A Thousand Paper Cranes - Week 6

This week, on special request from the participants, we created a spooky mood for Halloween. Together we created our very own glowing patch of pumpkins for the dining room.

The group came with lots of enthusiasm and ideas for making masks and pumpkins of different shapes, colours and sizes. There was some wonderful raucous laughter as many of us were learning how to work with willow for the first time.  It was lovely to hear some real belly laughter today.

Our recipe for creating a glowing willow pumpkin lantern

Ingredients:

Willow sticks

Masking tape

Cling film

Tissue paper

Glue

Brushes

Scissors

Electric T-lights or glow sticks

Our Method:

Each of us softly bended 4 willow sticks into hoops, careful not to snap the willow (and flick into others’ eyes!) and we secured with masking tape. This required us to stretch our arms wide and use parts of our legs to mould the willow around our knees.

 

We attached all 4 circles together in the middle, to form something which looks a bit like a giant segmented orange.

In pairs we helped each other to wrap the spherical structure in cling film to make a firm object. This bits quite fiddly, so two pairs of hands is a good idea.

We built up the entire outer layer and texture on the surface of the pumpkin with small tissue shapes and glue onto the cling film.

Scatter in a bit of team work and patience!

Sprinkle a bit of glitter, threads, sequins and some black silhouettes.

Pop in a T-light and glow stick. And voila!

We lowered the lights and watched the pumpkins glow and flicker.

“I’m going to give my pumpkin to friend.”

“Mine’s really wonky. But have you ever seen a perfectly round pumpkin? I don’t think so!”

One participant was discharged today and she kindly let us share this quote.

“I want to say before I leave, this has been really fun. It’s one of the very few hours in the week when I don’t have to think about my disorder. It’s been a massive help."

Bryony and Rozi