

Happy Crafting!

With love

Liane
xoxoxoxo