The kindness of strangers

A couple of weeks ago whilst at a craft fair I met a very nice man.  He makes walking sticks and attends the  fairs on a regular basis.   He is a wise and worldly man who was taken by my lovespoons and jewellery.  He talked to me about a coffee shop in Bute park, Cardiff named Pettigrew's Tea Rooms and said they have a gift shop that I should try and get my stuff into.  Well, last night I was taken aback when this man rang me telling me he had spoken to the owner of the tea rooms and told him about me and my products and the owner was interested.  I went to the coffee shop this morning with some samples of my work and they now want some of my spoons and necklaces for their shop!  I did not expect that lovely man to go out of his way to mention me and promote my stuff to somebody else and it's these simple acts in life that really restore my faith in the human race.  It was a small yet thoughtful gesture and I am very grateful to that kind gent.  It's true when they say 'it's not what you know, it's who you know'.

Getting there....

I'm advancing in my quest to make my mould.  I've made a plaster slip mould and I'm now onto the next stage of figuring out this slip casting business.  I've hit a bit of a wall at the moment as I'm struggling to get my clay to dry enough for me to get it out of my mould but I'm definately making steps in the right direction. Yay!

Just a little scratch....

I had a stall in Caerphilly Castle a little while back.  When you have a stall there you're allowed to drive your car on site to unload.  I used to like doing this cos it made me feel important.  I don't anymore!

It's a tight squeeze manoeuvring through the historic monument that was very obviously not built for cars.  At one point I had to do a three point turn to let another car out and that 's when disaster struck and I accidentally scraped my car on a low iron fence.  As I started reversing a heard a big 'eeeeeee' noise that left a real hideous scratch on my car.  It wasn't the best start to my weekend but luckily it wasn't an indicator to my time at the castle and I had a good time there.

A Latex-plosion

My latex mould worked out well.  I've made a couple of wax models out of it but I decided I wanted to make a model out of lead so it would be more solid.  My dad's a keen fisherman and makes his own lead weights so I enlisted his help in my mould making quest.

Off we went into the garage and melted the lead in an old battered saucepan over a tiny camp stove.  I set my mould down on the floor and watched as my dad poured the lead.  I don't know why I thought pouring molten lead into a latex mould would work, needless to say, it didn't!  The lead bubbled and spat as it melted away the latex leaving a shiny mirror like puddle on the garage floor.  I think this is what you may call an epic fail!

Am I living in a box?

Aargh! I'm feeling the need to vent right now.  I so need a studio.   Having to conduct my business from an old cardboard box is really not ideal! Being the creative that I am, I like to finish my work  before I tidy up the resulting mess.  Unfortunately, my mother (understandably so) does not appreciate my tornado of mess that whirls it's way through our house so I've had to 'discreetly' hide my mess in a cardboard box under the dining room table.  I do fear the untimely demise of my 'mess' when my mum is on one of her crazy 'cleaning trips' though :-\

Success at last

I don't wanna jinx it but I think the fire polishing worked! They came out clean and mark free. Yay! I've still got more to fix but I think this will do the trick.  I can finally get those damn troublesome spoons out of my hair.

Update No. 2

I'm making progress with my messed up spoons.  I'm determined not to let all the glass and hard work go to waste so my next plan of action is gonna be fire polishing.  I'm gonna grind all the manky, ugly bits off, sand them down with a coarse sandpaper then a finer one, then a finer one again then I'm gonna put them back in the kiln for a fire polish that will melt the glass just enough to smooth out the top layer.  I'll let you know how I get on!