Issue 16

Project Calm

Mindfulness through making

Project Calm1 min read
Welcome…
Of all our topics this issue – fire, play, kindness, a good yarn – awe is the theme that threads everything together: experiencing the world afresh with all the wonder, magic and innocence of a child. Ruby Deevoy’s feature about awe on page 60 sums u
Project Calm1 min read
Cover Artist: Svabhu Kohli
When did you realise you wanted to be an artist? Quoting a dear friend of mine, it’s not a realisation you have but it’s something you work towards every day. Where does your love of the natural world and fantasy come from? I think it stems from my c
Project Calm4 min read
MIND & BODY NOTES
Filled with pride at their children’s unprompted acts of kindness, friends Lucie Carr and Charlie Williams, decided to launch the Kindness Co-Op, a socially responsible apparel and accessories brand aimed at fostering compassion (especially amongst c
Project Calm1 min read
MIND & BODY
Pay it forward, random acts of kindness… thoughtful gestures are so rare in today’s world that social movements are started just to remind us to take the time. If you’ve been on the receiving end of this kind of compassion, you’ll know how much it ca
Project Calm1 min read
Capturing A Concept
When did you realise you wanted to be an artist? I can’t remember a time when I didn’t draw, but it wasn’t until I was in sixth form that I realised it could be a career! I started as a children’s book designer, then became an illustrator. Can you de
Project Calm1 min read
Kindness Cards
These pocket ‘thank you’s, designed by artist Vanessa Lovegrove, are the right size to carry around and hand out whenever you see a random act of kindness. Spotted someone helping a stranger with a heavy bag? Or someone offering to help lift a baby b
Project Calm3 min readPopular Culture & Media Studies
Be Kind Online
Being a gentlewoman involves learning to pay attention to the world around you. Just look up once in a while, take off your headphones, switch off push notifications. If you consciously side-step instant gratification for something moremeaningful, yo
Project Calm6 min readMental Health
ABOVE ALL, Be Kind
When people are kind, it can make us feel good. Sometimes it can be a small gesture, such as an exchanged smile between strangers, or something bigger like doing a favour for a neighbour. Knowing we’ve lightened someone’s burden lightens our own burd
Project Calm4 min read
Play Fun Why It’s Not Just For Kids
Play shapes us as human beings. Yet, as we get older, it can be tempting to write off play as something flippant that we either ought to leave behind us in childhood, or turn into a deadly serious business instead. In the world of work, for instance,
Project Calm4 min read
Compassion And Creativity
Creativity allows us to bring ingenuity into our lives, which is essential for solving everyday problems. For example, when we suggest a new process at work we are being creative. And the process of being creative is an exciting one that can make us
Project Calm1 min read
Make Your Own Fun
Remember these? Our favourite paper games from childhood make excellent creative prompts. Here’s a ref resher how-to… Step 1 Carefully cut out your fortune teller with a sharp blade and metal ruler. The piece will need to be perfectly square to ensur
Project Calm1 min read
Nature
Awe: it’s a fast-track to mindfulness. Whether it’s sighing at the starry sky, studying the beauty and intricacy of busy little bugs, or a cosy feeling of deep gratitude for the warmth of a campfire, a sense of wonder can be accessed almost anywhere
Project Calm5 min read
Nature Notes
Plastic pollution is a problem that affects all of us, but there’s nothing more rewarding than getting down to your local beach and picking up litter. Beach cleans have taken the world by storm, with thousands of groups around the globe volunteering
Project Calm4 min read
Friendly Fires
As technology becomes a governing force in so many modern lives, it’s not surprising that people are seeking refuge in the natural world. Leigh Hunt called fire “the most tangible of visible mysteries,” and anyone who has ever tried to start a camp f
Project Calm1 min read
Burning Brightly
Let the messages and bright fires inside these matchboxes spark energy and self belief! The perfect gift for friends facing the heat, they’re beautiful vintage-style favours to treasure, and a reminder of our resolve, resilience and talents. Make the
Project Calm3 min read
Striking Designs
It might surprise you to learn that the most reproduced piece of art in the world was not made by an Old Master or pop artist, but by the Swedish artist Einar Nerman in 1936. And the reason it’s been reproduced so many times is that it features on th
Project Calm1 min read
Make Your Own Matchboxes
Every time you open your beautifully designed matchbox, a positive affirmation is ready and waiting to cheer you on. Maybe your box will become part of a meditation ritual as you light a candle and focus on the flame. Or maybe they’ll become treasure
Project Calm4 min read
Gather Around
Who isn’t fascinated by fire? The flickering flames, the blaze of heat and the smouldering, smoking embers as it slowly dies. Fire is like the heart, it is a beautiful thing, bringing light with its sparkle and dancing flame. It draws us in around it
Project Calm1 min read
Home
This issue we get cosy in a favourite armchair and delve into a good book, or ten. From tomes as treasured objects in themselves, to how we display them in the home; rewriting endings, to finding empathy through reading, books and stories offer so mu
Project Calm5 min read
Finding Awe
When was the last time you found yourself gazing, open mouthed and wide-eyed at something so wonderful it made your heart skip a beat? If you think back to an occasion where you felt truly wowed, you’ll likely remember the rush that came with it. The
Project Calm1 min read
PROJECT Calm∗
We’re delighted to bring you this special offer to save 11 on the next four issues of Project Calm. Rather than a subscription, this offer is for the next four issues only and offers great benefits, such as free delivery, a 25% saving and it means yo
Project Calm5 min read
Home Notes
A beachcombing designer living in Dorset, England, Hannah Marshall collects odds and ends she finds along the coastline and turns them into desirable objects. Most of the materials are gathered from West Country beaches, which she then uses to create
Project Calm5 min read
The Secret Life Of Books
Tom Mole’s The Secret Life of Books: Why They Mean More than Words is out now (Elliott & Thompson, £14.99). Available from all good bookshops. Our books are leading a double life. As well as being containers of words, they are things imbued with thei
Project Calm6 min read
Book Smart
It was a story made for social media. Celebrity book curator Thatcher Wine hit the headlines earlier this year for his work with his childhood friend Gwyneth Paltrow. Thatcher felt there weren’t enough books to fill the shelving in Gwyneth’s home lib
Project Calm4 min read
Start Your Own Little Library
I’ve always been an avid book lender, so when one of my friends had to spend two months in hospital, I started looking for copies of all my favourite books so she could have her own little bedside library. I’m very lucky that our local libraries here
Project Calm4 min read
Rewrite The Ending
My favourite books as a child transported me to fantasy worlds. Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree and CS Lewis’s Narnia series proved that the logic of science and the limitations of real life need not apply in fiction. They were tales written to take us to
Project Calm4 min read
Have Fun With Your Home Decor
A lot of the time, I’ve found that decorating my home (or any home for that matter) has a lot to do with trial and error. You know, finding out what works, and what doesn’t. A decorating project often isn’t as easy or as simple as you might first ima
Project Calm3 min readArchitecture
Fireplaces With Warmth
Designer Pearl Lowe’s Georgian property in Somerset, England, was built in the 1820s with warm yellow Bath stone – the curved walls and arched windows are classic in design yet manifold with architectural quirks such as their wonderful fireplaces. In
Project Calm3 min read
Share Your Love Of Books
Ailsa Horton runs The Little Library as part of Usborne Books at Home, the kids’ publisher’s small-business community. Based in Cornwall, England, and a part-time teacher, she was after a more flexible way of promoting reading for children while rais
Project Calm5 min read
Finding Meaning Through Literature
Aged eleven, I read a book that changed my life. It was Eva Ibbotson’s Journey to the River Sea, an adventure novel about an orphan, Maia, who leaves behind England and journeys to Manaus, Brazil, to stay with her long-lost relatives. Manaus is in th
Project Calm1 min read
Travel
This issue we’re inspired to gain a new perspective on our travels by sketching our surroundings or collecting the ephemera of trips away for scrapbooks. Both provide a great way of slowing down, noticing the details and creating a lovely keepsake of
Project Calm4 min read
Explore More
SIAN MEADES Your go- to travel agent I’m nervous before I even set off for the train station. I’ve been looking forward to my writing retreat at Moniack Mhor – the Scottish Writing Centre – for weeks. Armed with a fresh notebook, a pencil case bursti
Project Calm5 min read
Travel Notes
The Manoir La Croix de La Jugie in Limousin, South West France, is a ‘rustic slice of calm,’ a true sanctuary within rolling hills, farms and forests. The vast house sits in six acres of land and sleeps up to 22 people. As well as eight bedrooms, it
Project Calm1 min read
Scrap Book Your Travels
As much as I love Instagram, when it comes to making memories, I want more than just an image with a quick caption and a few emojis. I’ve started to scrapbook my holidays and special days, taking the time to print out photographs, being mindful to co
Project Calm4 min read
The Best Way To See A Place Is By Drawing It
I love sketching in situ. When I studied architecture we were encouraged to go out and create our own sketching journals. And, I fell in love with the immediacy and spontaneity of sketching live. I often create my travel journals where words and line
Project Calm2 min read
Listen To The Issue
Our playlist this issue starts with a story about a library – “whispering through the dusty aisles,” all magic and possibility. We continue by celebrating awe in Prototyperaptor’s dance anthem, via dedications to kindness from HAERTS and Natalie Merc
Project Calm1 min read
Contributors
Ruby Deevoy is a natural health and wellbeing writer. She lives in the beautiful Scottish countryside with her son and husband. She finds her dose of awe in the starry night sky. Read more on page 58. @RDeevoy Medina is the author of Home Sweet Rente
Project Calm1 min read
Project Calm
JULES TAYLOR Editor-in-chief LARA WATSON Editor CHARLOT TEMARTYN Managing Editor VICKY GUERRERO Production Editor SARAH ORME Digital Editor JULIAN DACE Senior Art Editor ROBIN COOMBER Art Editor LEELA ROY Deputy Art Editor MATILDA SMITH Deputy Art Ed
Project Calm3 min read
The Happy Reader
I bloody love books. I’m the kind of person who keeps a stack of books teetering on the bedside table and arranges bookshelves by colour. I’ve got copies of my favourites on my Kindle so they’re always on my phone and, while I grew up on a steady die
Project Calm3 min read
SELFKEEPING: a RADICAL GUIDE TO BALANCING YOUR ECO SYSTEMS
Just like the earth, you are a giant composite of interconnected ecosystems working symbiotically to sustain yourself. Finding adaptable ways to nourish all of your ecosystems creates a stronger network of resilience throughout your life. You do this