Craft projects keep residents busy

Making sure residents have a fun craft to work on each Friday at the Mission at Castle Rock Rehabilitation Center is something Kathy Elliott enjoys.

Each week, Elliott picks out something for the residents to work on. Elliott said it is not hard to do, all she has to do is go downstairs to her basement and look through her crafting supplies, which she said takes up one third of her basement.

Armed with many kinds of glue, jewels, stickers, confetti and other crafting items, Elliott heads to the CRRC to meet up with her crafting group.

On Friday the group was busy finishing felt boxes or starting scratch art. Elliott said she found the felt-box kits at a store and just had to buy them for the group to make.

"They are just little trinket boxes," Elliott said. "I am always looking for something to use up here."

CRRC residents were popping the felt apart, folding them, gluing them together and decorating them with various stickers, confetti and colored glitter glue.

"They've always got little things like keys, change, earrings and they want something to corral them," Elliott said.

Those who had finished their felt-box projects were busy working on scratch art. The type of scratchboard was black with metallic or bright colors underneath the black board. The residents would place stencils on top of the scratchboard and use a wooden pencil-like tool to scrap off the black material, which left a colored or metallic picture behind.

Although the residents were having fun with these projects, they couldn't help but talk about a couple of their favorites they worked on last month.

Elliott said the Sharpie coaster tiles they made were pretty cool. The only materials needed for this project were some plain white tiles, Sharpies of various colors, rubbing alcohol, clear white spray paint and some imagination.

The residents would color the white tiles with the permanent markers, give them a few seconds to dry and apply a few drops of rubbing alcohol to the tiles. Once the rubbing alcohol did the trick and the tile dried, the tile was then sprayed with clear spray paint.

"If you really hate your design when you are done, you can just put alcohol on it and start over," she said.

CRRC resident Tonya Keister spoke excitedly about the tile art project.

"I gave them all to my kids for Mother's Day," Keister said.

She said she made sure to send extras for her daughter's husbands.

Another project the group worked on recently that can be seen on some tables throughout the center was flower pots. For this project, the residents painted flower pots, sprayed foam in them, applied fake moss to the foam, and then poked fake flowers into the foam. Some of the pots were also decorated with jewels or stickers.

Regardless of the project, the residents seem to enjoy them.

"It provides them with something they can give away, use for themselves or share," Elliott said.