Craft Fair Tuesday 17th July at Appledore

Just to let you know I am at a Craft Fair tomorrow trying to sell my craft stuff.  Fingers crossed that if its rainy again that people will pop in and bring some money to spend too.  There are always a good range of top quality craft stalls.

Someone asked for a Teddy bear last time so I have made one so hopefully they like that and it sells.  :)


Thanks for looking.  Susan xx

Layout using Heidi Swapps papers and file.

Hi I bought some Heidi Swapp colour magic paper and files quite a while ago and now am ready to make something from them.  I can't keep them just to look at can I?  Well taking on board Heidi's style I made a file of a visit to 2010 to the Liverpool Art Biennial with my Ceramics class.

First off using my Color Box classic pigment cats eyes ink pads I coloured the file folder and pages to co-ordinate, which was great fun, I used bright colours.









Then I cut up a paper bag that I had with my purchases from Tate, Liverpool and used it as a double page, and an acetate page which is always handy if you dont want to lose the details of leaflets and means you can stick them in and see both sides.

I folded a scrapbook page protector up so that one side was roughly A4, and used a couple of the colour magic pages folded up differently so they indented down and sewed them all together.  I have Heidi to thank for getting me to use my sewing machine which was bought so that my Mum could make or mend stuff when ever she visited me.  LOL.  I've had it over 10 years so its probably about time I used it for myself.  Just dont tell Mum I am using it for paper.

I made a photo stack as we haven't got the real ones over here yet and put photos and postcards in of the places we visited and art work we saw.  I tucked tickets for the Tate exhibition and The Beatles story Museum in the smaller part of the page protector and in the bigger side I put a map and Itinerary of our weekend.  I even stapled the serviette from the Restaurant where we had our group meal.

I managed to get loads of leaflets and the programme of the Event on other pages along with more photo's, about 10.
I  put the bag from The Beatles Story Museum in as well.





We spent the night before boogieing to the Faux Beatles in the new Cavern club.  Good times!!  It is a good replica of what the club looked like.

Thing with me is I dont throw away anything and this is perfect way to get everything in a file together instead of bits here there and every where.  This is a substantial file but it easily just folds up and fits into my file storage box.  I also love that it is an A4 size and so its easier to keep on a shelf somewhere.  All in all a great reminder of a lovely trip.   Thanks for looking and I really appreciate your comments.  xx

RAKU Firing Day

My tutor from College invited my Ceramics group and I to a Raku Firing day.
Its a different way of firing pots once they have had their first firing.  You put on the special RAKU glaze and then they go in the Raku kiln and it only takes a couple of hours at the most to get it up to the right temperature when the glaze is glossy.  Then  they are taken out while still hot and put into a tub of wood chippings with a lid over them to starve them of oxygen.  This brings about some gorgous changes to the glaze depending which one was put on.  I came away with lovely turquiose blue and copper colour pots and one with white on it.  They all have the lovely crazed texture too.

We had a lovely day and were well looked after with tea and cake, thanks to Dave and his lovely Wife Alice and Debbie who bought a cake in to share too.

Hopefully we can go on his Kiln building course soon and then will have my own kiln to experiment with.

Unfortunately the leaf broke on the way home but it still looks gorgeous stuck back together with glue.

It is a most exciting process to see the pots changing colour before your very eyes.

This is Dave's Raku Kiln and he does workshops to make Raku Kilns from wire mesh and a special fibre.  http://welcombepottery.wordpress.com/courses/    A really fabulous day.  Thanks for looking.  XX