Half Term

It has been half-term this week so we've been enjoying some time together and some time off from the usual routines.  Early morning rushes and daily spelling practice have been replaced with leisurely colouring sessions, playing games and watching DVDs (favourites at the moment are Robin Hood and Tangled).





I did have to work on Monday and Tuesday, and I have had to check in most days to make sure everything is ok as it's just so busy at the moment.  I find it hard to be everything at the same time - employee, mother, housekeeper, all-round entertainer and provider of boredom-busting activities.  It's kind of exhausting.



But I am happy to be with my two girls every day, and I love being at home and being able to potter about tidying drawers here and there, playing Guess Who, arranging books on shelves, grabbing a bit of time to crochet here and there.



Lillia is very much into zoobles at the moment so we've played quite a few games with those.



And Phoebe is into breaking and entering - getting into the cupboards she shouldn't, removing felt-tips she shouldn't, grabbing TV remotes, opening drawers.  So meal times, when she is safely contained in her booster seat, provide five minutes of welcome (if messy) peace!



Lillia is more into "arts and crafts" as she calls it.  So we have been recreating the "puzzle pizza" she saw on Art Attack...



Lots of games, lots of time together, lots of mess.  But happy days.



Back to school on Monday and peace will reign again, at least between 9 and 3 :)

Silver Clay Workshop

I just posted this over on my other blog, but I thought readers of this blog would be pretty interested too...enjoy!


I recently treated myself to an early Christmas present - a silver clay workshop! I have played with silver clay before but quickly learned that it is not the same beast as the air-drying clay I am so used to working with. So I figured a workshop with someone who really knew what they were talking about would help. I found Charm School in Beckenham through a google search and booked myself onto the one day "Fingerprints in Silver Clay course".

I arrived just before 10 on a very autumnal day and found myself on a pretty South London street. Gill runs the workshops from her converted garage, a lovely little space filled with all the tools and materials necessary to create silver clay jewellery.


My workspace



After a cup of tea and a chat we got started. I was very excited! Yes, I am a geek. Gill explained the different types of silver clay, such as slow dry, paste, syringe etc. and the different types of tools we would be using. Then we got started on our first piece - a charm with a fingerprint on it.

Fingerprint charm drying

It became apparent to me very quickly that what I had been doing when I previously used silver clay had been waaaaay off the mark. I had been getting myself into a real pickle by using too much water and handling the clay way too much. When I make my air-dry clay creations I tend to make it up as I go along - add bits here and there, change things, work with it as I go along. But with silver clay a little planning is necessary - it dries out pretty quickly so you need to have a clear plan of what you are going to do before you start.

Whilst our fingerprint charms were drying we moved on to create a charm with a stone set into it. This wasn't something I had given much thought to before the course but I think it was my favourite! I loved picking a stone and setting it straight, cleaning it up and putting the whole thing together.

Stone-set pendant drying, before cleaning and finishing

Although it is technically possible to fire a charm set with stone on a hob it's probably not the best idea, fortunately Gill has a proper grown up kiln :) Can you see my little charm firing away?

The kiln takes about 30 minutes, so in the meantime we fired our fingerprint charms on the hob...

Whilst the charms were firing I had a little clay left in my packet to play with, so I made little charms for my girls. A 'L' for Lillia, and a 'P' for Phoebe, plus a tiny little textured heart to go with each. We then fired these on the hob too.  In this picture you can actually see the binder burning off in a little plume of smoke...

 

And the rewards for my efforts?  Four solid silver charms (well, six if you count the fact I made two mini hearts too)!

 

And I still had a little blob of clay left in my 7g packet! Not bad for a few hours work and one small packet of silver clay.

I was really pleased with my creations and thought the whole day was brilliant and really good value for money.  I was especially pleased with my stone set charm, especially as in the weeks following I had loads of comments on it and I enjoyed being able to casually say, "Oh this? Yah, I made it..." Hee!

I have a head full of ideas now, I can't wait to try them out!  Whether or not I shall sell any silver clay creations I don't know yet, jewellery is a competitive and saturated market and I am not sure yet if I want to join in.  I would very much like to develop my silver "Pow" charm that's for sure...so watch this space!

Halloween and Disney

It's been a busy fortnight here.  My little shop gets more busy at this time of year so I am trying to make time to make lots of Christmassy stock, and of course I have my office-monkey job to do too.  So there has been a lot of hours divided between sculpting clay and editing spreadsheets, lots of mugs of tea are being drunk around here lately.

And last week, half term, we popped over to Paris for 3 days (as you do) to take Lillia to Disneyland! 

My lovely Dad and step-mum treated us all to two nights in a hotel and a trip to Disneyland Paris, Lillia was delighted.  Hubby rather enjoyed himself too...

When we returned it was time for all the festivities of Halloween and all the fun of Pumpkin carving...

Of course I couldn't let the innards go to waste (they has been bought from the local farm where they were grown) so pumpkin muffins were made...but they were disasterous.  So we made pumpkin and bacon soup using this recipe from the Asda magazine and that was delightful :)

But all this fun seems a long time ago...at this present moment though both my girls are sick, they have temperatures and Phoebe has been throwing up pretty much everywhere, so it's only a matter of time before the rest of us start....might be quite handy in my case, what with the 7lb weight gain thanks to the steroids I am on, a good dose of a sicky-bug might help..

I am kidding of course.  Health-wise I am doing better.  I have a way to go and the next three weeks or so are pretty crucial as I come off the steroids and see what the new drug can do on its own.  Time will tell, for now though I am pretty much symptom free, which is a welcome relief indeed.

There has been making going on, and patterns being written up for you, but these shall have to wait...for now I am getting the tissues ready and preparing the calpol ready for a rough night ahead.

Please use the antibacterial hand rub on your way out...

My little secret

I mentioned yesterday a crafty reveal today.  Well, I have a small confession to make.  I have been unfaithful to this blog, gasp!

Yes my friends I am afraid it's true.  I have been sneaking around behind this blog's back, abandoning the clean and crisp world of sewing, the soft and gentle world of crochet, to get my hands really rather dirty...

But don't worry it's not that bad :)

I have always been into clay modelling, near enough my whole life.  It is something that is pretty second nature to me, and something that I never considered anybody else might be interested in, so I never really wrote about it here.  Recently, as I started to make some clay Christmas gifts, I thought I ought to share my creations here on my blog.  But somehow it didn't seem quite right, the clay side of my creativity seems seperate somehow.  I know what I am doing with clay, whereas with sewing and crochet and mosaics and baking I am just winging it most of the time, getting tangled up with zips and confused by patterns and hook sizes.

Sooo, I started a new blog for the messier side of my creative life.  And...I also created a new shop.  Yup, after long considering the possibility of opening an Etsy or Folksy shop to sell my sewing creations, after umming and aahing and will I won't I..ing, I completely ignored myself, dived full on into my clay and opened a shop selling my muddier creations instead!  You can now find my clay orientated self over on Etsy and also on Folksy.

So, would you like to see some of my clay creations?

I have some spooky things...

And some festive things (look away now if it's too early in the year for the "c" word...)

There are many more creations under way of course so, really, do watch this space..or rather my other space over at MudMeddling.

The cleaner cuddlier crafts will of course continue as ever here on Snipsnaphappy.

:)

Transitions

Oooops! Where did that last week and a half go?  As you can imagine life is somewhat hectic with antenatal appointments coming out of my ears, along with trips to gastroenteology thanks to the ol' ulcerative colitis playing up again. And most of all my darling girl is all grown up and will be starting school next week! So suddenly I find myself knee deep in polo shirts and pinafores, sewing name tags and packing plimsols.

At the same time we are unpacking bags of tiny pink things - little hats, sleep suits and outfits tiny enough to fit Lillia's dolls - and clearing drawers to put them in once they have been carefully sorted, washed and folded. It feels like I am on a continual conveyor belt of clothes organising.  But it's not a bad thing, it feels good :)

The crochet has been slowed down somewhat by all this activity and anticipation but I have still managed a respectable amount of chunky soft granny squares to go towards my Li'l Monkey blanket...

And there has been other crafting going on to, oh yes!  I did mention it fleetingly on twitter recently, but if you are not inclined to tweet, or if you missed it, just check back here tomorrow when all will be revealed!

:)