Day 2 in Nottingham

These are some of my flower canes. Remember I have never done these before. The two in the top left hand corner are what were given to me to fill in on my finished sheet (below) by my friend Irene. The four at the bottom are mine. I was quite pleased with them as a first attempt.
This was a session with Irish Mishley who had the most beautiful flower canes you could imagine.
I made a mess of my centre cane but lucky for me my friend Valerie came to the rescue and gave me one of hers to use - it is the one in the centre of the pink flower. For the blue flower I just used a solid colour - purple - as I had no time to do another one.
I am going to spend some time and try to do one of the heart pillow beads that Iris showed us. I will post my finished result later.
Below are my flower canes on a sheet of clay (it was the remains of my Skinner Blend from Alison's class) which will be used to make the pillow bead.
The other session that day was "backfilling" with Sylvie Peraud. I made a complete mess of mine so there are no pictures to show but I am determined that I will attempt another one but this time will not be so ambitious and have less cut out sections than in my original.
Sylvie had some really beautiful pieces for us to look at but without permission I do not feel I can upload the photographs of her work.
Several people on the weekend had taken work in to sell and Sylvie had some absolutely gorgeous pieces with translucent backfilling - they were awesome!

All too soon another day was over and it was time to head back to our accommodation. We were too late for a meal as they stop serving at 6 pm on a Sunday so we had to head off in the village to find something to eat. One recommendation was an Indian Restaurant - wish I had taken my camera. The Restaurant was very minimal in decor but not so the food. When it arrived we all had our rice in different shapes (from moulds), mine being a cone shape, and the tomato had been peeled with the skin forming petals around the fruit. The spring onions had curly tops to them and the plate, as it arrived, was a delight to look at. The food itself was superb and it is somewhere I will definitely visit again.

A couple of glasses of vino and then back to the hotel for a much needed sleep. We were all excited as the next day was our session with Donna Kato - surprising we slept.

Day 1 in Nottingham

The first day in Nottingham began with registration. Luckily (for me) Helen, Irene and Jacqueline were all in Group A so with the addition of Ciska we had a ready made table.

First session was with Alison (UK) and she showed us how to do Mica Shift. I had some of my old cake icing cutters with me so I used those to cut out some shapes. The ones above show some of the shapes in closeup so that you can see the shifting pattern of the Mica.
These are the total number of shapes I cut. Despite looking as if they have raised areas the shapes are actually very flat. It is a shame that the photographs do not show up the actual Mica as it is lovely.
Alison had a lovely necklace on with different beads using the blue and green clay we were working with. Below are the "beehive" beads which I think look as if they have twisted rope around them. In the foreground are some small plain round beads but these look quite good when you see them because of the mica shift. The long looking fingernail is another bead which we were shown but there were lots of others which I did not get around to making but hopefully will do before too long.
After Alison's session we had lunch. I expected some sandwiches but no - we had lots of choices - salad, grated cheese, jacket potatoes (real - not microwaved), baked beans and chilli to choose from. Great ... but not if you were planning a meal at the Railway and Nelson later.

Then it was time for Natalia's session. Natalia works with nature and so she showed us how to make organic beads. Unfortunately I have no photographs of her finished work as I tried to make them too small and it did not work out - but watch this blog - I have one half completed and am determined to come to grips with at least one of the beads. I do have some other beads which I made in her class but until I get the others completed and made into a necklace I am not going to show them.

All too soon it was over. Time to pack up and make our way back to our various hotels. Ciska came back to ours and we all ate together, had a few drinks and a chat before wandering off to our respective bedrooms. A great day was had by all.

Fab Weekend! New Friends.

This is my "old" (as in known her for quite a while now) friend, Valerie and her husband Craig. It was through Valerie that I got to know about this event as she attended last year. I wasn't sure they were going to be there (emails got lost in cyberspace) so it was lovely to see them once more.
Well, I spent the weekend in Nottingham. Went on a weekend of learning all about Polymer Clay and had a fantastic time. The photograph above shows me with three of my new friends - Helen is missing as this photograph was taken on the last night at the Party and she had to miss it because of work the next day.
This is Ciska, from Holland - a talented young lady who makes and sells her jewellery in Rotterdam and also runs workshops teaching others. She was so chuffed with the "backfilling" technique taught by Sylvie that she had to hold it up on this photograph (and every other one LOL)
This is Jacqueline, also from Holland - Amsterdam this time. Jacqueline was staying at the same hotel as I was and so we got to know one another before we actually got to the course.
Helen, above, is from the UK - again she was staying in the same hotel so we met up at breakfast on the day the course started.
Last, but certainly not least, this is Irene. She was the first person I got to know at the hotel and she was our driver - taking us in each morning and back to our hotel each evening.

Each day we would leave our hotel, The Nelson and Railway, at around 8.30 am returning before 7.00 pm to have our evening meal. I can recommend this hotel (but not when I want to stay as I would hate to be disappointed and find it booked up) as the rooms were nice, the ambience was great and the food was delicious. Can heartily recommend the steak and ale pie with creamed potatoes. Makes my mouth water to think of it now.
You remember how pubs used to be? Well this fulfills the criteria - an excellent host, good bar staff, a good mix of people (very busy all the time), and the restaurant staff certainly know how to cook. Loved my bacon "sarnies" each morning Sally and your idea of a Continental breakfast was brilliant! To walk in and see the raspberries, strawberries, grapes, melon, apples, bananas, pears all set out with the yoghurts and cereals on one side was a treat to the eye. Didn't bother with the other side as the bacon was so good and I could not fit the croissants, meats and cheeses in as well.
The whole weekend was organised by Helen (not the one above) and boy oh boy can she organise an event. It was superb. There was so much care and so much detail put into it and with almost 60 participants, plus 6 tutors, it must have been hard work.
I'll write more about it another day but for now I will leave it there with just an introduction to the lovely friends I spent my time with.

Sunshine on a Cooler Day

Well, Bank Holiday is over and the weather has reverted to how it was prior to the weekend - it is cold and a bit on the dull side.  Thought I would brighten my blog with a picture of my favourite rhododendron.  We have two bushes which herald these gorgeous flower heads and my photograph does not do them justice.  They are the most beautiful ones I have seen.  Totally white with deep purple centres, each floret looked almost like an orchid.

This is a closeup of one of the heads.  Can you see why I think each floret is like an orchid?

Not being a day for sitting out in the garden, much as I like to look at the rhododendrons, I went to the podiatrist (he prefers the term chiropodist) so life is much better today.  

I finally finished off my other card with the alcohol ink image and here it is.
As it was a 'pinky' background that I had created with the inks, over stamped in black Archival ink and clear embossed I first mounted it on some silver cardstock which I had embossed with one of my Cuttlebug folders.  Then I mounted on some pink cardstock and finally on a brown background (which look dusky pink in the photograph).  I am hopeless at getting things centred and so for this one I decided to mount in one corner - this left a fairly wide gap and I used one of my Grungeboard flourishes, coloured with a black Dabber to tie in with the image).  

Hope you like it.

Messing About

The weather has been kinder over the Bank Holiday weekend and so Chas decided to do some much needed weeding in the front garden.  Because my feet were playing up (Podiatry tomorrow - yipee) I decided to attack the Utility Room.  This was really in order for me to hopefully make some more room in the cupboard (overspill from my stamp room) for the clay work materials I seem to be accumulating.

The weeding carried over to today and so, once again in order not to feel too guilty, I began cleaning out the two tall glass cupboards in the kitchen.  Because most of the glasses in those two cupboards are either 'delicate' or 'crystal' I had to do handwashing.  It took ages.

By mid afternoon we had both had enough, Chas relaxing with the football and me disappearing into my stamp room.

In an attempt to find my mojo I began with a simple card using a Magnolia image and came up with this.  Not finished as it has to have some flowers on to create a bit of interest in the top left hand corner (forgot - should have done this before I began my blog).

The other day I had been playing with Alcohol Inks in an attempt to make a birthday card for a friend on one of the card making groups.  This was what I came up with.  It uses a stamp from Crafty Individuals for the main image.  There is a pale blue ribbon down the right hand side (hardly shows) and I used one of the bird charms my friend, Jo, gave me which I have coloured blue with Alcohol Inks.  As per usual it did not get posted so I have had to apologise and it is now in the post for her.

This is a card I made for another friend, using the images which I bought at the Harrogate show.  This one is for overseas so it must go in the post tomorrow.

My final card is using a Lost Coast image which I have had for simply ages and hardly used (must get these out more as I do like them) of the Oracle of the Seven Enigmas.  I then used a piece of torn cardstock and used a Paper Artsy stamp for down the side.  The colour does not show up that well as it is quite a bright card - if anyone gets it they are going to gasp at the bright colour of the final mount card.
My back and neck are aching like crazy so I will leave it there - would have loved to get my final Alcohol Ink card uploaded but I could not sit any longer to complete it.  Maybe I can sit and think what to do with the image and come up with something great - don't hold your breath.

Busy Busy Busy

Today I have been busy making clay beads for a swap I am doing next week so I have not been doing anything else as they have taken me simply ages.  They are only simple beads (all 62 of them) but are more of a "focal" bead than anything and I am sorely tempted to make some more and use them with some smaller bicones (using my bead roller) to make into a necklace.  In fact I think they might be something I will teach at my next clay workshop.

In the meantime I thought I would upload my box I made a short while ago which initially was a box containing miniature perfumes.

First of all I painted it with Lumieres and then I used some utee for the coloured patterned parts on the box which were stamped into whilst still hot.  

It has two glass slides, the left one showing my mum (the youngest one on the right) with her older sister Caroline, the centre one is a studio photograph she must have once had taken and the round watch case contains a photograph of her when she was at her sister, Ruth's, wedding. Love the hat!

I used some flower heads I had and a piece of wire with gemstones attached to create some interest and then cut the letters out to spell "mum" with a Spellbinders' die.

Hope you like it - why not do something similar with an old box you have?

Thinking about it, I have a lovely photograph of 'fil' sitting on his mother's knee - I love that photograph as I think she is such a beautiful woman.  I have used it on a canvas but I am sure I could do something else with it - hmm ... now what can I use it on next?

(Please note all photographs are copies, not the actual ones)

Demo'ing Nestabilities Again

I was asked to demonstrate Nestabilities again by another vendor so last Sunday saw me heading off to yet another show.  I really enjoyed myself using them again and the show was in a lovely venue, with lots of open space, a demo area (where I was) with seating for the visitors and a huge eating area by the refreshments.  I hope this show goes from strength to strength.

I used the round and the rectangle Nestabilities (plain and scalloped) to produce a 'place card' which would be suitable for a wedding.  The cardstock I used was cream (embossed with a Cuttlebug folder) and the surround was gold although it does not show up in the photograph below.  A very simple but elegant idea which anyone can use and it is so quick to do - would be good for a wedding.

I am only showing one card (there are so many) and the one below uses the plain and scalloped square and the plain and scalloped circle Nestabilities.  The triangular pieces are simply the square ones cut from corner to corner.
The pansies are also using Spellbilnder's dies but without permission from Jeanette Stumpfell, who perfected them, I will not tell you how they were done.  Sorry - and they are so realistic looking.
The last item I have to show you is a little box (Paddy calls me her "paper engineer") which uses the plain heart and the scalloped squares with the small circle cutter making a tiny hole in the box part which has a piece of acetate behnd it and when open has also got a scalloped square to cover the acetate edges.
This could be used to house some tiny sweets or even an expensive piece of jewellery.  My friend, Paul (theartsiders.blogspot.com) was quite taken by it and said he is going to copy the idea.  It is so easy to place the aperture where you want it with Nestabilities.
I will leave it there for today as I have lots of beads to make for a "swap" I am taking part in so it is off to the polymer clay again - hope I don't get side-tracked when I get the clay out as so often happens.  Think I am becoming a clay addict once more.