The Center for Well-Being hosted a “potion” craft-making workshop on Wednesday, Oct. 15, giving students and other participants a creative way to manage stress and anxiety.

Participants were encouraged by SHS staff and student ambassadors to express their creativity and mindfulness through mock potion jars filled with water and oil, as well as an arrangement of dyes, glitter and charms.

“This is one of the mindful activities we do here,” psychology major and Student Health Ambassador Ryann Zepeda, 18, said. “It’s a way for students to relax and get creative.”

The lava lamp illusion the jars create is done using Johnson’s baby oil.

Embellishments such as glitter, food coloring and fruit-shaped charms were then added “to make it look pretty,” Zepeda said.

The activity is part of an effort by the center to offer workshops and other similar activities that provide mental health tools that keep participants engaged and reduce everyday stress.

“I actually thought it was fun, which I didn’t expect,” liberal arts major Sara Rubio, 19, said. “At first I asked myself if I really wanted to do this, but the more I did, I realized I actually like this.”

The small room cultivated an intimate environment with music playing as a small number of participants gradually came in, created their jars and cycled themselves out to create space for others looking to join.

“We were by the old science building when they told us about this place. They told us to follow their Instagram. We saw about their potion-making class, but we saw nobody here,” criminology major Yoseline Valdovinos, 19, said.

The workshop took students back to kindergarten with its emphasis on engagement through a creative outlet, returning to that stress-free state of mind, where participants were also able to come together and create friendships.

“I learned that I really like arts and crafts, it is like being back in kindergarten, where you didn’t have to do anything, just arts and crafts,” Valdovinos said. “It made me feel a lot better. I wanted to make potions with some strangers, and now I made some friends.”