Our Story

Happy Hands Art absolutely exists because of volunteers that care. Each one of our willing volunteers has a beautiful heart for young families, for children to be able to experience life and not a virtual space, and to help encourage parents to enjoy spending time with their children. For every thousands of crafts that have been sent around the country in the past 10 years, each one is packed with love from our packing volunteer days ready for little hands to create!  Happy Hands Art Time was founded as a non-for-profit back in 2011 where we opened our community doors in our first location at Nunawading, Victoria.

Homeschooling my little ones who are now teenagers, it was so obvious to me how much they enjoyed art and the colourful happymess that it created for them. Their cute little hands grasping crayons making pictures, using paint in all colours and swirling it into a mushy mess, using a whole pot of glue to stick one piece of paper on something. You know what I am talking about, your smiling reading this right?! What I loved about this stage of their life is that they really enjoyed the process of what they were doing. There was happymess. Pure joy. There was no expectation or pressure for outcomes. It was also continually making them acutely aware of the world around them without using screens. The constant excitement on what was and is possible. This hands-on, tactile approach to art and continually making all kinds of things largely contributed to their positive learning and experiences in life as they grew. In a child’s mind, A cardboard box can be anything right?

Creating was something that I thoroughly enjoyed doing with my children, precious memories that I still hold, and something that I am very passionate about continually sharing and encouraging within young families as part of their home life.

Give a child some resource, isn’t it exciting what they can come up with when the process of art is encouraged and not the outcome? You will love our fun, colourful and interactive teaching style in our programs! We aim to encourage children to create as they feel, as this is something that my own children have positively benefited from and continue to do so!

During our sessions, both live online and within locations, the environment is a space where children can smile and discover things for themselves at their own pace whilst enjoying the process.

The national award we received in 2016 for the ‘Best non-for-profit community program for preschoolers’ was a very humbling experience for us and so wonderfully encouraging for all of our volunteer teams, as they really do put all their heart into running sessions at the various locations each week. It recognized the efforts so whole-heartedly made. Our on-site locations would not have been possible without our willing volunteers.

COVID-19 has brought many changes within our space with many of the on-site locations closed during this time. We could not do nothing, we really wanted to do something!

Thanks to some very generous donations from the community, in the past year, we have been able to build a small purposeful filming studio to be able to bring Happy Hands Art in your homes each week! So excited for this next stage which will not only add to soon re-opening on-site locations, but make our program accessible and affordable to many families tuning into our live show experience! We would love for your family to be a part of this, you can expect creativity to be weekly encouraged, your child to think imaginatively each time and for it to become a favorite part of your week!  

Come and share a little bit of Happymess with us!

Carolin Schmitz, (Happycaz)

Happy Hands Art Time Founder & Creative Director 

Play Video