For Seniors: Wall Decorations to Brighten Up February — Festive Ideas for Setsubun, Valentine’s Day, Plum Blossoms, and More
February wall decorations are a hands-on way to feel close to seasonal events like Setsubun and Valentine’s Day.
You can roll paper to make an ogre’s hair, or use a bamboo mat to craft realistic ehomaki sushi decorations.
As your hands are busy, the moments when lively conversations blossom about fun memories from February will surely be the most heartwarming of all.
This time, we’re sharing ideas for February-specific creations—from cute wreaths to Japanese-style ornaments.
Enjoy the fun of making and the joy of displaying while engaging your fingertips to stimulate the brain.
How about brightening up a senior facility or your home with wall art that evokes the coming of spring?
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[For Seniors] Wall decorations to color February: Festive ideas for Setsubun, Valentine’s Day, plum blossoms, and more (81–90)
Setsubun wall decorations
During Setsubun, people throw beans at demons, eat ehomaki sushi rolls, and eat as many beans as their age.
In fact, there are regional differences in the chant used when throwing beans, the type of beans thrown, and in foods like ehomaki and kenchin-jiru.
Many senior care facilities also put up Setsubun-themed wall decorations in February.
It might be fun to create wall decorations that incorporate Setsubun traditions unique to your local area.
Some seniors using the facility may be living in a different place from their hometown.
While making the decorations, you could chat about Setsubun customs and culture from the seniors’ places of origin.
Please do try making some lovely Setsubun wall decorations.
Simple oni wall decoration
When it comes to events in February, many people probably think of Setsubun.
You might picture throwing beans while saying “Demons out, good fortune in,” or perhaps unique local customs like saying “Demons in.” Let’s make some oni wall decorations to liven up Setsubun events and recreational activities.
Try creating red and blue oni using construction paper or origami.
These days, you can even find oni templates online, which makes it easy to craft them.
Through making oni wall decorations, older adults may also reminisce about past Setsubun memories and enjoy lively conversations.
Oni and Setsubun decorations made with paper bowls
We’ll make three-dimensional Oni and Otafuku figures using paper bowls.
Regular paper bowls sold at 100-yen shops are perfectly fine.
For both the Oni and Otafuku, use cut paper bowls and crumpled origami to create the face and hair.
You can also recreate the Oni’s distinctive, rounded, perm-like hair by rolling origami paper.
Yarn or thinly cut strips of origami also work well for hair.
Because this craft involves crumpling and squeezing origami, you’ll be using your hands a lot.
They say “the hands are the second brain,” and it’s believed that many nerves run from the fingertips to the brain.
Using your hands and fingertips activates the brain and can help prevent cognitive decline.
Enjoy this craft activity as brain training and create some wonderful pieces!
Rapeseed blossom wall decoration
Let me introduce a cute “nanohana” (rapeseed blossoms) made with yellow origami.
Decorate facility walls—such as at day service centers—with these charming yellow flowers.
Nanohana begin blooming around February and are known as one of the flowers that herald the arrival of spring.
Many older adults have likely seen fields and riverbanks covered with them.
Because the flower is familiar and the folding steps are simple, it’s an easy project to try.
Make plenty and cover an entire wall—you’ll bring a sense of spring’s warmth to February’s winter chill.
You can focus and work on your own, or enjoy folding while chatting with a few others.
We hope you’ll spend a lovely time with a nanohana wall display.
Bean-throwing (Mamemaki)
Speaking of Setsubun, it’s a festival for inviting in good fortune and driving away evil, right? This is a wall decoration themed on bean-throwing—an essential custom for repelling those evils, the oni.
Since beans alone are just simple circles, it’s important to create a sense of dynamism that evokes either a container for the beans or the scene of beans being thrown.
First, make a square masu box, which has auspicious connotations, and arrange the beans inside it.
Create the masu’s joints and the beans placed inside as separate pieces, and layer them as you glue them on to give a three-dimensional effect.
Finally, place some beans outside the box as well to complete the piece, and adjust the angles of the beans and where they’re positioned around the masu to convey a lively sense that the beans are flying outward.
Peacock of Snow
This is a wall decoration featuring a peacock gracefully spreading its feathers, incorporating snowflake designs to evoke a winter theme.
Fold origami paper in an accordion pattern to make the feathers, then attach the body piece in the center to create a three-dimensional effect.
Finally, place snowflake designs across the wide-spread feathers to complete it.
The shape of the snowflakes matters, but I think the overall color combination is key to conveying a wintry feel.
It might also be fun to focus on glamour and make a peacock in colors that don’t exist in reality.
[For Seniors] Wall Decorations to Brighten Up February: Festive Ideas for Setsubun, Valentine’s Day, Plum Blossoms, and More (91–100)
Snow Blossom
In February, when the severe cold lingers, many of us probably spend more time indoors.
That’s the perfect time to handcraft “snow blossoms” that are fun to make and beautiful to display! With snow and ice as their motif, these decorations can brighten up your walls and windowsills.
We’ll use familiar tissue paper to create the snow blossoms.
The trick is to accordion-fold the paper, staple it in the center, and gently fluff it open.
Since tissue paper is soft, it’s easy and safe for older adults to work with as well.
You can also customize them by combining lace paper or making paper-cut snowflakes.
