Thanks loads to our partners in Tooting Library for hosting our fifth annual seasonal ReSparkle! workshop on the 17th December.
Around 40 young people – from four-year olds to teenagers – joined in for two hours, solo or with parents and carers. Everyone learned how to do all kinds of imaginative things that can be repeated or adapted at home using everyday materials saved from going to waste.

We used simple and practical methods and tools that are good for children and adults to learn how to handle confidently – folding, gluing, cutting-out with scissors, hole punching, stapling, decorating.

What did we do? (If you look carefully you can see examples of the different things that participants made in the background of many of the pictures…can you work out how to make them?)

Jane showed how to make angels using the pages of an old book destined for recycling.

Rachel showed how to make snowmen and other figures from cardboard tubes – so simple!
Plus, Hilary made cardboard boxes.

Flora helped make present bags out of the Library’s out-of-date foreign-language newspapers.

Below: look at the intense concentration when learning to use the hole puncher.  

how did she keep her hat so straight?

Jeni showed how to make your own lovely long ribbons – and then we stuck them on her papier- mache saxophone.

Chuck showed how to make origami envelopes which we filled and labelled with seeds from Tooting Community Garden for planting in the spring. Beans, pumpkin or hollyhock – very different seeds, so all in the same packet.

Thanks for the hats, Jenny!

Here’s the giant saxophone. It’s still there in the children’s library, go and have a look.
It was a very enjoyable session, and thanks to all. There’s lots more you can do at home re-using waste paper and card with familiar household tools.

Look out for our Transition Town Tooting creative workshops: Happy New Year and see you in 2017!

some made up their own activities !