At ACC we are always looking to build community connections. Over the last year Jenny has been regularly touching base with local services for children, including local childcare centres and kinders, and the local maternal and child health staff in Yarra and Darebin.

And she’s also connected in with local services for women along with services for older people in our neighbourhood.

She was in the middle of discussions with Chronos Care in Alphington about residents coming over to ACC to join in community craft on a Friday morning when coronavirus derailed things. So instead she invited the residents interested in craft to knit, crochet or weave hearts from their home.

And she’s then also invited the local childcare centres to weave or draw hearts and contribute to the project too.

When we’re back on site we are looking forward to turning all the contributions into an art installation. Perhaps they could become our Christmas decorations this year … That would lovely wouldn’t it?

We’d welcome contributions from you too. Here’s some ideas and inspiration! Note that you can find a gazillion free patterns on Pinterest.

If you like craft we’d really love a little something from you!! Sew, knit, felt, crochet, collage, weave … whatever your thing is would be just perfect!

Community art is where it’s at right?!

We had quite a few of our Craftberry Jam kits find their way to homes yesterday. And we made some new jars as well, so next week our flavours will include:

• Origami Craftberry Jam

• Bottle top necklace Craftberry Jam

• Collage starter pack Craftberry Jam

• Spare key windchime Craftberry Jam

• Love heart bracelet Craftberry Jam

• Make a card or 2 for someone you love Craftberry Jam

Pop past on Thursday to collect yours from 10am -4pm. If you already collected a jar and completed your craft project, we’d love the jar back. Just pop it in our collection bin next to the Street Library. Or come past next Thursday and collect a new one while you are dropping it back.

And … we’d LOVE to see the creations. Post them on Instagram with the hashtag #craftberryjam.

Lots of sparkly fun in our ‘Make a card or 2 for someone you love’ Craftberry Jam kit

A jar of bright coloured pager squares accompanied by folding instructions in our ‘Origami’ Craftberry Jam kits.

Our ‘Collage starter pack ‘ Craftberry Jam kit includes some pages of old text, and interesting images of people and things … collage can provide hours of entertainment if you take some time to explore how you are going to combine the elements together ... and add in images, shapes and backgrounds from other sources. Need some inspiration? Check out the hashtag #collage or the page @thecollageclub both on Instagram. No need to stick things down straight away, moving things around and photographing them is part of the joy.

Today we are introducing a new jam. It’s not strawberry OR raspberry OR blackberry OR boysenberry. It’s perhaps a jam you’ve never heard of before … craftberry jam.

This is a jam that will appeal to the creatives in our community - both young and old(er).

Its a bit zingy, full of homemade goodness and its lots of fun!

We’ve jam packed some nice big jars with crafty activities, and on Thursday from around 10am you can pop past and pick one up from the basket on the workbench out the front of the Community Shed.

Flavours this week include:

• Windchime spare key craftberry jam (for school to adult crafters)

• Collage starter pack craftberry jam (for primary school to adult crafters), and

• Make a card (or 2) for someone u love craftberry jam (suitable for pre-schoolers).

Because we love change, our flavours will vary regularly, but we’ll let you know in advance what’s coming up next … and when you can collect them.

Please note: we’d love our jars back once you’ve made your crafty project. You can leave them in the returns rubbish bin near the street library.

AND … if anyone has some label free jars with nice wide necks we’d be keen to help you recycle them. You can leave them in the returns bin too if we’re not at home.

We hope you enjoy our latest community art project. Feel free to share your finished creations on Instagram using the hashtag #craftberryjam. Or send us a pic and we’ll post it for you!

Windchime spare key craftberry jam prototype.

World Mental Health Day (today) seems like a good day to reflect on our Happiness project from earlier in the year.

We started this project by trawling through online advice/tips/lists from reputable organisations such as Beyond Blue and Headspace … and did our best to group the ideas into a compact list of some practical things that have been shown to improve mental health and build a sense of happiness. We ended up with 12 key messages.

Then we made them into a little rhyming poem (of sorts) … with some cute animated images … just because. And we also created an A3 poster.

Our story starts with wrangling control of the seemingly uncontrollable by making your own list - that is making yourself a plan.

Then looking after yourself physically - sleeping, eating and exercising well. I don’t think these need explanation. We all know they’re the building blocks right?

The next little bracket of ideas focus on human connection - taking the time to keep up with your friends, making new friends - your neighbours are a great place to start (particularly this year), and helping out others - volunteering has been shown to have a positive effect on depression, life-satisfaction and well-being.

One interesting idea is the value of spending time in nature - did you know this is a proven way to reduce stress and lessen the symptoms of anxiety and depression? We’re so lucky in our neighbourhood to have access to endless stretches of green space along the local rivers and creeks.

And then there’s the impact of a smile - when you smile your brain releases dopamine, endorphins and serotonin. A smile reduces your own stress and improves the mood of those around you.

Next we explore creativity. Making the time to do what you love and putting yourself out there to learn new things contributes to an upward spiral of positive emotions, psychological well-being and feelings of flourishing in life.

And finally, we end with gratitude. Gratitude helps people feel positive emotions, relish good experiences, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.

Amazing right? We were quite chuffed with all the things we managed to squeeze in there.

If you’d like one of these posters for your wall pop past ACC. We printed about 300 and have kept refilling our collection bin - I think there are about 30 left. Again we’d like to thank Clifton Hill/North Fitzroy Community Bank for supporting this project. It really has proven particularly relevant in 2020.

And if you’d like to watch the full animation with community voices (it’s pretty cute) click here.

Hi friends, we’re looking for some people to contribute to our ‘Honestly’ project. If you‘re partial to a bit of over-sharing (eg. you like a chat at the school gate or down at the shops … or online like me!) … we’d LOVE you to contribute a handwritten letter. Don’t be shy! Start the letter ‘Dear neighbour’. 2-4 pages is enough. No need to sign it, but we’d like a hint of who you are on the envelope. So ‘from a plumber’ or ‘from a gardener’ would be great! You can just slip it under our front door if we’re not home (so it doesn’t get wet if it rains - our letterbox is a bit leaky). We’ll then copy it 30 times and put it out for other neighbourhood friends to collect and read.

Maybe you’d like to share your joy in a project you’ve undertaken, have a story to tell about a grandchild arriving, news of family overseas or just have some thoughts and feelings about this moment in time.

Nothing has to be that exciting … this project is just a little reminder that we’re all in this together … but also uniquely ourselves with our own challenges and experiences. A mechanism to help us all feel just a little bit more connected as a community.

So … we’ll look forward to receiving a flood of hand written letters under our door in the coming days!