This post is to say a big Thankyou to everyone who has bought glass from me this year, and to all who support me in some way…friends and family . It has been a great year when I have encouraged and enabled lots of people to play with glass, mosaics. solder and beads than before, with several returners because it was such fun. It’s been a huge privilege to get to know you during the session and I am always amazed by the wide variety of pieces and colour combinations that folk come up with. Creativity is only as big as your imagination. I also have some ladies who rent my kiln for their own glass pieces which has been an exciting development this year. It requires more organisation than ever but it keeps me busy!

If you are still after that special Christmas decoration my snowmen, penguins and glass pieces are available in the restaurant Little Amsterdam in Banbury. Do go and have a look and have a fabulous pancake, sweet or savoury while you are there. I am grateful to Ilja for hosting the glass. We will be in to have a taste of their new menu soon too.

As for next year – I am going to feature sunflowers in my range of glass pieces and I will be developing more cute creatures – lampwork style.

Happy Christmas and a super crafting 2019

 

 

As we head for Christmas I thought I’d share with you my seasonal pieces. The white Christmas tree curves come in two different sizes, the smallest ones in three different shapes. The snowmen are available with lots of different coloured scarves. I will be at many different craft fairs over the next few weeks so come along and see my lovely gift ideas and colourful display….and don’t forget a snowman!

Banbury Town Hall – 27^th October

Hatton Country World – 10^th 11^th November

Thame Town Hall – 17^th November

Cropredy Art Group at the Village Hall – 18^th November

St Helen’s & St Katherine’s School, Abingdon – 24^th November

Towcester Town Hall –  1^st December

I have been working hard at my lampworking torch and have produced some charming, even cute, animals. The first ones I produced were snowmen and then teddy bears but…… now I have penguins and bees. In the pipeline are rhinos, cats, pigs, owls and probably more but there are only so many hours in a day!

The teddy bears have gone stripey – I found a fun way to melt different colours together and then make bears with the glass mix. We have also developed little stands for them to sit on. Some creatures will be on clips but others will sit on a stand.

As you can see there are some prototypes here (one very curious owl for example) but I am working on perfecting cuteness and playing with colour.

All have a hole through the middle as if a bead (that’s how they’re made, I didn’t drill them afterwards).

To see the complete collection come along to one of the craft fairs I’m attending:

22,23rd Sept, 21st Oct…..Chipping Campden Town Hall

29th Sept, 27th Oct………Banbury Town Hall

13th Oct, 17th Nov………..Thame Town Hall

14th Oct…………………..….Middleton Cheney

10th, 11th Nov…………….Hatton World, Warwickshire

1st Dec…………………….….Towcester Town Hall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I started lampworking my ambition was to make glass animals and light pulls. Well, it wasn’t quite as simple as that. First of all you make beads because that’s the learning process. After about 500 beads you are starting to get the style and expertise you need to launch into the world of lampworking. Then you start to have lovely ideas and play with those, with varying amounts of success. As the year progresses (and we have the warmest summer for many years) I realised that I had to get on and make my snowmen ready for Christmas. Still no animals. One day I was wandering through various online idea stations and I saw some teddy bears. I thought to myself that their shape is very like that of the snowmen I’d been making. So I experimented and very quickly came up with a formula that seems to work.

The next thing I knew I’d made a whole nursery of them! They vary in shape, as happens and I have explored the rainbow, some glass behaving better than others. But, I am very proud of my nursery. I made a few with tails so they will be keyrings, the others will be available for making into necklaces or just hanging on a ribbon. The problem is that now I have the hang of them I want to make more and more.

I subscribe to a Facebook page for beginner lampworkers and they have a different challenge every month. This month it was colour, or rather, mixing colours. I have had such fun mixing different colours of glass together, some with expected results, some a complete surprise (and a few…..brown!) But we were challenged to put a transparent colour over an opaque colour, so her are my teddy bear results:

I think they’re cute too.

How many teddy bears is too many…….?

Please get in touch if you’d like any further information about my glass pieces, craft fairs I am attending so we can talk face to face or if you’d like to book a workshop with me.

Email address: cosycreativecrafts@hotmail.com

I had an amazing weekend at Leamington Spa’s Art in the Park. 25,000 people came through the gates on Saturday alone and Jephson Park was vibrant with activity. The environment was such that it was easy access for everyone though there was the inevitable queue for the ladies! I had so many visitors on Saturday that I didn’t have a chance to see around the rest of the festival until early on Sunday. I was delighted to have my daughter with me – I couldn’t have done it without her help (it did help that she has a huge car to take everything in too). It meant that Grandad and Daddy looked after the boys and they had fun with steam trains.

So, thank you to everyone who stopped by to say hello, including some familiar faces. I also think I’ll be seeing some again in the autumn for Christmas fairs.

As to this week…on Wednesday four ladies are coming to make stepping stones and on Sunday I will be at Fillongley Agricultural Show, Warwickshire. I am really looking forward to going there – the weather should just about hold. My summer is turning out to be quite a busy one.

 

 

Hah, and I thought I was OK with Geography! In my last post I said that I was going to Fillongley Agricultural Show in August. That’s true, but Fillongley is near Coventry, in Warwickshire, not Northamptonshire.

Their website is:  http://www.fillongleyshow.org.uk/.

 

Readers in the UK will be aware that it’s been a glorious summer so far. The temperature in my lovely studio has been 27-30C fairly regularly. Then add a lampwork torch which heats the studio up really nicely and you have a rather warm environment. Now, you could say, why use the torch? Well, I’m a bit smitten and don’t want to leave it there unused. I want to experiment with colours and patterns and so I have been using it.

I’m not sure whether I’m making snowmen to cool me down (it’s not working) but I will certainly remember the heat when I sell these little goodies at Christmas time.

I love the scarf – it’s made by taking two different glass rods, heating the ends up and melding them together in the molten state. When the blob is really runny one twists and pulls at the same time. Once it cools the results are brilliant. Making twisties is almost as addictive as trying out new designs.

Meanwhile, my next Craft event is at Leamington Spa’s Art in the Park. This is a two event on 4th and 5th August. It is held in Jephson Park and will feature over 200 artists of every type – singers, dancers, musicians, painters, ceramics, glass etc etc. I will be there with my daughter and gazebo (I’ve been warned that getting tent pegs in the ground might be an issue – see summer weather!) and lots of lovely glass. For more information see their website  http://www.artinpark.co.uk.

The Sunday after that (12th) I will be in a craft tent at Fillongly Agricultural Show in Northamptonshire.

I haven’t been to either of these events before but I am always looking for different places to go and to reach different audiences and meet new people.

Happy Summer

 

I will the first one to admit that I can’t paint or draw. I love playing with paints – strictly on a painting-by-numbers level, or on a large scale when it involves walls at home. But I had bought some enamels which can be used to paint on glass and I felt obliged to use them…..somehow!

Some time ago I was challenged to create a large keyring with a hare on it. I then discovered the art of tracing using enamels and so now I had a way of using my enamels on glass without too much artistic involvement.

The next challenge I was asked to face was creating the seasons in glass for one of my daughters. She wanted to have a different piece of glass for each season to put on the top of one of her cupboards.

Put all of the above together and I created the following pieces of which I am quite proud.

Autumn

Spring

The images are painted on several different surfaces of the glass so there is a slight 3D effect with the painting.

I then went to paint this small piece (it is only about 3inches square)

So, if I am an artist I have decided that I am an Impressionist and that I vaguely make things look like they in life. I will admit to being creative though and that’s the important bit for me. I can create good things, or just a mess but it’s fun and I enjoy myself.

If you’d like to come and try being creative I have several glass workshops I offer, just get in touch.

I have also just published my Summer Brochure if you’d like to have a look. It is full of pictures so a bit slow to load. Do get in touch if you fancy buying anything in the Brochure.

 

 

I was delighted that one of my visitors to Art Weeks decided to make a glass piece using the copper foil method (Tiffany style). She took to glass cutting really well and learned the different techniques required through the day.

First Ann had to design her piece and draw it out full size. She then cut the glass, used the grinder to trim the edges and corners and gave the pieces a good wash.

Then Ann wrapped the edges of the glass pieces with copper foil. Then she soldered the pieces together and was thoroughly delighted with the result. She used nuggets and flat glass, some textured, some patterned glass. Here’s her result.

If you’d like to come along and make a personal, unique piece of artwork do get in touch.