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!

Welcome to my first ever blog. I've never read a blog, didn't understand them, yet I'm writing one!  
Wonders will never cease. Whoever said you couldn't teach old dogs new tricks underestimated the determination of a woman on a mission. 
So, what's this blog about? 
Basically it's about my world with clay. I love the stuff! Everywhere I go I look for inspiration for my designs, colour palettes, patterns, you name it, I see if it can be useful for clay designing. Even Gatwick airport saw me getting my phone out and excitedly snapping the walls in the ladies toilets.
It's a huge learning curve, this blogging. So, let's experiment. I buy all my clay and clay paraphernalia from Clayaround. It's run by Penny Vingoe who has that real old fashioned opinion that customer service is paramount. I have had the pleasure of visiting her at 'house of clay' as I call it, and all I can say is that I made a serious dent in my bank balance. 
Anyway, back to my steep learning curve, let's see if I can make a link to Clayaround. www.clayaround.com/
Right, that's enough for today, I'm going to see if this works, and if so, more ramblings, with a bit more clay stuff, will be posted tomorrow.