A special day................

Today I reached one of those mile stone birthdays that seem so far away when you are young! I received so many greetings from friends all around the world, thank you all so much for making my day extra special.
I also completed my four day Art Clay workshop and this is a picture of my creations.

The first day I made the basic circular disc using a texture sheet with ginkgo leaves. The second day was dedicated to making a ring, mine turned out quite well and I had the opportunity to start using a syringe type clay. Not as easy as it might seem, think if you are an expert cake decorator this would be so easy! The third day was spent making a 'cage' type covering over a cork shape, which went put in a kiln, burns away and you are left with a hollow form. This was also not quite as easy as it was using the dreaded syringe again. Today was a lot better, I 'painted' a leaf with paste type clay. Megan had very kindly collected an assortment of leaves for me to use. Trying to be extra clever I selected three leaves and two hydrangea flowers. Well the first leaf was too small and the second leaf was an autumn find. This proved just too fragile when dried and fell apart but my third leaf turned out so well and so did the two flowers. As I am very happy with a paint brush, this was not too difficult but it takes at least seven coats of silver paste to cover the leaf with a suitable thickness. I enjoyed the workshop very much as we had an excellent teacher and the class was not too large so she was able to spend time with each of us when necessary. Would like to make more art clay items to include with my jewellery pieces but it will take time to achieve perfection with some aspects of the craft
The daily commute to London proved rather exhausting, I admire anyone who does this on a daily basis, week after week. It is an approx 20 min drive to Huntingdon station, then 50 minutes to London then there is the dreaded underground journey from King's Cross to London Bridge, did this for the first two days then decided to take the bus. A long journey but so much more civilized especially with beautiful buildings such as St Paul's Cathedral en route.
I have lots of catching up to do now, bears to make, mini cardis to knit and beading to complete so my next few days should be hectic.

Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things. ~Author Unknown