Making Memory Boxes for special moments

Our residents have had a lot of fun painting and decorating memory boxes to hold special photos and items as a reminiscing and crafting activity.

Everyone was given a wooden box to paint plus a variety of materials to work with, including beach stones, paper and silk flowers, ribbon, stickers and pretty card. The residents collected all the items they wanted to put in the box, including old letters, family photos, newspaper and magazine clippings, postcards and their favourite crafts.

Day care resident Isobel showed us some beautiful crochet squares that she’d made along with her family photos. She said, “those are my photos and crafts that I want to put in – I’ve painted the box blue”. Muriel made a design using some tiny beach stones and pink flower petals and said, “there’s quite a bit of glue but it looks lovely. I’m just waiting for it to dry.” Volunteer Jen joined in with the session and helped Margaret paint her memory box bright yellow with lots of glittery stars and stickers.

The boxes will take a few sessions to finish but the activity has been great fun so far and has inspired a lot of interesting chat on the people and experiences in our residents’ lives.