Tag: Free printable

Free Halloween Art Session

Art Session Replay With Printable Activity

Want an easy way to learn mindfulness?
Want to try art for self care?
Want to feel connected to others, but missed our online art session last night?

A replay of yesterday’s online art session is now available as a video, or a sound file to download and listen like a podcast while you make art.

This fifteen minute video gives you a taster of what happens at Mindful Art Club, and offers a short guided mindfulness session, and a themed mindful colouring exercise.

Here’s what people on Facebook said about it:

“Halloween special from the comfort of your own home through Zoom. What a lovely session, thank you all. My kids loved it.” – Kerry

“I really enjoyed tonight’s session. Thanks very much. Lovely to see some familiar faces and meet some new people.” – Linda

“Thank you so much for bringing back mindful art online. I’m going through a lot at the moment and would have spent tonight in tears if it wasn’t for you guys, but instead did something productive and calming.” – Becky

“Thank you Peggy and Emma for being back online!” – Debby

The Halloween replay and printables are only available until 31st October, so sign up now!

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If you want to join us next month there is no art experience required! Friendly and informal. Just grab a coffee and join in. Last Tuesday of the month 7.00pm – 8.00pm

Early bird tickets are available at just £5.00, until seven days before the event. After that the full price is £6.50. So don’t miss out!

Book now for our Online Mindful Art Club

We look forward to seeing you next month.

Peggy and Emma

PS. Share your finished Halloween colouring pages in our Mindful Art Club Facebook group. We’d love to see what you do.

We Can Do Hard Things

I see your fear, and it’s big, I also see your courage, and it’s bigger, we can do hard things.

Glennon Doyle, Untamed

I read Glennon Doyle’s memoir, ‘Untamed’, last year and I liked it, even though the Amazon reviews show it to be a bit like marmite – some readers loved it, some hated it.

It’s a story about freeing ourselves from the cages we women find ourselves in when we live for other people instead of our own truth. It’s a guide to find your way back to yourself and to keep choosing yourself over and over again until you are free from those cages.

It’s a beautiful, funny, heartbreaking story about love and loss and courage and wisdom and addiction and anxiety and truth and life.

The takeaway message for me was, “We can do hard things.” Glennon even named her podcast that. I thought it would be fun to draw these words for myself as a reminder. Download and print your free colouring page here, and then fill in the letters with zen doodles or colours, as a gift to yourself this festive season!

Want more free printables? Join our mailing list today.

Read more about Glennon Doyle at her website https://momastery.com

The Real Reason Our Logo is an Egg

Sometimes, anxiety can make it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. You wake up with a stomach ache, and an overwhelming feeling of dread. Everything just feels “too much.”

It was on a day like this, when I was suffering with (what I now know) was an anxiety disorder, that I decided to try to lift my mood by repeating the mantra, “I am enough” to myself. I was also trying something new. I had decided to start drawing little cartoons to illustrate my mental health struggles. Because I had noticed that when I was drawing, absorbed in creativity, that was the only time that my head wasn’t busy with anxious overthinking. Creativity calmed my mind.

“I am enough.”

If you say it fast enough it sounds like “I am an oeuf.” Oeuf is French for egg. I grabbed a chalk board we have in the kitchen and spontaneously drew a serene-looking egg who believed that he was enough. Underneath him I wrote,

“I am an oeuf.”

It made me smile. So I got into drawing this little egg character, in various different situations.

And after a lot more doodling, colouring, meditating, chats with friends, counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy, I eventually overcame that pesky anxiety.

A few years later, Emma and I decided to start our mindful art business, and when we needed a logo it seemed appropriate to me to use the egg. Because I am an oeuf.

You are enough.

We are enough.

So shine like an egg.

And if you want to try using mindfulness and creativity to calm your busy mind today, grab yourself a bundle of free colouring pages and doodling printables by entering your email here.

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How We Started Offering Immediate Mental Health Support, Without Any Waiting Lists

When Emma and Peggy suddenly lost the jobs they loved, they started a business on a shoestring, to offer mindful art groups, support mental health and tackle social isolation in the Plymouth area.

Mental health services were already overstretched and the pandemic has made that even worse. Mindful Art Club gives people a way to access help and support immediately, without a waiting list, and without finances being a barrier to access.

Emma and I are helping to create a world where peer support, mindfulness, creative activities, and social connection is more easily available in local communities. 

Peggy Melmoth

Watch Now:

If you’ve ever felt stressed, anxious or depressed, we have a free downloadable mindful colouring bundle with zen doodling exercises for you. Just enter your email now to receive our colouring bundle today, and we will write to you monthly to let you know about our latest free and low-cost events in the Plymouth area.

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Free Printable Mandala Template

Drawing a mandala doesn’t have to be complicated. Mindful art means drawing without self-judgement. Get in the flow and enjoy being in the moment without putting any expectations onto yourself.

Use our free printable mandala template as a guide. Just place some plain paper over the top and trace the segmented circle image. Then fill in the separate parts with zen doodles, patterns, positive affirmations, things you are good at, or things that you are grateful for. Check out some examples done by people who come to our mindful art groups. The important thing is to have fun with it.

You may also like this short video of Peggy and Emma: How to Draw a Mandala.

Feeling isolated? Stick on an hour long video recording of one of our classes in the background, and enjoy some coffee, creativity and company. (You will need to be on Facebook to see these videos.)

Can’t be bothered to draw your own mandala? We get that! Colour in a ready-made mandala instead, included in our free mindful colouring bundle.

Mindful Colouring: Free Download

Are you stressed? Anxious? Depressed? This mindful therapeutic gift could be the start of a creative solution for you.

It’s amazing how the simple act of colouring can calm the mind down. I have designed a few mindful art colouring pages around the theme of “I am enough” using a little egg character that I created. His caption is, “I am an oeuf.” (Oeuf is French for egg.) The oeuf character makes me smile. Grab your free colouring pages by signing up to our mailing list, and then we’ll write to you monthly to let you know about our latest free and low-cost events in the Plymouth area, plus videos and mindfulness recordings. (Your details are safe with us, and you can unsubscribe at any time.)

Join Our Club and Get Free Downloads

10 Reasons to Celebrate (Despite Covid-19)

Last week Emma and Peggy held a Mindful Art Club committee meeting with two of their volunteers, (in Peggy’s backyard!) and made a note of all the things we have managed to achieve since our last committee meeting, in January 2020.

  1. We set up weekly Zoom meetings and hosted them throughout the coronavirus lockdown, and beyond.
  2. We held a staff wellbeing session on Zoom for ColebrookSW support services.
  3. Peggy’s counselling course was moved onto Zoom. She continued to attend classes, and gained her Level 3 qualification.
  4. We wrote a Mindful Art Activities eBook, to go on sale next month.
  5. We wrote an 8-week Mindful Art Wellbeing Course, which we will be testing out with a small group during September.
  6. Our volunteer, Lee, has learned to play the tongue drum, providing relaxing sounds at our outdoor mindfulness groups.
  7. We hosted four, small, socially-distant, outdoor, one-day retreats.
  8. After lockdown eased, we started a weekly art group at The Sunflower Women’s Centre, in their beautiful, outside courtyard.
  9. We have held small, weekly outdoor groups in Plympton all summer.
  10. Our loyal clients have continued to support us throughout this pandemic by turning up to our online groups, and outdoor groups, and contributing donations to our running costs.

How to Celebrate When We Can’t Even Have a Party

We are so grateful that we have been able to do all of these things, and keep mindful art club going, despite the global pandemic. On 10th September it will be one year since we held our first mindful art group at The Brook Inn, Plympton. We’d love to hold a big event to celebrate, but we’ll have to be content with a small, outdoor meal to celebrate Mindful Art Club’s first anniversary.

We will be able to celebrate in a virtual way at our online art group on 15th September, and we would like to reward our loyal clients with a small gift, which will be sent out to our mailing list on our ‘birthday’, 10th September.

Get on the list!

Don’t miss out, join our mailing list here, and get free mindful colouring pages, and news about our upcoming free and low-cost events.

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