Kind, creative, nature inspired craft workshops caring for you and the planet and helping us to all Grow Bright.
Growing Bright provides nature art and craft workshops.
We use natural and recycled materials; giving them a new lease of beautiful life and caring for the environment at the same time.
I’m Lisa
I setup Growing Bright in 2022 after re-discovering what I wanted to do with my life after the pandemic. I worked as a lawyer for 10 years, but nature and creativity has always featured heavily in my life.
I’ve always loved gardening and grew up helping my Dad on his allotment and learning a multitude of crafts from my Mum and Gran. I was signed up for Art A-levels before switching to academic subjects and the same at University – switching from law to fashion and back to law!
As with many people, Covid changed a lot of things for me and I realised that I needed to focus on my wellbeing and my family and do what I love. I studied some short courses, including Social and Therapeutic Horticulture with Thrive and a Level 2 Counselling qualification. I also volunteered at the wonderful Horatio’s Garden, Lindengate and the Chiltern Neuro Centre. After taking stock of all of my new experiences, Growing Bright was born!
I absolutely love coming up with ideas of things to make (always inspired by nature and upcycling) and how to make them as eco as possible. The icing on the cake is being able to share the creativity with people during my workshops. Growing Bright has brought so much to my life and I want to share this with people and Grow Bright with them.
Events
PubCraft – Thursday evenings at The Stag in Mentmore
Pubcraft is usually a couple of hours long, but I’m shortening the winter sessions slightly so we can get out for a quick burst of social creativity and still have time to get home and put pj’s on and have a cuppa before an early night!
To book a PubCraft session please complete the contact form at the bottom of this page.
Thursday 8th Jan. 19:00 – 20:30 Mandala £10
I’m kicking off the year with a special offer Mandala workshop to gently get us back in the mood. I was thinking of doing a theme of New Years’ resolutions, but I actually prefer to have a think about all of the things I’m grateful for (rather than all of the things I want to do better – which sometimes makes me feel inadequate). The idea is that you will bring objects or ideas to represent the things you are grateful for. For me, it will be my family, our pets, plants, my choir and my mandala would be made up of little simple drawings to represent these things. I will help you to come up with the drawing and you just repeat it around a circle. This was a really popular session last year and we have limited space in The Stag so don’t leave it too late to book! Just drop me an email if you want to come along.
Thursday 12th February. 19:00 – 21:00 Valentine’s Gonks £25
Yes – someone did call me ‘Gonk Lady’ last week, which I don’t mind actually!
Bring along a piece of fabric that means something to you (a shirt, pet blanket, an old top that you no longer wear). I’ll help you to make your Gonk clothing with the fabric and embellish – maybe you even have a piece of jewellery, a buckle or button that has meaning to you? You can choose to make a male, female or non-gender specific Gonk, I will have ways to cover all bases.
Thursday 12th March. 19:00 – 20:30 Easter tins £15
Our annual workshop using pre-used tins and decorating them with decoupage to make great chocolate egg or daffodil containers for Easter.
Natural Crafts at College Lake
This session is a privilege. We get to forage around the woodland for natural materials, take them back to the barn with the woodburner on, have a cuppa and a biscuit and make lovely things with the materials we gathered. This is such a warm and welcoming group of likeminded people who love having a little time to switch of in nature. If you want to experience a bit of this magic, do come along.
Book Natural Crafts at College Lake through Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/natural-crafts-workshop-college-lake-thursdays-jan-march-2026-tickets-1976736573303?aff=odcleoeventsincollection
22nd Jan. 10:30 – 12:30 Natural Bird Feeder (and waterer) £20
Using some pre-used bowls, sticks and wrinkly apples, we’ll make a bird feeder and watering station to help our friends through the winter months.
26 February. 10:30 – 12:30 Nature Imprinted air dry clay mini bowls
We’ll gather leaves from our forage and imprint them into air dry clay to create a beautiful natural pattern. I’ll show you how to sculpt these into a little bowl, ideal for holding earrings. The bowls will take about a week to dry at home.
26 March. 10:30 – 12:30 Easter Tins
Bringing the popular Easter session to College Lake! We’ll have an experiment with Hapa Zome (leaf bashing) to decorate paper with natures ink to then decoupage our tins with.
Crafty Coffee
Small and simple crafts at CuriositeaRooms in Pitstone. The cafe is open as usual for you to buy a coffee and a nibble to enjoy whilst we craft (heaven!).
To book a Crafty Coffee session please complete the contact form at the bottom of this page.
Thursday 15th Jan. 10:30 – 12:00 New Year Collage £10
I’ll show you how to recycle magazines to make a collage. You could make something useful, like a bookmark, notebook cover, a greetings card or a picture to go on your wall. You may even want to do a bit of moodboarding to show how you want 2026 to look for you! There are so many techniques with collage and I will show you how to make realistic looking pictures (my favourite), but if you want to go abstract and create, please do. We all learn from each other and bring different things to the table.
Thursday 19th Feb. 10:30-12:00 Newspaper Bowl £10
Using rolled newspaper ‘straws’, we’ll make useful little bowls. Repetitive, highly addictive and very effective!
Thursday 19th March. 10:30-12:00 Easter Cards £10
We’ll use stencils to make very easy and very professional looking Easter Cards!
Woodland crafts at Wendover Woods
£20 + booking fee
If you love nature, craft and relaxing with like-minded people, these sessions are for you! Join me for a walk where we’ll forage for materials and inspiration, then back to the veranda to make easy and lovely things from our natural materials!
(Paused for the winter)