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Workshops at the Make Lounge, London

This week I have enjoyed two workshops at The Make Lounge. My friend Farzana and I had booked onto the cake decorating workshop a couple of months ago but then I saw the new paper cutting art workshop and knew I had to give it a go. It happened to be the day after the cake decorating but I couldn't go to the later dates that were scheduled so I just went for it!

Cupcake decorating

Photo by Gary Ullah photography
The cupcake decorating was taught by Louise Hill of Love to Cake. Vanilla and chocolate cakes were pre-made, as was the butter cream icing. Louise went through her top tips for making cakes and icing first and then we got to work colouring the icing. We learnt how to ice using at least five different techniques, how to make marzipan shapes and roses, using different coloured icing and edible glitter. It was a really fun workshop and I feel I could confidently do it again at home. Louise is an excellent and engaging teacher. I thoroughly recommend this workshop to everyone.
More of my cake pics below this post!


Paper cutting art

Original photo on Suzy's blog
The paper cutting workshop was run by Suzy Taylor. I really wanted to do it because I am interested in seeing whether I can use the method to make recesses in silver clay in which to enamel. From attending the course I think it is do-able and I'm looking forward to giving it a go.

Suzy started by talking about the history of paper cutting and its uses to create silhouettes. Recently it has had a revival with the work of Rob Ryan in the UK. My personal favourite is Nikki McClure

We then had a chance to look at some books for inspiration and started sketching. To start with I decided to use one of Suzy's templates. This was to give me a feel of the type of image that you could do. The image above is one that I cut out from one of Suzy's designs.

I also tried my own design. I kind of made this up as I went along but I do like it. It's not very intricate but I think you can see that it's meant to be an owl!
I enjoyed the class and it has inspired me to create some cut out effects with enamelling. Watch this space!






More cake photos taken by Gary Ullah photography





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