Every ornament adorning our Christmas trees is a testament to the creativity and resourcefulness of our community.
The University’s Student Wellbeing Champions, working alongside students and staff, have embraced the spirit of sustainability in creating handmade decorations for the Christmas trees at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson building, firstpoint in the Peirson Study and Guidance Centre and in the main reception of the St John’s Campus.
All the decorations you will see on these trees have been lovingly crafted through reusing, recycling, and repurposing. It’s Christmas, regifted.
Since the start of November, there have been crafting sessions running alongside our regular “Fancy a Cuppa?” events in firstpoint. In addition to these, we also went to EGA to make yarn-stars and pom-poms with our new medical students and joined the Students’ Union “Crafternoon” in the Hanger. These crafting events provided opportunities for participating students to express themselves creatively, focus on the present moment and feel a sense of accomplishment; everyone involved told us of the stress relief and joy they experienced by taking part.
It means that this is more than just a showcase of ingenuity; these trees symbolise our community’s dedication to wellness and good mental health. Our Student Wellbeing Champions have been on-hand to offer guidance, encouragement and a hot drink, while students donated their time, imagination and determination to learn some new skills!
We used stars as our inspiration, as we sourced our donated materials and investigated how to recycle paper, fabric, wool and flour! If you’d like to make some of these decorations yourself, please see below for a list of our creations and links to online instructions…
Crochet stars
We were lucky enough to receive a huge donation of wool from a generous member of staff. You can find a crochet star patten here.
Origami stars
Using pages from old university publications, we folded these origami stars following these YouTube instructions.
Salt dough
You might remember making salt dough models when you were children. A fun and effective way to create some little stars. You can find a recipe from Hobbycraft here.
Sewing
Although the University’s onsite nursery closed this summer, the old uniforms have been repurposed into these charming decorations, incorporating the University’s logo.
Straw stars
A member of staff created these stars from old Christmas-themed paper straws. They are simple, but very effective and you can see how to make them on this YouTube tutorial.
Yarn stars
A favourite of ours at “Fancy a Cuppa?” is yarn-wrapped shapes – you may have seen our yarn hearts around the campus. For our Christmas trees, we cut out cardboard stars, attached buttons or beads (donated by kind members of staff) and then wrapped coloured wool until they were fully covered. There is a YouTube tutorial here which will go through it step-by-step.
Pom-poms
Those of you who regularly attend “Fancy a Cuppa?” will know that pom-poms are our go-to crafting item. However, one of our talented Wellbeing Champions devised a way to make a star pattern appear. But you’ll have to come to one of our events to find out how!
So, as you admire the unique decorations on these three trees, let each piece serve as a reminder of our commitment to both environmental consciousness and supporting the wellbeing of the students at the University of Worcester. May these displays inspire us all to find joy in creativity, while reminding us of the importance of caring for our planet and caring for ourselves during this festive season.
You can find out more about our future events on our webpage.
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