For the people attending our craft clubs, taking what they’ve made home with them at the end of a session is important. But at the beginning of a session they’ll often struggle for ideas and panic about what they are going to do. It’s partly to do with self-confidence and partly about time pressures, so that’s where our Inspiration Cards come into play.
Lighting the spark
In our craft sessions we always try to offer crafts which can be completed relatively quickly, because everyone likes to take what they’ve made home with them.
But in a time-limited session people sometimes find it difficult to know how to begin. You can give a group all the materials they need to do a particular craft but a ‘blank canvas’ approach can be daunting. What to do? What about a design? Can I execute what’s in my mind’s eye? What colours/materials do I want to use? Practically everyone hesitates at the start.
Inspiration Cards
To help, we provide our groups with Inspiration Cards – laminated postcard-sized images of things we hope will spark ideas. For example, if it’s a session where we’re working with paper, we might take pictures of some of Matisse’s cut-outs; and when we were making fascinators for a royal jubilee, we took cards showing glamorous millinery.
Ice-breaker
Looking at a set of Inspiration Cards can be an ice-breaker. It usually doesn’t take long for people to start chatting about the images, comparing notes about what appeals and what doesn’t. This is particularly true if a group is working on several smaller tables rather than one large one. People quickly start passing the cards around and discussing what they are thinking of doing.
Copying or freestyle?
There are, of course, always people who want to exactly copy a design they see on an Inspiration Card. It isn’t a problem except they can be disappointed if they feel their finished piece doesn’t match what they’ve been copying. It’s often more satisfying for someone to cherry-pick ideas from several cards and combine them into something of their own, and that’s something we try to encourage.
Final thought
As groups become established and people relax, we’ve found they rely less on the Inspiration Cards. They still enjoy looking at them but while some continue to use them to spark ideas, others don’t refer to them at all. We take that as a positive sign because it boils down to confidence, which is always one of the things we’re trying to foster.