Uncategorized

Sue and Sheila joined me on Wednesday for their first enamelling class, a great way to spend a day, particularly in light of that http://laparkan.com/buy-tadalafil/ day’s politics. We tried out various techniques including swirling. I think the ladies did a great job of fusing glass to metal, don’t you?

I was lucky enough to meet the Crafty Sew and Sews of Writtle in May when I first introduced them to Encaustic art, they had so much fun that they invited me back… this time I introduced a Christmassy theme. Encaustic art is so quick http://laparkan.com/buy-sildenafil/ that it is perfect for painting Christmas cards, as you can get a lot done in a relatively short amount of time, plus the cards are always eyecatching! Thanks for another lovely evening ladies…shame about the tea though! 😉

Last Wednesday saw me teaching another Tony Encaustic Art. Tony had played around with Encaustic art (the art of painting with Molten wax) several years ago but now into his retirement, his wife had booked him a class as a hint, I think, to get going http://www.mindanews.com/buy-celexa/ again. We covered all the main techniques and Tony is well on his way to creating his Encaustic masterpieces!

Yesterday saw the arrival of Julia and Sallie for their silver clay ring making class. We experimented with various play dough prototypes before moving on to using the clay, magical stuff that moulds like clay but once fired when the binder has burned off you are left http://www.health-canada-pharmacy.com/celexa.html with pure silver. Both ladies made beautiful ‘on trend’ pure silver rings and even had a little bit of silver clay left over to make a small charm each. Wear with pride ladies, you did a smashing job.

Time to catch up with some craft classes blog posts! A couple of weeks ago Cassie and Lorretta joined me for some feltmaking, Cassie had a voucher for Christmas and had finally had the time to be able to use it. We explored both needle felting and wet felting techniques. Cassie’s felted bag/kindle http://nygoodhealth.com/product/keflex/ cover is beautiful and Lorretta’s hat – made with wet felt and then needlefelted together – looks very quirky…just the thing for a murder mystery weekend!  I always love to take pictures of colourful felt on the washing line – it beats the usual washing chaos!

Over the past 15 years, I have built my craft business (Curly Girly Crafts); specialising in teaching but also selling unique handcrafted jewellery and cards and doing craft parties for children and adults. I have sold my work in various shops and craft fairs but have taken a step back from that as several of the shops were not managed very well and I didn’t have the time to put into selling. The opportunity to have a collection at Thames Chase Forest Centre came up just at the time I had decided to put more items on my Etsy shop and try to build some awareness for what I make as well as what I teach, so now there are 2 places to buy handcrafted jewellery and gifts from me!
My ethos has always http://www.besttramadolonlinestore.com been to make as much as I can from scratch, I’m not one of these people who will take a beading class and then just make what I learnt in different colours or with slight variation where’s the originality in that? I like to make things hard for myself and therefore more unique. I make my own glass beads, I make my silver elements and I enamel my copper pieces. I also make felt from which I make items such as brooches, bags and decorations, and I paint with an iron and other heated tools to create my own cards and paintings.
If you want to take a look at my collection at Thames Chase Forest Centre – here are details of the venue.
My etsy shop: CurlyGirlyCraftsUK

In dramatic news….I have taken the week off and have tried to be strict with myself about getting my Etsy shop stocked up! You really don’t realise how long all the finishing products, weighing, measuring, writing descriptions, taking photos and then updating info can take but finally I have 10 handcrafted items online and will now be repeating the process http://www.honeytraveler.com/buy-deltasone/ with more items. I might take a little break to make some more glass beads first, or perhaps do a little enamelling.

Christmas is coming (14 Mondays left apparently) and I want to be at least a little organised this year for selling! Here’s the Etsy shop link by the way: CurlyGirlyCraftsUK

As our summer adventures draw to a close, it is time for me to start thinking about getting back into my workshop…it has been a while! I am hoping to work on my fish bead class (a student request) plus I still have several metal working tools to actually try out, to make my enamelling more unique. I’ve booked a week’s leave from the gardening project I work on to actually finish off lots of jewellery for my Etsy shop, plus I have several classes coming up in September. In other words my adventures with the children during the summer get swapped for creative adventures in my workshop during term time. If only I could do both at the same time!