Wellbeing Hi-5 :: Bombing Coalville Library

Those of you that are regular readers of my blog will know that I am passionate about the relationship of arts/crafts and health and wellbeing.  I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Conference in Bristol earlier this year and since then have been forging my career in this direction.

Throughout the month of October, Leicestershire (my home ground) is celebrating the ways in which the arts, culture and heritage contribute towards health and wellbeing.  The 'Five Ways to Wellbeing' is used as a framework to deliver a programme of over 200 wellbeing events taking place across the shire.

In total I have been asked to deliver 3 workshops  for Creative Leicestershire and 1 workshop for Beauty and Utility Arts as part of the Wellbeing Hi-5 celebrations. This first session took place in Coalville library on 10th Oct.

Katherine Brown, from Beauty and Utility Arts, ran a session of papercrafts making bunting and flowers and, for the younger crafters, characters from Goldilocks and the Three Bears...

The Knitting Gurrillas of Birstall (KGB) were recruited to do a special yarn bomb and participants were invited to hide allsorts of little items on the bookshelves and between the pages of books.  Yarn bombing is a way of brightening up an area and, in the case of the KGB, making people smile...

Mr Hissing Sid liked the nature section...

The mice liked it in the children's section especially the little dark corners...

The younger borrowers had fun yarn bombing...

And later we enlisted the elder borrowers to have a go at hiding woolly gifts between the pages of books.  Pink for pink lovers...

Bookworms for the classic readers...

Crafty bookworms for the craft lovers...

 Spooky pumpkin for the horror borrowers...

Lighthouse bookmarks for Booker nominated books...

Since the workshop I have had a message from the library staff who to say that they have spotted people finding the knitted lovelies and that:

"It's great to see the delight on their faces when they find something.  I hope it is bringing lots of smiles"

I think the KGB would agree that this is mission accomplished!