BANNERS, BALLOONS, BUNTING AND BANGLES

Hello everyone

Dare I mention the weather again?  Only to say how hard it is to see people struggling to survive in areas of heavy flooding - I hope that very soon this traumatic and stressful time ends for all of you.

A little humour when watching our cats try to work out how to get around the flood at the bottom of our garden.  They had gone through our hedge and into the field beyond to get past it on the way out, but were clearly stumped when it came to getting back.  However, I am pleased to say they did make it back.

Apart from designing and ordering banners, balloons and bunting wearing my other hat of Surrey Independent Markets I have also had a go at something new with my crafting hat on.  I don't know if you subscribe to the Craft Focus magazine - it is a bi-monthly trade publication for the craft industry and it is brilliant (and free).  Apart from having news about what is on trend, interesting business articles, etc, it also carries 'how to make......' guides.  This month's one is about bangles (hence my blog title).

I decided to have a go because the ones on the front cover of the magazine and in the article looked so pretty, so here is my first attempt:

I purchased some plain wooden bangles and as a ribbon fanatic (mentioned before on my blog I am sure) I had plenty of widths, colours, patterns and styles to choose from.  I decided to go with a dark brown one to cover the bangle - as you can see in the pic above.

I then added some fuchsia pink ric-rac and here is the finished bangle.  I was tempted to add butterflies and as this is a practice one, I might still do that.  It is such an easy project and so very quick too - I can see this becoming a very popular craft.

I have plenty of bangles and stacks of ribbon, so lots of playing about with designs is on my list.  It is something I can see would be very popular at craft clubs, easy to make, inexpensive and very assuring to the novice crafter that something can be made very quickly without prior skills.

Apart from bunting and bangles I had my usual pottery fix on Thursday.  Getting nervous these days about what may happen to my creations and I imagined all sorts of things might have happened to my cat plaque and was very pleased to see that it had survived its first firing:

I trimmed the the porcelain away from the full back plate and it is now double thickness.  It has been biscuit-fired and this week I glazed it a gorgeous dark brown.  I had hoped to paint each cat a different colour, but in reality I would not have been able to achieve a smooth finish or keep a clear definition between each cat.  Once it has been fired, I will possibly add some jewels for their eyes.

I made something new this week too - a wraparound pot made of stoneware which I trimmed with shavings of porcelain on the fluted edge.  

The plan is to finish the edge in white glaze and the body of the pot in purple glaze.  As always between now and when it is finished it, I may have changed my mind.

The sun is still shining, so I think it is time to abandon my computer and go outside and make the most of some dry weather.

Have a good week everyone, don't forget to drop in on my fellow Handmade Monday bloggers to see what they have been up to recently and I will be back next weekend.

Jill