Pat the flat cow is launched!

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. 

To find out more about this, click on the link below:  

​https://gumroad.com/a/40744051 

Also, I have a free seat to give away. Make sure you subscribe to my mailing list (at the top of the page) to be put in the draw at the end of the month.

​You may win a free admission to the polymer clay adventure! 

​and this will work :) 

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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.

The blender cut the clay into tiny pieces, which you can ball together in your hands.

I was staying at Penny Vingoe's house a couple of years ago, for those who don't know, Penny runs Clayaround, where I buy all my clay and clay accessories from. Staying there was like being a kid in a sweetie shop. So much clay!! Anyway, she had an arbour press (the blue thing in the picture), which she used to squash the clay to make it more malleable.  

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!

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