July is a lovely time of year when hopefully the sun is shining, the days are long, and we are making the most of the summer by getting outside and enjoying our gardens and outdoor spaces.
There are lots of ways in which you and your family can enjoy summer crafts together and the National Garden Scheme has several video tutorials on their website (https://ngs.org.uk/) for fun activities such as making bunting and leaf creatures. They also have a tutorial to make plant pots out of plastic bottles which is a great way to use unwanted bottles which would otherwise end up in the recycling bin
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Another crafty activity which is lovely at this time of year is pressing flowers. This is something I did often as a child and I can remember carefully placing the delicate flowers between sheets of blotting paper, putting a stack of heavy books on top and waiting impatiently for them to be ready. I think that these simple pastimes went out of fashion for a while but I’m happy to say that now we are all appreciating nature and the art of slowing down a bit, these hobbies are coming to the fore again.
It is very easy to press your own flowers, with or without a flower press, and the Natural History Museum website (https://www.nhm.ac.uk/) has some great tips. You could also consider buying a microwave flower press which will considerably speed up the process, very useful if you are as impatient as I am! When your pressed flowers are ready you could use them to make a simple but effective framed picture or card, pressed flower jars, or something more advanced such as coasters using epoxy resin. Whatever you make will be beautiful and unique and will be a lovely reminder of warm summer days.
Cranleigh Creatives ran two very successful workshops last month, both with a garden theme. We made willow dragonflies with Lorraine from Hedges & Hurdles and beautiful floral summer baskets with florist Sarah Batchelor. Both workshops were thoroughly enjoyed by our members.
Our monthly social evening at the Richard Onslow is taking a break for July and August but we will be back from 7pm on 27 September. We will still be busy though and have wine painting (that’s painting using red wine instead of paint!) and gel printing planned for the coming weeks.
If you like the sound of socialising and learning new crafts with a group of likeminded people then look us up on Facebook, our group is called Cranleigh Creatives. If you’re not on Facebook but would still like to be involved, then send me an email to . We would love to welcome new members to our friendly group.
