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Your contributions
This page is a celebratory gallery of contributions from the young people and families we support through our online and activities and competitions!
SUMMER FESTIVAL 2020 CRAFT VILLAGE CONTRIBUTIONS
“This is a chalk drawing I did of my baby brother’s dragonfly rattle.”
Image description: Abigail holding the rattle she drew next to the chalk drawing on black paper.
“I have been busy creating art through the summer and this is my idea of a perfect day at the beach!”
Image description: Benjamin has drawn a beach with a bright orange sky, a large sun over a blue sea with a fish in it. There are large circular rocks on either side and ‘summer’ is written in the sand.
Macy loves to draw on her iPad – she finds it difficult to draw on paper because the colours are never quite bold enough for her to see properly. She drew the VICTA logo!
Image description: A picture of Macy drawing on her ipad and the finished rainbow.
“I went on a rainbow walk with my big sisters, there was a care home with a huge rainbow that I could see. I made my own with my sisters help to say thank you to the nurses on my road.”
Image description: Kristiahn’s mum is holding him up in front of the window with a rainbow in it made from paper hearts.
“I have only used recycled materials to create my penguin.”
Image description: a penguin made from boxes with lots of fun details added including wiggly pipe cleaners, cone feet and a neck full of colourful pom poms.
“I have made a blue whale out of rubbish!!”
Image description: Ben has a big smile on his face and is holding up a large whale made from a box covered in shiny blue paper with a hollow mouth and large wobbly eyes.
“We made a tactile rainbow in lockdown. Mummy cut out and coloured in a card rainbow. My sister sorted all the craft into coloured bowls. We took turns to stick the coloured craft things onto the rainbow shape. I liked the ridged shiny pieces best.”
Image description: A rainbow made from lots of colourful stuck on shapes with big fluffy cotton wool clouds at each end. Ellie and her sister are holding it smiling.
“I love animals so I made this dolphin picture with tiny pieces of wildlife magazines. I find scissors tricky so I really enjoyed cutting random shapes and seeing all the colours together.”
Image description: Poppy smiling holding her picture, a dolphin made from lots of small pieces of collaged paper on a black paper background. She has collaged her name in the bottom corner.
“This is a picture of Blackness Castle near Edinburgh. My mum helped me take the photo, she told me when the castle was in the centre of the screen.”
Image description: a photo of the castle which juts out of the coastline. The photo is taken from rocks looking over the sea.
“During lockdown, my Art distance learning topics from school were Pop Art and Portraits. I was set a piece of homework to create a portrait of a celebrity or famous person in the style of Julian Opie, famous for his Pop Art (he created the iconic cover for the Blur: Best Of album). Can you guess who this is?!”
Image description: bright colours in a pop art style depicting… warning the answer is coming up… Harry Potter
“One of my favourite artists is Yayoi Kusama, Japanese artist who is sometimes called ‘the princess of polka dots’. Although she makes lots of different types of art – paintings, sculptures, performances and installations – they have one thing in common, DOTS! I decided to have a go at drawing and colouring (using my Japanese marker pens) my own Kusama-inspired creation!”
Image description: As Liberty describes she has made an abstract drawing using dots and bright colours.
“I made flowers using a fork.”
Image description: Megan sitting in her chair with her picture in front of her, she has made the pattern of the flowers using a fork.
“This is a drawing completed by me of my cat Crowley.”
Image description: A grey pencil drawing of Crowley the cat who has green eyes.
“I’m inspired by the following; mythology, cartoon characters, pop art. I normally do work in bright colours as it is both easier to see and can send a positive atmosphere. My art is normally in a few different styles, as I’m experimenting at the moment. The Heinz Can was to do with a school project and is pop-art themed.”
“Most of my artwork is based on Manga (Japanese comics and artwork), Pop Art, hence the colours and Mythology; the root of my character designs.”
Image description: Three paintings by Ivan. 1 a painting of a beach and sea with palm leaves at the top ; 2 A treble clef in the centre with coloured angular shapes surrounding it; 3 brightly coloured buildings behind a canal with gondola boats on it.
“I love planets so I made my own solar system out of Fimo. I made the planets and their moons. I also made our sun.”
Image descriptions: The first photo shows Dexter looking at his Fimo planets and the second photo shows a brailled solar system with information in braille.
Eden Brownlee, age 13
Eden Brownlee, age 13
“It’s a portrait of the living of life.”
Image description: painted scenes arranged with a backdrop of paintbrushes, paints and pencils.
“Sasha made this digital picture during lockdown. It is in an Japanese Anime style, which interests Sasha and a digital VICTA Rainbow made by Sasha!”
Image descriptions: The first image is a computer drawing of two girls merged together down the middle – the writing reads Thank You NHS for your work. The second computer drawing is of the VICTA rainbow.
“I have taken photographs of the scenery I found A nice thing to look at /see whilst I am on Holiday with my Grandma in the Lakes. The Picture is of Lake Windermere in Bowness”
Image description: a view looking over the lake with the mountains in the background and a small boat and ducks on the lake.
BRAILLE ART COMPETITION 2021
Benji has decorated eggs to look like monsters and then placed them into the corresponding holes in the egg cartons to represent braille letters. Each egg carton has been cut so it has six spaces which is the basis of braille letters. Each monster has been decorated using different coloured materials and textures. There are white, red, green and purple eggs. They have been decorated with wobbly eyes, drawing pins and sequins to give them lots of character!
Ellie has made a montage of different photos to represent each letter of her name. The first photo is looking down on her dog which represents the dot indicating the next letter is a capital letter. The second, third and fourth photos show stick insects arranged onto wooden squares and represent the ‘E’ ‘l’ and ‘l’ in her name. The fifth photo is of two cats looking up and perfectly arranged in the shape of a braille ‘i’. The final photo is of two very furry guinea pigs, again in perfect position to represent the final ‘e’. Such good animal training skills!
The top photo is Charlie’s name written in braille using balls of different coloured plasticine. The second photo shows braille written using different coloured LEDs lit up against a black board. The third photo shows braille written using sequins and the fourth is an aerial view of different glowing objects including a lava lamp, fibre optics and a variety of light-up objects.
Congratulations to runner-up Brandon who used his braille embosser to engineer a braille pattern to create a picture of the Tardis from Dr Who. Here he shares the sequence you need to create your own!
Click here to download Brandon’s Tardis instructions in Word >
Billy has brailled his name using thin slices of carrot. He is holding it on a chopping board and smiling proudly.
Congratulations to runner-up Logan who used a braille embosser to create this image of Ironman!
Logan has used a braille embosser to print braille dots in the shape of Ironman. Ironman looks as though he is blasting off into the sky.
Joseph’s description of his art: This is my braille picture made of chocolate, the picture is of a rocket launching into space. In the middle is the rocket, smarties which are organised in the shape of the letter L make up the walls of the space craft, there are two L’s that are separated by a space making up both sides of the ship, a cone on the top of the space ship is represented by a Galaxy Minstrall, this is a letter A.
In the corner is an Astronaut, a polo represents his space helmet and it looks like a letter A, a brown milk chocolate button, it represents his body and is a letter A, both his arms are letter A’s represented by Smarties and his legs are also smarties however these are E’s and I’s. At the opposite side of the picture is a count down to launch, a number sign is formed with brown milk chocolate buttons and next to it in the same colour and in the same type of chocolate is a letter B to Represent the letter 2 and underneath it is a white milk chocolate button used to represent the number 1. In the sky above everything is some white milk chocolate buttons which are letter A’s and also are stars and the chocolate Jazzle’s are asteroids, because why not?
Sebastian has painted individual sheets of paper for each letter of his name. The two end sheets are painted with rainbow stripes and the pieces in the middle follow the colours of the rainbow. They are arranged in an arch like just a rainbow. To represent the braille letters, he has used different objects including balls of paper, shells and LEGO bricks.
Siana has stuck different coloured buttons to a paper plate to write her name in braille. She has decorated the plate with elephant stickers.
Agatha has made cupcakes with white icing and silver balls to decorate, she has arranged them to spell out her name in braille and is smiling in the background.
Aizah has stuck different coloured lollipop sticks onto black paper. At the top of each stick are green leaves so that they look like trees. Each leaf has popcorn stuck onto it to form braille letters.
Daniel has melted beads to form a stained glass effect and has then attached silver foil balls to write his name in braille.
Dexter has written his name in braille using different coloured pom poms.
Mera’s name has been created in braille using a collection of round objects found at home including a rose, tealights and a pine cone. They have been arranged on a scarf with foam letters also spelling out her name below.
Imogen has created a pirate treasure island with sand, treasure chests, shells and pirates! In the centre her name has been brailled using gold chocolate coins.
Orla has used cupcakes with different coloured icing for each braille letter to spell out her name.
Constance has used P.E. equipment such as hoops and cones to spell out her name.
Matilda has used purple icing flowers to braille her name.
Sienna has used red paint blobs covered in blue glitter to write her name in braille.
Emily has used mathematical plastic cubes arranged on a table to braille her name.
Ibrahim has painted some paper in the background and then stuck on foam balls to form the braille. He has made all the foam balls look like googly eyes.
Karan has used red painted hand-prints on a background. On top of this Karan has arranged slices of cucumber, bananas, tomato and an orange to braille their name.
Olivia has used white chocolate buttons on pink paper to write her name. She has drawn a cute panda in felt-tip pen and decorated with chocolate coins and mini chocolate eggs.
Mohammad has stuck pasta shell shapes to white paper to spell out his name in braille.
‘Neel’ written using pom poms, beads, foam shapes and feathers. He has decorated the picture with a pipe-cleaner fish, yellow feathers and beads.
Victoria has decorated a white piece of paper with lovely felt-tip drawings of a bright rainbow and flowers. She has stuck pom poms, raised stickers and gems to represent her name in braille.
Robbie has used fried egg sweets to represent his name in braille.
VICTA SCIENCE FAIR 2021 ENTRIES
Anaya sitting smiling with her LEGO brick body activity.
Mera sitting with her LEGO Braille brick creation – “My project is a bridge and river flowing underneath and house.”
Montage of Ellie using her LEGO Braille bricks to build word ladders.
Ellie’s marble road – montage showing different shaped roads Ellie has built.
Column multiplication – photo montage showing how Ellie has used the LEGO Braille bricks to carry out different column method maths problems.
Ellie using her LEGO Braille bricks to play hangman.
The first half of Benjamin’s poem written using LEGO Braille bricks ‘Buzzy bees fly, velvety spiders shy, pink worms wiggle.’
“The turns were quite tricky, and I added a block on the end to stop the ball rolling away.”
Photo description: Luke kneeling down smiling while playing with the run he has built.
“I used a red, blue and green food colouring. I added the food colouring to water in the 1st, 3rd and 5th cup and added some kitchen roll connecting the first cup to the 2nd, the 2nd to the 3rd the 3rd to the 4th and the 4th to the 5th and watched the colours make their way up the kitchen roll to the next cup then colours mixed on the kitchen roll and in the cup as well red and green made brown and blue and green made a turquoise colour.”
Photo description: The first half of Bethany’s experiment. The plastic cups are in a row with arches of paper towel going between them. The colour is traveling across to look like a rainbow from red to green.
“I wrote start and finish at the beginning and end so I could remember which way round I wanted to do it. The corner was tricky to do.”
Photo description: Ryan cheering excitedly with his arms out wide while playing with his marble run.
Sean experimented with ice, to see which ingredient would melt it quickest using flour, salt, warm water. He found that the warm water melted the ice fastest and flour melted the ice slowest. Well done Sean!
Photo description: Montage of four images. Top left, Sean mixing flour in with the ice. Top right, comparing three different bowls of ice. Bottom left, Sean sitting with a big block of ice ready to experiment. Bottom right, Sean’s recorded experiment and findings.
“Benji really enjoyed looking after his cress seeds and watching them grow. He kept a diary every day with a Braille description and tactile picture to track its progress.”
Photo description: Benjamin sitting next to his grown cress, holding his cress diary and smiling.
“I enjoyed making my rainbow and eating the skittles.” Watch Dexter’s video of his experiment below!
“I loved doing this but my baby brother was trouble. I made my marble run white like a ice maze.” See Dexter’s marble run in his video below!
“I loved this because I got to make a rainbow. I only had 3 colours but managed to make 2 more.” Watch Dexter’s video of his experiment below!
“Zac completed the experiment with his 5 year old sister, Sienna. The experiment was a success and Zac was able to explain the science behind it.” Watch Zac and Sienna’s video of their experiment below!
“Which liquid cleans the coin more? The experiment went well and I found out that vinegar cleaned the coin better than the washing up liquid after 10 minutes.” Watch Mera’s video of her experiment below!
“The experience was too much fun and I had to add food colouring so the bubbles will be more noticeable.” Watch Mera’s video of her experiment below!
“Making a mini tornado in a bottle. We needed a clear bottle filled with water, a few drops of washing up liquid and some glitter. Add the ingredients together shake the bottle in circular way and see the mini tornado inside the bottle. This experiment is too much fun I really enjoyed it.” Watch Mera’s video of her experiment below!
“Eilidh made a bridge out of straws 800mm long which held a potato.” Watch Eilidh’s video below!
“Glasses with a special Zoom facility to see things in the distance!”
Image description: Benjamin has drawn a poster for his idea, there is a drawing of the grey framed glasses with bubbles containing writing stemming from them. The writing reads…
The ZoomRs
- These glasses can be focussed to your personal preference from -20 to +20
- The frames have been created with great care and cannot break easily
- This is the toggles that cases the zoom
- The colours can be modified
- Able to zoom in to any extent
- This feature helps darken the lenses in case of bright areas
- The glass in the frame (lenses) is durable and is made by experts
- The frame is made of the toughest titanium
“I liked making mummy’s hair stick up. She didn’t let me take a picture. I stuck the balloon to the wall like magic but it was science really.”
Photo description: Dexter leaning up close to the balloon which is stuck to the wall.
“I loved playing with the cornflour mixture. I can’t believe my spoon wouldn’t go into the liquid if I bashed it (I tried very hard). We tried different types of music to get the liquid to dance on the speaker, but it wouldn’t. I really enjoyed dancing to the music though.”
Photo description: Luke has a glass bowl of his non-Newtonian fluid, he is playing with it dripping, string-like, from his hand.
“After I constructed the robot I changed the circuit wires to make it walk backwards, as the current flows in the opposite direction.”
Photo description: Photo montage of four photos with the wording ‘Walking robot’. The photos show Ellie building the robot from a kit which includes wiring and holding the finished robot and smiling.
“The boat worked but it didn’t go very fast. The wind blew the bottle around making it go in circles.”
Photo description: Montage of photos with the wording ‘bottle paddle boat’ in the middle. The top image shows Ellie smiling holding her paddle boat in the water. The bottom three images show the paddle boat in action, it is made from a plastic bottle and has two sticks and a paddle made from paper.
“The baking powder and the vinegar mixed to make CO2 but it wasn’t very much to fill the bag. We tried again and the whole bag exploded (no photo of that)!”
Photo description: Montage of two photos with the wording ‘CO2 gas bag’ in the middle. The first photo shows Ellie ready to start with the equipment she needs. The second photos shows Ellie feeling the bag with the mixed ingredients.
“Growing cress was hard work to keep watering everyday. It grew the same on both my sister’s and my windowsills.”
Photo description: Photo montage with the wording ‘Cress growing: – cress consistently watered grows faster – cress grew equally well in two different rooms – cress dies quickly on tissue when you forget to water it!!’ The photos show Ellie arranging the cress seeds on wet tissue paper, stages of the cress growing and Ellie smiling holding her grown cress on a plate.
“I loved making this goop. I slipped with the water and it was quite runny. When you tried to mix it with a spoon it was really really stiff at the bottom but all liquid at the top. We came back to it in the evening, the water had gone and it was really stiff to scoop and move but ran through your fingers once you held it.”
Photo description: Photo montage of Ellie mixing the non-Newtonian fluid with her hands and a spoon into a glass bowl.
“My sister and I made one each and we put rubber feet on hers to see if it moved better, it did and climbed up the slope.”
Photo description: Photo montage of the spider bots at various stages of being built and Ellie and her sister experimenting with the finished bots on a metal chair base. The writing in the middle reads ‘Spider bots: – The spider bot with the rubber feet climbed further up the slope – The spider without didn’t go in a straight line and was slower.’
“We had lots of fun making the balloon dogs and tissue paper bones for them to eat. The negative charge we made on the balloon attracted the tissue bones. We also tried with Rice Krispies, this didn’t work so well. After a while the bones fell off the balloons again.”
Photo description: Four photos of Ellie experimenting with her green balloon dog. The first two photos shows Ellie charging her balloon dog by rubbing it against her clothing. The other photos show the paper bones sticking to the balloon dog by static electricity.
“When the pencils were stabbed through the bag, the water still stayed inside. We did it over the pool in case it didn’t.”
Photo description: Photo montage of Ellie’s bag experiment. The photos show stage by stage, Ellie sticking pencils through a clear plastic bag full of water. The water stays in without leaking. The final photo shows Ellie getting wet as she has removed the pencils from the bag and the water is now pouring from the holes.
“This was interesting even though I can’t see colour, my sister told me what the colours were. The middle cups were empty at the start and when we looked later in the day, the water in all the cups were at the same level and the kitchen towel was soaked. The towels got wet very quickly but my sister told me they weren’t coloured at the start just wet.”
Photo description: Photo montage of Ellie’s experiment. The top photos show Ellie preparing the paper towels and cups of water. The middle photos show Ellie adding colour to the different cups of water and bridging the paper towels between them and the empty cups. The final photo shows Ellie smiling behind the finished experiment – coloured water has travelled across the paper towels into the empty cups.
Eilidh built a freestanding tower out of LEGO, it is as tall as her, which is 5ft 2inch. She also tried building one out of spaghetti and marshmallows. This wasn’t as successful because they were sticky to start with and no where near as stable.
Photo description: Elilidh standing next to her very tall LEGO tower which is a tall as she is! The tower is made of all sorts of different coloured LEGO bricks and has tall cylinders and a rocket shape on the top.
“An amazing sensory experience especially being a VIP, I felt the force of the magnets shaping the fluid into lots of patterns and a jelly like feeling with the fluid collected together.” Watch Maleeka’s video below!
“Despite only being able to use one hand, Lucia helped out with the balloon and helped find language to describe the experiment and the meeting with the scissors!” Watch Lucia’s experiment below!
“The poster gives clear information about the competition through the use of pictures. I changed the colours of the pictures using Paint and combined logos and those images to create the poster in PowerPoint. I then went on to create a video including the information needed to enter the competition using video editor.”
“I enjoyed using the magnets to pick up and repel.”
Photo description: Nathan is holding up his magnet on a string – it is holding two magnetic blocks with its magnetic force.
Photo description: Eilidh investigating with a large, horseshoe shaped magnet with smaller magnets making up bridge across the ends.
VICTA Rainbows
Image description: Catrin has made a rainbow from different coloured objects. She has written VICTA on a piece of paper and placed it underneath so it looks like the VICTA logo.
Image description: Poppy has collected different coloured objects and arranged them to look like the VICTA rainbow logo.
Image description: Ella is sitting in her garden wearing a VICTA t-shirt and with a VICTA t-shirt laid out on the grass. Ella is holding her cute dog’s paw over the t-shirt.
Image description: Rosie is sitting outside wearing her VICTA t-shirt and a mask she has decorated. Rosie is holding giant pink balloons.
Exploring nature as part of the Summer Festival 2020
Well done to Catrin and Bethan who completed 10 of the National Trust Challenges!
“It was fun. They helped each other to spot things and look for things (Catrin’s sister is not visually impaired). Using zoom on the camera helped too.”
Image description: The have created a montage of photos of the tasks they have completed; No.1 get to know a tree, No. 8 spot a fish, No. 22 funky fungi, No. 31 bug friends, No. 49 watch a sunset, No. 39 catch a crab, No. 24 go barefoot, No. 37 rock pooling, No. 5 skim a stone, No. 33 cloud watching.
Image descriptions: Walking down a a leafy path, looking over a coastal path with a beautiful view of the sea and cliffs, climbing wooden play equipment in the woods and the family smiling outside a ruined castle.
“Emilio climbed a hill to see the waterfall at Aria Force in the Lake District. Emilio loved it, we used his walking poles instead of his cane and took our time.”
Image description: Emilio smiling with his walking poles in front of a green countryside backdrop.
Well done to Fakhir, Nuwaira & Sakina who completed 13 of the National Trust Challenges!
“Very enjoyable, challenging for children, but with each challenge they wanted to push themselves more next time. Especially enjoyed paddling and climbing rocks.”
Image description: Photo montage showing the girls out and about – exploring with friends, walking over rocky paths and picnicking outdoors, cloud watching on the top of a coastal cliff, paddling in a river, playing in the sand on a beach, looking at ducks in a lake and getting to know a tree!
“Chloe loved trying to stand on the branch and it made the tree vibrate. She loves sensory experiences and she was fascinated to catch a glimpse of a robin redbreast.”
Image description: a robin sitting on a branch among white looking trees.
“Callum spotted a fish, climbed a steep hill, skimmed a stone, explored on wheels, ate a picnic in the wild and explored with a friend (dog baxter).
We took Callum to lots of National Trust places in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire as well as Forrest of Dean and the Beach in Cornwall. We didn’t have to adapt anything for him, he did great and gave lots of new things a try. He even managed to skim his first stone!”
Image descriptions: 1 picnicking int the forest; 2 being carried over dad’s shoulder through the woods; 3 skimming stones on a lake; 4 walking with his dog down towards a pretty, sandy beach; 5 looking at fish in a river, 6 smiling in front of a gate with a field of black and white cows behind.
“We love going outside.”
Image description: Emma at the playground with her sister who is walking across wobbly bridge play equipment.
“We cooked s’mores on a BBQ which Zoe cooked for her older sister. Was very fun and girls enjoyed it.
We got a bit lost but carried on regardless and Emma did extremely well under the wet and uneven surface conditions. So proud of her.
We had loads of fun. Even though it was very windy and rainy in the Lake District. We have been camping loads before but was the first time with our new buddy dog Luna. She had a lot of fun. Think she thinks we are mad!”
Image description: Ted smiling holding a stick outside in front of a bug hotel made from different sticks all different shapes and sizes.
Image description: Benjamin sitting at the table painting a wooden birdhouse.
Image descriptions: The three children sitting on a large fallen trunk smiling; a blue tit outside a wooden nesting box; smiling playing in an outdoor den made of sticks and branches.
Image descriptions: the first two images show a pond surrounded by plants, the pond is filled with lily pads; the third photo shows a bug house made from a section of tree trunk which has holes drilled into it and has been hung on a fence.
More to explore!
Christmas decorations
Our annual Christmas decoration competition always inspires creativity! Enjoy the entries in the galleries below.
Christmas cards 2020
Check out all of the beautiful entries to our first Christmas card design competition.
Braille art 2019
If you loved the braille art above, make sure you visit the 2019 gallery to enjoy all of the entries on display.
