Sunday 25 September 2011

Blog giveaway

I've just found some great enamel earrings by Lesley The Gossiping Goddess and she is doing a blog giveaway to win a pair.

Visit her blog here: http://thegossipinggoddess.blogspot.com/2011/09/goddess-giveaway-pick-colour-any-colour.html?

Sunday 4 September 2011

My bead journey

It all started when a friend introduced me to ceramics classes at The Old Post Office in the village of Nettlestone on the Isle of Wight where I live. Jane, the lovely lady who owns the shop makes lots of lovely handmade gifts. Unfortunately they are not available for sale online at the moment so you will just have to pay her shop a visit when you come and visit the Island.
 
The Old Post Office
Lots of lovely handmade items
As well as making most of the items you can see in the pictures above, she runs ceramics classes. You can choose an item of bisque (pottery that has been fired but not yet glazed) which you can paint anyway you like. She has lots of shapes including teapots, moneyboxes and mugs. Great for the kids! I chose to make some of my own ceramic beads.

One Saturday afternoon I spent time making beads from raw clay. There is something therapeutic about rolling the clay around in your hands. You can make any shape you like, I mostly stuck to round ones. During the week Jane fires the beads ready for the next Saturday when I could return to paint them.

She has some lovely glazes. As well as plain colours, she has glazes with crystals added to them which bloom into bursts of colour during firing. You are never quite sure how they are going to turn out so it was a  lovely surprise when I turned up to collect my beads the following week.

These are three of my favourite glazes:

Pistachio                           Firecracker                        Mystic Jade
Here is a picture of some beads I made at ceramic class. Aren't they beautiful!

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