You know that huge sigh of repletion you exhale after a delicious filling meal? The sentiment and sensation are what I experienced after exiting the Museum of London's latest visual feast, "The Cheapside Hoard; London's Lost Jewels".

The exhibition is absolutely wonderful. Excellent commentary, good contextual information and delightful display of ( Read more... )

2013 is my ‘Year of Learning Stuff’, I have decided.

January was a Soldering Masterclass with Elizabeth Bone, and February has been an 'Enamelling for Beginners' course with Silvia WeidenbachMy dad taught me how to torch solder enamel when I was about eleven or twelve, and I've loved the technique ever since. I still have some of his enamels from ( Read more... )

Am back from The Slough of Despond... er no, actually, I still live there. Rather, am back from my Slump of Apathy regarding internet social networks (I still avoid Facebook however ( Read more... )

Christmastide was approaching, and all the shops had started to hock the usual garishly-coloured, cartoon-bedecked, cheap chocolate-filled cardboard Advent Calenders. Personally, I love Advent calenders - who can resist that sense of glee you get as you open little doors or gifts, down and down and all the way down to Christmas Day? But nice Advent ( Read more... )

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I bought a couple of stamp lots to use in art collages, and was excited to find that some of the stamps from different countries have the same species of butterfly on them. Is that not cool? The center stamps come from Mongolia, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia respectively, and all show a Parnassius Apollo on them.


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Last week's work: forged copper pendants. I had a great deal of fun hitting them.


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Three Artist Trading Cards I made last week for a button themed swap - we had to include a real button on the card. I dug into my action figure sewing supplies and came up with some tiny little black and purple buttons. Aproximately lifesize:


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I love oriental-styled stationery (yes, that definitely includes Hello Kitty) and always seem to accumulate various stamps and papers and suchlike. Here's a couple of covers I decorated, from blank Paperchase notebooks ( Read more... )

Last Wednesday was the first lesson of Stage II Metalwork. It's a mixed-experience class, so I got to phut around practising soldering on jumprings whilst Farrah gave the beginners the induction talk & tour of the workshop ( Read more... )