Mental Health Day Hop + Giveaway

Hello friends

**This is gonna be a long post, so grab your favourite cup of beverage and sit back and relax.

Welcome to Mental Health Day blog hop, where a group of card makers are representing the art of card making via our beautiful cards on the theme of 'Art for your mind'. This hop is a part of Instagram hop, for more chances to win, please check our Instagram hop here.

When we think of the word- Mental health, one might think of issues like Depression, Schizophrenia or Bipolar disorder. But even stress, anxiety are forms of mental health issues. If these are left unmanaged for long time, they may need medical attention. Art helps us to relax and rewind from everyday stress. There is a sense of happiness in creating art, which is therapeutic. When we enjoy the process of creating art, we tend to forget the negative emotions and stress.

As part of Mental Health Day Hop, we would like to reinforce this fact that art and craft are therapeutic. We encourage all of you to take some time every week, if not everyday, to pursue some hobby like drawing, coloring, doodling, card making or whatever is your pick.

Our story

During the Chennai floods of 2015, we were in hostel all alone, quite literally, there were just 5 girls in our hostel, most girls packed their bags to leave for their hometown as soon as floods began.

We could not travel back to our home as both trains and flights did not function. So, we had no option but to stay back. It was depressing to see all our friends and roommates leave. We had no novels to read and spend time. To add to it, network connectivity was poor, so it became tough to speak to our parents. All this took a toll on our mental and emotional health. We spent days crying and asking "why did it happen to us?" "Why could we not enjoy home stay like other students?" Little did we know then that it wasn't of use. We had to live through it all and come out strong.

Quilling came to our rescue. We fortunately had quilling supplies with us. So, we resorted to quilling pendants and earrings to beat the blues and kill boredom. We found solace in quilling. It helped us divert our mind from the fearful situation. 

We found the history repeating itself, this time it took form of COVID-19. The only difference this time was that it created emotional and mental turmoil that lasted for many months together. Our overthinking habit just broke loose with no boundaries, whatsoever we tried.

The fear of contracting the disease caused the strictest lockdown in India. Wherever we turned, be it social media, newspaper or television, the news was flooded with high number of cases, grief and unfortunate misery it caused to migrant workers. The future seemed to be bleak. Coupled with this, we also had the stress of completing our thesis. This caused us a lot of stress, our days and nights were filled with gloomy thoughts. There were times we felt helpless and didn't have the motivation to do anything. We even questioned our existence. The whatever little time we could find after online classes and thesis work, we spent in stencilling backgrounds and coloring, though we didn't get time to make a complete card. But the little time we got to craft was therapeutic, it halted out negative thoughts. We felt happy seeing colors despite gloomy days. It is art and craft that helped us to stay sane in such tough times.

Thank you for joining us. Hop along for some amazing inspiration and the opportunity to win prizes from our generous sponsors.

Our Card:

The message we want to convey through our card is: When we enjoy the process of creating art, we tend to forget the negative emotions and stress. Art brings colour to our life.

Don't you think interactive cards bring a smile on the recipient's face! 

We love making interactive cards, so today we are sharing a magic color slider card. We have used image by Time for Tea Designs. We used a pattern paper from our stash. The rainbow was created using ink blending. Love how this card turned out.

Here is the order for the blog hop:

Chandhini and Subhashini - You are HERE

Claudia Cubas

Monica Martinez

Deekshita Jaideep

Amanda Stevens

Raga Senthil

Priyadarshini Ramakrishnan

Ishani Sai

Sandie Munro

Varada Sharma

Rules to participate in giveaway:

1. Leave a comment on each stop.

2. Mention your country as few prizes may have shipping restrictions.

Commenting closes on 20 October 4:30pm GMT and winners will be announced on 25 October.

*Winners will be chosen from comments left across all the stops on the hop.

*Open internationally.

Thanks for stopping by.

Have a great day!

Chandhini and Subhashini