Mosaic magic at our Grayshott care home

Thanks to a grant from the Arts Society Grayshott, our care home residents and staff learned new skills and worked together to build a wonderful mosaic in their garden.

Deputy Manager Mel shared the scoop on the recent project that brought our staff and the people we support together in a fantastic way. She said, “We have a ‘can do’ approach here and are always looking for interesting, fun things for our residents to try out and learn new skills at the same time. A few months ago, Linda from the Arts Society Grayshott told us about the grants they offer – and we realised this was a brilliant opportunity for the people we support to get in touch with their creative side. Inspired, we threw some ideas around. As we brainstormed things like plays and music sessions, we decided it would be nice to create something to display in the home – Linda pointed us to David from Mosaic Madness. 

“We wanted the mosaic to complement the tree planted by our Patron, Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra, so we went with a vibrant nature theme. Together, we carefully tailored the design to the interests of the people who live here, including bumblebees, hedgehogs, and rabbits. We then presented the idea to David, who helped set it all up for us to fill in with mosaic tiles. 

“David was amazing, he used to be a learning disability nurse, so he just really got it. 

We set it all up so everyone could access the project in a way that suited them. Most of the people we support worked on it together in our summer house. One resident who we thought might not be interested absolutely loved it and had the biggest smile on his face! Another person we support was also getting really engrossed in it. It was just lovely to see everyone, residents and staff, working together and the final piece coming together – the whole project had a fabulous community spirit

Support worker Emma added, “Everyone thoroughly enjoyed taking part. David was very good and ensured that everyone could participate easily. It was a really good couple of days and something nice and fun for us all to do in boring January!”  

Mel continued, “Once it was complete, we installed the mosaic around the tree in the garden. It already looks amazing and it really makes the garden pop with all the bright colours.  

It’s really lovely to have something to display at the service that everyone got involved in together. Everyone’s so excited to show it off to their families and visitors and it’s a story to tell future residents too. It’s now a very special part of the service that will last for years and years.