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Showing posts from February, 2013

Unexpected pleasures - contemporary jewellery exhibition

It's been on my list to go to the Unexpected Pleasures exhibition at the Design Museum , London for a while and I finally went this week (it's final week!). I got the train into London and walked across Tower Bridge to the south side of the river which is something I rarely do and enjoyed (although the wind was a little bracing!). The exhibition was very interesting, prompting lots of thoughts and inspirations to run through my head and some scratching away in my notebook. I plan to give some time to the ideas that germinated while I was there. I've created a pinterest board of pieces I found particularly interesting so do have a look at the photos there.

Motivation Monday - defy expectations

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A busy week of baking!

Last week was rather a busy week of baking for me! I had promised to bake some cupcakes for my colleagues for my leaving do from my work at a university. It was perhaps a rash promise as it was a very busy week for me with some evening teaching as well as daytime teaching to fit into my already full time job! But I did manage to keep my promise. As I live quite a trek away from the university I had the brainwave to bake the cakes at home and ice them in the office at work! There was only need for a bowl and a whisk, no heating was necessary so I thought it would be a good idea. And it was. Except that the office did end up covered in a haze of icing sugar! I cleaned up as best I could but I suspect there may be sticky surfaces for a few weeks to come. Something for them to remember me by though! I had also promised to bake a chocolate cake for my friend Claire's baby shower. I decided to use the same butter icing recipe that I use for my cupcakes. I hadn't done that befor

Motivation Monday: stop the glorification of busy

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Baby it's cold outside - handmade draught excluders - part 2!

It's still rather cold outside and we've had snow here this week so I thought I would update you on my home crafting to attractively insulate my home! I wrote about my plans for this here . There has finally been enough light for photographing my hand knitted draft excluders! I ended up knitting two, one for the front door and one for the back door. I used this free pattern as a basis for my draught excluders and knitted the green one first. I didn't make it stripey (as in the pattern) so it was just a plain stocking stitch all the way along - a little boring but very therapeutic! I used this clover pom pom maker to make the little pom poms at the end. I had persevered with the old method of making cardboard circles but these clover pom pom makers are so much quicker! I used toy stuffing to stuff them with. I had tried to stuff them with old tights but they looked really lumpy so I want back to the drawing board!  The navy draught excluder started off wi

Motivation Monday: don't forget to make a life

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Metal clay masterclasses in the UK for 2013

Wow! There are so many excellent silver clay and jewellery making masterclasses being run in the UK this year! Here are the ones that I have found. Please do add a comment below if there are any that I have forgotten. It's definitely worth regularly checking the Metal Clay Academy events page as this is a great source of information for all things metal clay. Lisa Barth Copyright Lisa Barth Lisa Barth is visiting Tracy Spurgin's excellent workshop, Craftworx in Yorkshire. I spent three blissful days there last year at Terry Kovalcik 's masterclass. Lisa Barth will be doing two masterclasses Leather cuff 3rd-4th April Designing from the stone 5th-7th April Anna Mazon Copyright Anna Mazon Anna Mazon is visiting Lynne Glazzard this year. Herbarium open pendant 11th-12th May Patrik Kusek Copyright Patrik Kusek Patrik Kusek is visiting the Mid Cornwall School of Jewellery and teaching a number of masterclasses as well as the Rio Rewards cert

Motivation Monday: trust your hunches

From Joyful Chaos