Well, as promised, the next 10 canes/veneers, and....................I've finished the gecko!

I decided that if I was going to wait until I'd done all 100 canes and vaneers, the gecko would be finished in 2021, and with 20 done, I had more than enough to complete her. I'll go through the next 10 canes/vaneers first, then explain the steps to finishing the gecko. I can't keep calling her 'the gecko'. I love my gecko, I've sweated and sworn over her, so she needs a name...........
Quick aside, I've just looked on google for some ideas, and up pops 'adorable girl names ending with o'.......does that mean that there's a site for 'non-adorable, awful, or dated' girls names! Just saying.
Anyway, I liked Bobetto. So, Bobetto the gecko it is.

These are the next ten, the first four being vaneers and the rest, canes. I won't go through every one, but will just say that number 16 was inspired from the amazing building Jon Stuart Anderson recommended I look at (Carson Pirie Scott building in Chigago), and number 17 was inspired by the horsebox photo I took at the carriage driving event, shown in the last blog post. Talking about carriage driving (as I do a lot), I don't know if many people know that this has been my hobby/passion for the past 40 years. My father and I have driven a team of four ponies every Summer since about 1980. We used to share the driving, he'd drive one event and I'd be navigator, and we'd switch at the next one, but at the age of 75 he gave up and I've done the driving ever since, with dad on the back of the carriage as navigator. Anyway, this year I had the back operation, so couldn't drive. Dad, being dad, decided that he would drive, just a pair (2 ponies), but still, at the age of 85 this is quite an undertaking. The event lasts three days, with dressage on one day, a long marathon on the second, and an obstacle/cones course on the third. To say I'm impressed with him is an understatement, he drove brilliantly, and my sister, nephew and friend did all the hard work while I swanned around giving orders. Here are s few photos, then I'll get back to clay, honest!

I love the photo of Zebedee, being attended to by three humans after he'd finished the marathon....... our ponies are well looked after!

This is the vaneer I'm most pleased with. I started with four colours, made into Skinner blends, with the light in the middle, and very narrow. i then cut pieces off each of the blends and assembled them as shown, making sure the light part of each piece matched up with the next piece.

I then cut the sides into a wavy pattern with varying widths, and finally edged it with a very thin strip of white then black. Here is it on Bobetto. You can't see much of it, it's at the front under the black and white spots, but when I make something else, I think I'll make it the centre part as I wish I'd used it in a more prominent place - but I'd covered it in foil and forgotten about it - oops.

Number 12 was a bit of an experiment, and could be improved upon I feel. I basically cut circles of two different colours, cut them into quarters, and assembled as shown in the photo on the left below.

Finally I'm going to show you a few photos of the sun and moon circle I made. I've seen other people make incredible canes of these, but I only wanted one slice, so thought I could do a better job making just the one vaneer rather than a cane. I started by making the design, and not worrying too much about the detail, which I was going to add in later. At first it didn't look much.

As you can see, I have the basic design, the shape of the moon, but there's no definition. I outlined the moon, and then outside, with black and white clay, which in hindsight was not a good idea as it broke, become messy, and I'd have been better back filling later. 
Backfilling means making lines and indentations in the clay when it's raw, curing it (cooking it) and then filling the lines in with clay and curing again. So, we have a sun and moon design which I'm fairly pleased with, but can see a lot of room for improvement. 

So, I put it on the gecko, then made the marks round the moon, a few dots, and also put in the moon's face. Once cured I backfilled with black and the whole thing became alive. However, I really didn't like the outside edge, so made a blend of yellow, orange and red, rolled it very thin and cut out circles of clay which I put round the edge - hiding the horrible bits! I'm actually very happy with it, and as all things, it's a learning curve, I'll know how to improve it next time.

I'm going to end with a few photos of Bobetta in progress, and some final photos of her finished. I've already started another project, which I'm thoroughly enjoying, and will share with you in the next blog. I'll also do the next 10 canes/vaneers for that, so, hope you enjoy looking at the birth of Bobetta.

It's going slowly, but it's going. I've seen on facebook several people doing '100 day challenges' relating to clay. One person made a clay bowl every day for 100 days, another did little squares of various surface techniques. So, not to be outdone, I'm also going to do one, but slightly differently. Instead of putting myself under the pressure of doing something every day for 100 days, (slightly unrealistic given that I'm still recovering from surgery, and once I've recovered I work full time), I'm going to do 100 canes and vaneers, mostly canes. This feels far more achievable, and still a challenge. I've done the first 10, and will aim to write a blog every time I've done another ten. 
So, here goes the first 10.
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​Cane three is a flower cane incorporating both the leaf cane and the petal cane. I've decided to make 1" squares of all the canes, so when I've finished I'll have a nice record of the canes made in the challenge.

This one I got from a quilt design. I have had a lot of time to nose around Pinterest, and find inspiration for canes, and quilter boards are a brilliant source for cane ideas. I love the way this simple square cane can make a 3D effect. These canes are very roughly put together, when I use them to cover the gecko I shall take more care! But at the moment I'm just creating them.

Cane number 5 was designed to make a sort of feather effect once several slices were put together. I've overlapped them in the 1" square, but on the gecko I shall cut them to shape to make them lie flat. However, this is one I think I'll be making again for a chicken!

This one is designed to make a longer strip, perhaps to separate larger blocks of canes. I'm annoyed that the edges of the straight parts seem to bend at each end, but will probably be able to cut those parts off!
Six canes down, four to go.

I found this diagram somewhere on the Internet and thought it would make a great cane. 
I'm sure if I spent more time on it, it would, but I rushed it, and although I can use the cane, it didn't exactly work out as planned. 
The trouble for me at the moment is that I have a limited time I can sit at the clay table, and I'm sooooo wanting to make the canes, that I'm rushing them, hence the complicated ones not working out.
I'll have another go at this one before the next blog and see if I can get it right. I think if I can do it, it will be a great border cane. Below is attempt number one. Please ignore the incredibly grubby look of the cane!

This one was just a bit of fun. After the complicated one not working out as planned, I thought I'd just make a pretty right-angled triangle with blends I had left over, and double it up to make a square (the cane in the middle). The two squares either side of the small cane is how it turns out when several slices are put together. I was really happy with this one, which took about a tenth of the time of the previous one!

Cane number 9 is a little fish.
Once again, it's looking very grubby, but you can see the effect.
Doesn't help that I have three cats who think the clay table is where they come for fuss!
This again will be a border cane, but I was quite happy with how it came out.

...This last cane I have mixed feelings about. It's another one that is rather complicated, and has huge potential, but I just didn't take enough time over it. However, I quite often make canes quickly, and then decide whether I'm going to do them again and spend more time on them, and I'm definitely going to re-do this one, keeping the same colours. So, next blog this one will be returning, hopefully better. 

I saw a horsebox today, and thought "that bottom swirl would make a nice cane".................
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.On a final note, the gecko body has been make, awaiting it's cane and vaneer covering. I think I'll cover it with clay and cure it before adding the cane slices onto the cured clay. Here is Gertie the gecko, waiting for her coloured coat. I've just noticed that one of the cats was about to get in on the photo! See you soon for the next stage of operation gecko.

As you can see, I'm not the English expert in my family! 
First I want to show you what I've recently made. I've been working on something that's taken a lot of time, but that has to remain undercover for now. I've made a wonderful discovery: my spice jars are the perfect size to cover in clay, they are large enough to get lots of designs on, but not too large that you start to lose the will to live before finishing it. I use a lot of spices, so have quite a few little jars - happy days - I decided to cover mine in mushrooms.
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So, why frustrated? Last week I had a back operation, been needing it for the past year and it was postponed due to covid, so it's now finally done. 
Great, fantastic, really pleased about it............but I can't do anything!!! For those who know me will realise that I'm not a patient, calm, relaxed person at the best of times, and having to do nothing active all day is, shall we say, challenging. However, I'm an Occupational Therapist, and believe that if you want to do something you have to adapt certain things (in my case my expectations probably!) in order to make it more achievable.
So, realistically I can do very little claying. My sitting tolerance is 5 minutes, then I have to lie down or sit reclined. That's okay, it's not the end of the world; my lovely friend Lesley has taught me to be grateful for what I have, and I have a lot, just not clay at the moment.
So, back to adaptation. I have another friend (believe it or not, for a perfectionist, intolerant, obsessive, I have the most amazing friends) called Aoife. She's someone I strive to be more like, she's had a lot of operations (not striving for that part!) and always remains optimistic and cheerful, and is a talented clayer to boot. Anyway, I'm rambling, she suggested I put my pasta machine with the motor somewhere where I can use it standing. This means that I can now sit for 5 minutes at the clay table, then stand for about 2 minutes using the pasta machine. Rome isn't exactly going to built this way, but it's a start.
But there's more to claying than actually working the clay. For me, designing things is a part that I love, so I've been busy in my recliner chair thinking about a project I can work towards, one that will need a bit of planning.  A gecko - just what our house needs,  nice large gecko covered in polymer clay canes on the wall.
I'm totally inspired by a polymer clay artist called Jon Stewart Anderson. These are a couple of his sculptures.

His canework is incredible, like lots of little masterpieces all put together to make a sculpture. I've had a bit of time to really look at his work recently, and it was Jon's work that inspired me to plan my Gecko. However, I didn't want to copy any of his canes, so have spent literally hours on Pinterest looking for inspiration for canes, especially decorated tiles, Aztec designs, patchwork and doodle art. Jon gets a lot of inspiration for his canes from architectural ornamentation and suggested that I look at the Carson Pirrie Scott building in Chicago. 
This building is INCREDIBLE! These are a couple of photos that show the intricate architecture.

I decided to make an A4 size page into squares, and fill them all with cane ideas, and a few vaneers. I've done 70, and have decided to attempt to try and make them all. I do like a project!
The top picture is of all 70, and the picture underneath are some that were inspired by the Carson Pirrie Scott building.

So, after designing all these canes, I need a colour palette, and some clay blends.
Friend number three in this blog is Donna Baratta; she's a friend I met in France at a clay workshop run by Doreen Gaye Kassell, and someone who distance is no barrier to friendship. Two years ago she visited me for a week, and last year I visited her. This year understandably we haven't seen each other, but still chat a lot via messenger. When she visited we decided to make a colour palette each of 7 colours, and use them to make canes with over the week. 7 may be my lucky number, but we got just a little over zealous in our colour making! I don't know how many we ended up with, it was considerable, and the collection keeps growing. These little recipes of colour blends are now in little discs in coin collector plastic sheets, and I spent a very happy hour or two picking out all the colours I most liked from some wall tiles on my Pinterest board. Being somewhat colour blind I'm never sure what goes with what, but Iain looked at them and said they were all fine, all very autumnal, and I realised that those are the colours I'm most drawn to. Here they are:

Next job is to get the clay together and make the blends. Ah, that involves getting up, so what you can see in the next photograph is a whole day of clay activity for me!!!!

On the back of each disc is the colour recipe, and I always make it into 8ths. I originally used fractions, but it started getting difficult when the recipe had 32ths, 16ths and quarters all in the same blend. So when making up the blend, roll the clay out on the thickest setting of the pasta machine, and use a cutter (size depends on how much of the blend you want), and cut out the numbers of circles in the recipe. Below is the recipe for reed.

I also have a table of all the colours and their recipes incase I lose the disc or can't read what's on teh back.
Getting back to the Occupational Therapy part, I'm always trying to stress the importance of not taking on everything yourself, delegating tasks where possible, and not feeling a failure if you can't save the world all by yourself. So, practicing what I preach, friend number 4, Linda, is kindly coming round to roll the clay flat in the pasta machine, give to me to cut out the circles from my lady a leisure recliner, then blend it for me; all ready for my 5 minute windows of happy claying.
I'm so lucky with my friends!

Donna Baratta (American friend) has just made a website. Donna's work is wonderful, when I sat next to her at the France workshop, I was amazed by the precision and care that she took with everything. Whereas I'm all polymer clay, Donna likes to combine bead embroidery and hand-made silk with the polymer clay to make exquisite wearable jewelry. Have a look on her website on http://www.donnabarattadesigns.art. This necklace is one of my personal favourites. 

I'll keep you posted on my progress of 'operation-gecko'. This post-operative recovery period has really made me appreciate what good health I usually have, and think about all the people who struggle with conditions that don't get better over time, yet still carry on, living their lives and producing wonderful art.

I'm now off to make an order with Penny Vingoe at Clayaround, I seem to have depleted my clay stock a little over this gecko!!

Well, the New Year's resolution's going well isn't it. Already into April and only the second blog of the year! I write amazing blogs you know...…………...while I'm on my dog walks. I chat away to myself, I'm witty, clever, and interesting; then sit in front of the computer and all I can say is "I'm late again!".
My mother was an English teacher, I don't think I've taken after her.
Anyway, I've been doing quite a lot recently. But the first thing I have to say is...………….
I'M SO EXCITED, PEOPLE ARE MAKING PAT THE FLAT COW!!!!!!!
My Polymer Clay Adventure project went live on Easter Friday, and someone's already made her cow. I'd like to show you but it's her photo, if I get permission I'll post it. It's so strange knowing that people are watching my videos of the process of making Pat. 
If you're interested in joining the Polymer Clay adventure, the price is usually $120 for the 23 wonderful tutorials, but as it's my month to show, if you go though my link, it will only cost you £99. Not a bad price for 23 fully video'd tutorials from experienced clay artists (and me!) The link is https:gumroad.com/a/40744051   
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In February I went back to Rome, for three days of polymer clay workshops by incredible tutors. This year we had Kathleen Dustin, Fabiola Perez Ajates, and Olga Ledneva, and oh boy, what a lot we learned. I've attended Kathleen and Fabiola's workshops before, but these ladies are so talented that I could attend workshops with them for a year and would probably still not learn everything they know. I talked to David, Fabiola's son who attends with her, and he said that she spends around 8 hours a day in her workshop! Anway, these are the results of my three days. The single pendant is from Kathleen's class, the assortment of four pendants were from Fabiola's class, the two pendants with animal transfers on were from Olga's class, and I made a chicken in the style of each of the tutors. Not sure all were impressed!!! The last picture is of, from left to right, my lovely friend Judy who I met in Rome last year and have become firm friends, Fabiola (have to say my favourite tutor of all time), me, and my other lovely friend who I met last year as well, Jackie.

So, after Rome comes Polymania. It's useful that the two main clay workshops are at the beginning of the year, February and March, before the carriage driving season starts. However, we weren't banking on Corvid-19 rearing its ugly head. Cara Jane Hayward is incredible. She tried her hardest to run the event, but government recommendations dictated at the last minute that it was not to be. Donna Kato (one of the tutors) had to rush back to America, Bettina Welker was in Germany, and Sarah Shriver was in America, and neither could leave. So, we had the first 'video-linked' polymania, three days of interactive videos from the tutors with a live facebook group to ask questions. "Where there's a will there's a way" is obviously the polymer clay community's motto, especially when lead by the formidable Cara Jane. This was the set up in my house, prepared for Sarah Shriver's class, and my final efforts.

After the excitement of the workshops, I was inspired to do something different myself. An advent for a peroskey stone popped up on my facebook feed and I was blown away by how beautiful they are. I looked on google (what did we do before google?) and found they  The Petoskey stone is fossilized pre-historic coral fossilized rugose coral found in the Michigen, USA;.

I decided to have a go at replicating it, and resisted the temptation to see if any other polymer clay artist had already done so, as it was unlikely that they hadn't and I didn't want to be influenced in how I made it. After a couple of tries I was really pleased with the result. But more exciting than that was that Dr Ron Lehocky saw the cane and liked it. I then sent him some of the canes and he made heart out of them. For those who don't know about Dr Ron Lehocky, he is a retired children's doctor and has been working with special needs children since 1974. Sales of his unique hand-made heart brooches have raised over $100,000 for the Kids Center for Pediatric Therapies in Louisville, Kentucky. In 2016 he'd made around 33,750 pins since beginning the project 10 years before.
Each heart-shaped pin cost $10 and every penny goes to the Kide Centre. Polymer clay artist donate their spare canes and he makes the most incredible pins with them. Here are just a few of his hearts. 

I've done the photos for the body and coat, but now have to work out some original canes to use for the blanket and packages. Something else to do while sitting down!
I'm  going to leave you with a project that started off with a little idea, and grew into a much much larger one. For Polymania, we usually have a swap, we are given a project to make and we then 'swap' them between us, it's a great way to see other people's work and get to know them better. The swap this year was a bookmark. I decided I wanted to make a stack of cups (as you do!), so of course, instead of just making it, I took photos of it, and it will eventually end up in book 2. However, I so enjoyed the process, that I made one with cats. That went well, so I decided to go bigger and make a vase. That also went well so I moved onto a dog vase. That was a HUGE piece of work, and oddly enough didn't come out as well as the cat vase, but I learnt a lot. All they wanted was a bookmark. I made three, and two vases! Here are the photos. Bye bye, lets see if I can write the next blog in under three months!!!!

Yea gods, it's been ages since my last blog; my New Year's resolution is obviously going to be " keep my blog up to date". So much has happened over the past couple of months, and I've lost count of the amount of times I've thought "oh, that will be good in the blog". 
So, where to begin. 
I ran a weekend workshop with the lovely Karen Walker in Essex. Tracy Marriot has a great workshop space and allowed us to use it for the two days. I taught the patchwork bunnies again, and Karen taught a hare - quite a theme going on there.
I made a big mistake; the patchwork bunny workshop is a two day workshop and I decided to do it in one day. I did it, but boy, the amount of preparation needed was immense, I was up until after midnight for a couple of weeks preparing everything so that the bunnies would be finished. I really must learn from this and not squash quite so much into my workshops. Trouble is, that's me. I squash as much as I can into everything. Hey ho, learning curve alert!
So, here are some photos of Tracy's workshop space (in case anyone in Essex wants to hire it, I can thoroughly recommend it), and the wonderful bunnies and hares that were made. I finally got to do one of Karen's workshops, In the past we've always taught on the same day, so it was a real treat for me.

After the workshop I spent a while looking at youtube videos, and relaxing a little, and found a wonderful video of making turtles by TurtleSoupBeads. I've taken a printscreen shot so you can look it up yourself, it's a sweet video, and totally inspired me to use up some of my old canes.

As you know, I work for the NHS, and our little Occupational Therapy team work hard to meet the demands of the service in a challenging time. We are a great team, I'm very lucky with my work colleagues and decided to have an evening claying with them. A couple didn't believe they would be able to make something they were pleased with, but everyone had a great time, and for me, seeing how clay worked it's magic on my friends was the best part of the evening. We all made some turtles, thanks to the TurtleSoupBeads video, and a fairy house clay evening is already in the calendar for next year.

For Christmas I decided to try my hand at making pens. My friends Aoife and Laura in Ireland make wonderful pens, so I was inspired. I bought a tutorial from Debbie Hart, and made some pens. Although I love designing things myself, occasionally I like to get tutorials from other tutors, and their wealth of knowledge can only improve mine. I adore Debbie's colours, and had real trouble giving the pens away! Have to admit, one did find its way into my Christmas cracker...…….....

Then, a few more pens had to be made. I have a friend in Brentwood who is a wonderful gardener and photographer. Every year this incredible clematis Montana flowers, and he took a photo of it for me which I have in my house. I decided to make him a pen with clematis flowers on it. 

My next projects are going to be a continuation of the vases, and a llama. I've had great fun going round the charity shops and buying lots of vases, I think I have enough now...………….

Hope you all have a lovely New Year, and are inspired to work on your clay dreams next year. I know I am!  I shall end the year on something that makes me very very happy. Tidy clay shelves :) 

What a week. Seven days in the company of a good friend, a good ‘claying’ friend at that, her husband who brought us wine, a cuddly dog, and a whole workshop dedicated to claying; and the most important thing, actually free time to indulge in the claying! As is my way I had a far too large a list of what I wanted to do, and Donna did too, so we were bound to feel a week wasn’t long enough, but what we did do was plant seeds, creative seeds that can be pursued at leisure. I saw a painting of trees and decided that this was what I wanted to do most. So, as I wanted stripy trees I went for a technique taught by the wonderful Debbie Crothers, of making lots of vaneers and cutting them into little strips. I went for main,y yellow, Donna for pinks and purples, and we both went to bed soooooo unhappy with what we had made.

We spent the second day making them into stripes, and wow, we were really pleased with them! Just goes to show, sometimes you just have to have a little faith. After that we played about with backgrounds and back filling, and ended up with something that, although not perfect, has definite potential. I can’t wait to carry on with ‘operation trees’ when I get home.

What else did we work on? Well, my list included a horse cane, a number of new canes to make a turtle, lampwork beads, design a new rose cane, translucent canes, and making a couple of pens. Hmmmm, the horse cane has a mane and one ear so far, we did a number of canes and made a turtle shell, but the rest are for another time. It’s not as if we spent long doing anything else; Al, Donnas husband suggested showing me the beach......I hate beaches and water, and said could we go to Michaels instead. For non Americans, Michaels is an amazing craft shop. We also went to the local dairy farm that sold ice cream. There were so many flavours I had to go four times. It would have been rude not to.
Back to clay (although the walnut and maple ice cream is still in my mind), we looked at painted Mexican wood carvings of animals, look them up on Pinterest, they’re incredible, and a wonderful inspiration for canes. After spending far too long trying to decide which ones we wanted to attempt to make, we ended up with these. This is a photo of them packed ready to bring home.

When I’ve covered the turtle I’ll post a picture. I have a few days once I’m home before I return to work, and I have plans for solid claying!

Everywhere you go there’s clay inspiration. America is wonderful at celebrating holidays, and they have Thanksgiving and Halloween coming up. Nearly every porch has some sort of display, makes great viewing when travelling anywhere. And yes,I was so excited to see so many porches, just like in the American films! Look at the pumpkins in one shop we visited. Those colours!

Spending time at JFK airport gives me time to write the blog, but also I’ve promised Donna that I’ll get onto Instagram. I have absolutely no idea what it is, or why I need it, but I think I’m just kicking against doing any more technical stuff, after all, I am writing a blog, that’s almost surreal! Anyway, she is a great friend, and encourages me to do things out of my comfort zone, so, I promised, so will go look up what it is and how to join. Before I go, just a reminder that everyone who subscribes to this blog (a little box on the top right of this page) will be put in a draw at the end of this week to win a free ticket to the Polymer Clay Adventure 2020.

To find out more about this wonderful adventure where 23 polymer clay artists have put together tutorials of the projects above click on https://gumroad.com/a/40744051 If you register before January, it’s a special discounted price. And don’t forget, a free seat, courtesy of Ilysa and Kira, will go to someone picked randomly from my subscribers. Good luck!

How excited am I??? I've been asked to be part of the Polymer Clay Adventure 2019.
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This is an online virtual polymer clay retreat where 23 polymer clay artists (including me - see the little happy dance!) provide video tutorials of their projects, showing exactly how to make them. 
It's been an incredible adventure for me, being a newby to this, and the biggest challenge as been keeping my mouth shut about it. But no more, let the shouting begin!

My project is Pat the flat cow. She's a free standing model of a cow using a design based on Zentangles, those amazing doodles that have elevated doodling to a form of art. There are 8 videos showing you step-by-step how I make her, and you can get carried away and make her some flatmates!  Look at some of the other wonderful tutorials that are part of the adventure; my friends Aoife Smith-Murphy and Syndee Holt are also involved, Syndee making beautiful lacy bangles, and Aoife showing you how to make a gorgeous black, white and gold kaleidoscope cane which turns into an incense burner. 

I'm off to America on Monday.
I have a wonderful friend, Donna Baratta, whom I met in France at another polymer clay workshop. Sometimes you find someone in life who you just click with, and she's one for me. We get together every year for a week of pure clay indulgence; we spend months before our time together planning what we're going to do, and the list is always far too long to be completed in a week, but hey, who needs sleep!
We plan to cover a vase, make some pens, work on more canes with translucent clay, and spend some time making complex canes; those canes that that cooking/work/dog walks/phone calls/travelling etc stop you doing. We're going to be focussed, totally, on our clay. I......CAN'T.....WAIT! 
The problem is, what to pack. Donna has a washing machine so I don't have to take too many clothes, and I have a fear of not having enough clay. I've seen her stack of clay, it's enormous, but there's a little voice in my head saying "but you use a lot, there might not be enough, you could just take a little fimo, you wanted to condition it, go on, just a few blocks"
So, I'm taking a small amount of clay in my suitcase. However, it was very old and crumbly, so this is how I condition clay that's been at the back of my cupboard for several years and has become very dry.

As you can see, even slicing it with a blade it crumbles, so I bought a blender, a cheap one that I could use just for clay.

Press the clay down so it's flat, then tear it in half, stack the two halves on top of each other, and press down again. It's very satisfying, you'll never need a therapist if you do this! After a while of doing this the clay will be soft enough to put through the pasta machine.

As you can see, I'm just taking a little clay to America!

So, my next post will be from across the pond. I'm aiming to make a dog cane, so watch this space!

What an AMAZING weekend I've just had in Ireland, teaching the Irish polymer clay guild how to make patchwork bunnies and chickens. A nicer, more fun and enthusiastic bunch of clayers I've yet to meet.  Here we all are, minus Aoife (the chairperson of the guild who is in the photo being held up by Laura!).

However, I'm getting ahead of myself. First came the preparation.
In my usual over-the-top-don't-leave-anything-to-chance way, I tried to prepare completely before I left. My one worry was that people wouldn't have time to complete their project, so I tried to prepare as much as possible before I went, not anything that was a particular skill, just the boring parts. Cutting out triangles of clay to make a rainbow blend is quite easy for one...…………….

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​    Slightly more time consuming         for 11

    Then, I decided that the clay was too oily, so I needed to 'leach' some of the oil out to make it more workable. This involved putting sheets of white copy paper on the clay and weighting it down.

I don't want to see another rainbow blend for a while!
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Then the bunny and chicken bodies...…….....if any customs person had opened my case I would have had a lot of funny looks. 

I stayed with Aoife and her family. I'm incredibly lucky with my Irish friends, both Laura and Aoife host me and allow me to take over their kitchen tables with my clay, and even involve their children! Considering I'm not thought of as particularly good with children, I find Aoife's and Laura's ones lovely. Perhaps I'm just better with Irish children!

​The workshop was great - (I don't mean my teaching, although a friend of mine describes me as not being humble at all, so perhaps I do!). The Irish sense of humour is second to none, I've finally met people as loud as me, enthusiastic and a little crazy, and totally totally genuine.

I've been to a lot of workshops and always enjoyed myself and learnt a lot; however I've never understood people who complain. I go to the most wonderfully run workshops, with tutors who are so generous with their knowledge, and come away feeling honoured to have been part of it. Yet there's always someone who moans. They didn't like the tutorial, the tutor went too fast/slow, the room was too hot or not lit well enough, or the coffee didn't taste nice. These moaners almost put me off becoming a tutor, I have a real fear of not being good enough or liked, but I've got a wonderful newspaper clipping on my pinboard at home by Jamie Oliver who quotes Theodore Roosevelt:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena..... and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly"

Google the complete quote, it's great.
So, with Theodore's words ringing in my ear, I (as my mother used to tell me to) 'girded my loins', and went to Ireland to teach. If anyone complained, I didn't hear them!!!

​Everyone who knows me know that I'm absolutely rubbish at remembering people's names. Poor Rosemary was called Margaret for two days. I ended up making myself a sticky label to remind me of her name, and every time I called her Margaret she put it on her head to correct me! I love Rosemary/Margaret!

A few more photos of the bunnies and chickens, and their creators. Sorry Aoife, Laura and Niamh, I didn't get a photo of you with your creations, although Niamh's is the lovely green one shown. 

Right, the rambling has to stop. I'm working tomorrow, the 'proper job' that pays for clay, so I'd better get some sleep. Only 13 more days and I'm off to America to spend a week with my lovely friend Donna Baratta. So excited. A whole week of nothing but clay with a talented clayer and good friend. 
Happy days!
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Oh, if you've read this far, firstly well done! and secondly, if you'd like notifications of the next polymer clay ramble, please sign up to the mailing list. Once I've worked out how it works,  I'll send you emails letting you know when a new post is up!
However, don't hold your breath...…….technology is NOT my friend!

Well, I'm certainly adhering to that sentiment recently. I've made a video!!!!!!
Or to be precise, 8 videos. Annoying I can't tell you what it's about, I'm sworn to secrecy, but all will be unveiled on 20th October. It's all very exciting!
However, I now know how to video, but that wasn't the most difficult bit. I realised that I had to be in the video. Most of it is of my hands manipulating clay into the secret project, but I had to do an introduction, facing the camera. What a performance: I dyed my hair (my roots were about 6"), had my eyebrows dyed (the woman who did it said it knocked 10 years off me - was that meant to make me feel good? Just how old did she think I looked before?????), and put some lipstick on, which for me is very rare, saved for when I have meetings with scary people. Then poor Iain (long-suffering husband) had the unenviable job of taking the video. I did it in one take, knowing that it would only be worse if I had to re-take it, and it's actually passable. 

So, enough of this primping and preening. My daughter Emma asked me last week "do you think about clay all the time?" The answer is probably yes. She said that she could tell because I had a certain look on my face, a thinking look, and yes, she was right, I had seen something, a shape, a colour, that could be interesting in clay. It's wonderful having an interest that is so, well, interesting! We were in Edinburgh at the National Portrait gallery, and in the gift shop was a case of some kind, I just loved the colours, so Emma did the sneaky photography so I could have a record of the colours without having to buy something I had absolutely no need for. 

I would love to show you the stripey thing, but somehow I need to learn more about how to blog, as the picture has gone up to the top - TWICE!!!!! So, to see my inspiration from Edinburgh, look at the top of the blog - there will be two random pictures. Good job I bought a 'blogging made simple' book from Amazon yesterday, should arrive tomorrow, so hang in there, the technology will not beat me!

So, what are the things that inspire me? I have a lovely boss at work, and she has a diary cover which just begged to be photographed. I made a pendant similar to the diary cover, let's see if I can manage to add some pictures.

I don't like to be smug...……………...……
But I've sorted it :)  Although it would be better a little higher, beggers can't be choosers.
This is the day after I posted this blog, and the book about blogging was absolutely no use at all, unless of course I want to become a multi millionaire from my blog, so I googled it - I now have the stripy picture removed from the blog header photo, and back where it belongs.

​Bring it on, I'm a techie!!!!!!!!!!

Now, back to my boss's diary cover...…...……
I did say that I was a beginner at this blogging didn't I?

People who know me, know that my animals are probably the most important thing to me, after family - and I'm sure the family feel that they are second in my affections! I had someone come and clay with me for a while, and she actually got very grumpy because George kept walking across the table - George is my half Siamese ginger cat, and no table is banned to him. My nephew Jack was far more tollerant, as you can see. He was making his A level course work, and was ably helped by George.
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Finally, I'll leave you with last night's inspiration. I had a few animal bodies (not something many people admit it I'm sure) on the coffee table. They were experiments of some clay animals I'm working on. My mother thought they were coasters as they were flat, and I thought 'Mmmm, fun coaster'. So, my next project will be to make some fun coasters of flat animals. I spend a few minutes making a snowman one, just to see if it would work, and it could do. Lovely, something to think about and plan on my drive to work tomorrow.
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I'm off to Ireland this weekend, spending time with the Irish polymer clay guild, who have been so supportive to me, and who are just the best people to spend time with claying. Although how much claying we'll get done is debatable, as there's a lot of chat and laughter as well. I'm teaching my patchwork bunny and chicken, and will post pictures of the weekend in my next blog. Listen to me, next blog!! I'll have the book by then, so lets hope I can learn how to remove the stripy pictures from the heading!

Okay, I promise that not every new blog will start with "Day ……." in that Big Brother accent, it just came to mind when I clicked 'new blog'. Still a bit amazed that I'm writing one, and that the odd person may read it. 
Sharon was wondering how Gatwick airport toilets inspired me. The photo in the first blog post was the walls of the ladies toilet, and the wavy lines inspired me to play about with fish pendants; here is one of the 'in progress' photos of a fish and wave design I was experimenting with.

Looking for the other photos that I took, I realise how many hundreds of photos I've taken of my clay projects in the seven or so years I've been claying. So, how did I get started?
I'm an Occupational Therapist. Very few people know what Occupational Therapists do, and if they do, they usually say things like "oh, you raised the toilet seat for my Grandma when she broke her hip".
Yes, some OTs do this, but I'm a mental health OT, and have never raised a toilet seat in my life! I have one of the best jobs in the world, I work with people who have various mental health difficulties and help them overcome the symptoms of their conditions in order to do (the occupation part of the title) what they want to do.  A large part of my work involves teaching people strategies to manage anxiety, especially social anxiety. We used to run a group that used craft as the medium for therapy, and it was my challenge each week to find an activity that adults would find interesting, challenging (but not scarily challenging), and could be finished in two hours. 
I was in The Range and saw a pack of Fimo polymer clay at half price (the NHS likes half price bargains!) so bought it, and made beads with the group. 
I was totally hooked, and made this necklace, which was the start of my obsession, I mean hobby!
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I love this necklace, and although I've made other liquorice allsorts necklaces, with much better beads and proper stringing, this is still my favourite.

So, why have I decided to start a website and a blog? Well, I have an exciting project in the pipe line which requires me to have a website. Can't say any more, but will reveal all in my blog (still can't get used to saying that, I though only people like Towie people had blogs, and I'm so NOT a Towie type person). I've also been toying with the idea for a few  years. Emma, my daughter, had a boyfriend about 5 years ago, bit of a weird one,  but he said he'd set up a website for me so I tolerated him. Anyway, she dumped him before he'd finished it. While I was pleased to see the back of him, I found it quite inconsiderate that she'd not hang of a couple more weeks so he could finish my website! 
Anyway, I looked into it and found out that with a bit of effort I could do it myself, but at the time it cost too much and I didn't really need one. Now I'm starting to teach more, and my first book is out, I feel it's time to struggle into the 21st century.
I hear the oven 'ding'.  My secret project prototype two is cooked...……….must go!