give away on my Crafting Blog.

It's my birthday next week, we won't talk about age.

So to help ease the pain of another year older I am giving away a special tree from my collection :)

Have a look at my blog, leave a message and hope that you win

Draw will be done on the 25th of Feb

Jane.xx

...the sun is shining and we are inspired!

Lots of lovely stitching going on in my class last week :) Sophie is working really well on her name plate for her daughter, the stitching is soooo neat! We thought that it looked good framed in the blue and then I showed her feather stitch and by the end of that morning....

....feather stitch was done and looked just lovely. We then talked about making a felt handprint and how they all could be arranged on the hanging nameplate. Good work Sophie!

Susan has been working on some more christmas decorations, yes we know it's February, but it takes the pressure off next Christmas doesn't it!

Lizzie was a new stitcher last week and she went home with a lavender filled heart and some ideas for her boys rooms, she came back with her 'medal' all cut out and ready to finish.

...and by the end of the morning again, another finished project and some ideas for the next ones. More speedy stitching, well done!

Lauren is obsessed with cutting up her children's clothes and I mean obsessed. In fact, she said last week that it hadn't crossed her mind to 'buy' fabrics which make us laugh, but making special little things to remind her and her children of special outfits was what she was thinking of. This was the first project made with care and her daughter really loves it.

and this is work in progress for her son. My aim is to teach Lauren a new stitch next week!

Good work

Back to school - exciting projects

Last week saw the first of ten sessions in a new 'After School Crafting Club' for children in years 3-5 in a local school - (uk size children, I don't know what grade that is in the States, aged from 7-10) There were 20 eager, very eager and excited to be crafting and I started them off with a couple of projects.

The first one got them thinking about themselves as crafters....what do they like to make? Cards came up tops. What colours and patterns to they like? And what might they like to make at the Club. We had 22 suggestions, from cards to elevators! We made a simple book from the instructions from this great Book Making Artist - one her free projects. I made my own template for the children to fill in, cut and fold. They took them home to decorate the cover.

With 20 children in the first session and a whole heap of excitement, I did not have time to take lots of photos, but I did manage to take some of the finished projects.

The other thing we put together were inspired by Anne Woods lovely horses. I adapted the making slightly by holding the legs on with split pins rather that stitching wire and buttons.

The making schedule was: paint the printed card silhouettes, make up the books while the horses dried. Cut out and put together the horses......no presure!

I also limited the colours and painting of the horses, suggesting that the children dab paint on with sponges and add details with the tip of a paintbrush. We only had 1 hour to do both projects and I was keen to paint and cut the horses in one session to make a great display.

I was really impressed with the accuracy of cutting with the children in such a short time, they looked amazing and we only had to get the sticky tape out twice to mend tails.

Good work all round and the children were loved the projects. I am looking forward to the next weeks ahead.

Lots of ideas buzzing round in my head, now I know what they can manage in 1 hour!

Jane.x

With an "Eye for Art"

Today I was back at 'work' with a new group. They are a group for the partially sighted who have an interest in art meeting once a month in this fantastic venue in MK.

I was going along to deliver a printing workshop, but thought I would open the session with some Notan. This was a good idea!

We choose suitable colours of card and paper to work with depending on the eye condition they suffered from and set to work.....

The process of Notan is the Japanese theory of light and dark or positive and negative space.

With simple cuts we produced some very intricate designs and the students enjoyed playing around with design and balancing the pictures they produced.

I had warned them that the trickiest part of the process was finding all the bits you have cut and sticking them down in the right place! P. did a good job here of her very fine design.

They were hooked and found the process very effective.

Some of the cutting did not lend itself to Notan, so we improvised on the idea and explored the expanded square as well - the heart design shows this very well.

None of the students had tried paper cutting before and most of them took to the principle very well, some had a real flare for flowing shapes and balance of design.

The group had a couple of volunteers helping with the group (thank you, much appreciated) and one of them took part in the activity and had fun with dragons and lizards!

A couple members in the group commented on how simple the process was, but the results were really amazing. I think and hope it suited their eye conditions and everyone went home with something of merit.

We then moved onto the aim of the day which was printing, not everyone wanted to have a go, they were happy to carry on with their Notan!

Anyway, there were a couple of techniques I showed and we had a go at engraving into my favourite pizza bases......

I have been asked to go back to the group later in the spring, perhaps we should do a whole workshop on printing, or maybe I will come up with something else completely.

A great morning was had, lovely to meet such an enthusiastic group of people.

Jane.x