Book 2 has arrived!!

Finally, around four years after the first book, book two has been completed and published. I decided after the first book that I'd be more organised this time and make each project into a tutorial straight away, but funnily enough this didn't always happen! It's just so difficult working out my weird and haphazard notes many months after I've finished a project. My notes are incredibly random and discombobulated, and if I write them up straight away I understand them, but a few months later and it's like reading Hebrew. Perhaps book three will be different.............

So, above is the front and back of the book, and I think the back says what it contains. I was a bit concerned that the price on Amazon was £36, when I'd set the book for £28, but it has so many photographs, nearly 1,370, that it's probably to be expected. I just like to show people photographs of each step so everyone can do the projects. I always like pictures to learn from as opposed to just words, so am assuming everyone else is the same! 
I'm actually very pleased with this book, and really hope than anyone who buys it likes it too. I've tried to make it a mix of sculptures, jewelry and other things, however, I never really plan to design a particular thing, I just look around for inspiration, and eventually get an idea, think about it a lot (usually on the way to work in the morning), and it finally becomes a project. For example, I saw a ornament of a metal flat cow on a friend's shelves, and thought that it was a great idea, so many months later designed a polymer clay flat cow, which was one of the Polymer Clay Adventure projects I submitted.

This book really tested my perfectionist traits. If I wanted to make it as I wanted to, it would be ready in around 2025, so I decided that my mantra was going to be 'it's good enough'.
Funnily enough, I'm good at telling other people this, but rubbish at following my own advice. 
However, I'm not thinking about book three, which is funny as I'd decided not to write another one, but people are so nice about my book, especially my Irish friends, that I think I might, just, possibly, think about it :) 

​So what's in the book:

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So, apart from the book, the other thing I've been rather focused (read obsessed) on is my yearly Christmas cat tree decoration project. I decided to make 100 cat decorations in order to make £600 for the Colchester Caring for our Cats charity. For those who don't know, this group of lovely people helped me get my cat back when he escaped at the vets, and I've tried to support them ever since. 

In the end I made over a 100 cats, and made £714 for the charity. I'm already working on next year's fundraising project.
I'm now in that lovely position where I can sit back and think about what I want to do next. The problem is that I have three ideas and not sure which one to pursue. I think it's going to be the Crewel embroidery one. My grandmother used to do lovely Crewel embroidery and I'm going to try and re-create this in clay.
In between working, getting ready for Christmas, looking after my many animals, and cooking the odd meal for my long-suffering husband!
Hope you all have a lovely Christmas and New Year, and look forward to sharing my clay obsession with you all in 2022. And fingers crossed, covid willing, we'll be able to meet and clay together as well!