2012 marked the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who became only the second monarch in British history to spend 60 years on the throne. It was Queen Victoria who celebrated the first Diamond Jubilee in 1897, and Kensington Palace put on a special exhibition all about what it would have been like to be in the crowds during that momentous occasion.

Right from the start it was planned that community groups would input into the exhibition, and during the planning it was decided that they would work on four projects: making 160 metres of bunting, creating a special chandelier, making plates, and creating fabric flowers for a triumphal arch.

For the bunting, children, teenagers and adults of all ages worked with the artist Natalie Ryde to create unique little flags in red, white and blue which would be strung up in the exhibition and along Princess Court Arcade within Kensington Palace to guide visitors to the exhibition. Participants looked at old images of bunting from 1897 to help inspire them, and then sewed, stuck and printed onto fabric as they created flag, after flag, after flag. A group from Age UK and St. Mary Abbots School had one particularly special bunting making session when two very special visitors came in to see them - HM The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh! They had come to re-open Kensington Palace after a restoration and renovation project, and came to see the bunting making workshop in progress!

Other groups worked with the artist Kay Aplin to decorate plates for one of the rooms in the exhibition. Each plate represented a different dish of the sorts which would have been eaten at both rich and poor people's parties in 1897. Participants learnt about the celebrations for Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and shared their memories of their own personal celebrations in their lives, before they created designs which were turned into transfers and applied to the plates. Kay then stayed up until four in the morning to get all of the plates fired in her kiln to be ready for display - they look lovey!

The artist Tom Barnecut developed a workshop where participants of all ages could try their hand at making stained glass effect 'windows' which he then turned into beautiful lanterns for a unique chandelier. The participants could not believe how different - and good - their 'windows' looked as the light shone through them when they saw the finished piece.

Finally, various groups including attendees at a special private view of the Palace for local residents all helped make hundreds of small fabric flowers, which were then added to a special triumphal arch which forms the entrance to the exhibition.

It made perfect sense for community groups to work on these projects, as in 1897 people would not have popped into a supermarket or gone online to buy their bunting or such like for their celebrations - they would have made things themselves. It therefore really adds to the atmosphere of the exhibition to have these community exhibits spread throughout the displays, and being seen just as prominently as some of the beautiful historic objects on display.