We’re hoping to have ‘Blind date with a Book’ back out on the street today (Friday).

On Station Street the lovely folks at Three Locals have volunteered to house the stand for us, so it will be out the front of their cafe once a week.

And … Lee has also made a second stand for ACC.

We’ve been super keen to get ‘Blind date with a Book’ back up and running as it only had one week of glory before we went into lockdown … and there was lots of public interest in it.

This project has come about through a grant from Darebin Council and is a partnership with Darebin Libraries. The broader goal is to help activate our streets and public places and make them feel neighbourhoodly and friendly, arty and interesting. If you are out and about, keep an eye out!

Our annual general meeting (AGM) was on last night (Monday). Thanks to those who came along online. It was lovely to see so many neighbourhood friends.

The AGM is a chance for us as an organisation to look back at what we have done in the last year. When we do this it always amazes me that we can achieve so much from our little neighbourhood house. I hope all the staff, along with our committee and volunteers feel proud of the good things and good vibes we collectively put out into the universe in the last year!

If you’d like to read our annual report you can find it here. If you’d like to check out the presentation we put together for the meeting you can do so here.

Once again I’d really like to thank all our committee for their contribution over the last year and welcome them all back on board, with the addition of local Jane Wilkinson. Welcome Jane.

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.