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Brighton Artists Open Houses and a bit of design.

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I had to keep these for my self . . . ! The Brighton Artists Open House s as part of Brighton Festival are now in full swing. We are halfw ay through the secon d we ekend with two more to go. www.aoh.org.uk I believe Br ight on was the first to start the Open H ouses - we have been doing them for thirty one years and every year the number of houses grows. It is big business down here on the coast . I have work in the Pink Bird House no 26 on the Independent Trail www.aoh.org.uk/may-2013-trail-list and I will be there next weekend if you want to come and say Hel lo! This weekend I am at Foredown Tower (number 1 on the Independent trail) with more of my jew ellery. Today is gorgeous - the sun is shi ning so we should be even busier than yesterday.The views from the Tower across the downs and down to the sea a re stunning.   S ome of my new stock ready for the studs and the wi res.    . . . and more . . ! It is great to have found something that I so enjoy making

A few days in Germany - part the third

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Busy girls on the workshop. Sorry this is a bit late in co ming - it's been a bit of a busy week. The sec o nd w o rkshop I taught was Hot New S urfaces. It was a four hour ex p erimental workshop playing with the all the weights and colours of Vilene S punbond. The group were very keen and got stuck in straight away. We worked with layers first. A pplying painted B ondaweb onto Spunbond and then decor ating it and then zapping it. They loved the gilding flake - I don't think many of the group had seen it before.   Spunbond decorated with p ainted Bondaweb and then zapped. They were happy to play and not make anything finished. It was great fun teaching this group, they were so keen and had not had a chance to play with these products before. We were using fro m the heaviest to the lightest - CS800, CS700 and CS500. The CS500 comes in seven colours as well as white. You can see the full range here -   https://www.nid-noi.com/product/LU.php  T he gro

A few days in Germany - part the second

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   A finished brooch. Decorated , layered newspaper ironed on to S133 (heavy iron-on interfacing) and cut with a die cutting machine. My first workshop at Nadelwelt was a newspaper based one - the idea was to make brooches and bags or boxes. The workshop was for four hour s . I had pre-painted Bondaweb and dyed up loads of newspaper as we wouldn't have time for the students to paint anything and have time for it to dry. As it happens it was VERY hot on the day - 28 degrees. So we could have painted Bondaweb, but there was no way of knowing that in advance.    There were nine stude nts in the group - the lady on the left looking into the room was my Quilt Angel, she translated and helped me during the workshop. S he was great fun - we had a really good time with her. So - you know the drill by now - we layered painted Bondaweb with newspaper, gilding flake and glitter. T he group also had a go with transfer foils. T here is somet hing about be ing giv

A few days in Germany - part the first

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 A fabulous and very fine cast iron decoration on a huge gate. I speak a very small amount of Fr e nch, but no German. This was of great concern to me as I didn't want to seem rude. So many Briti sh p eople assume that the rest of the world speak E ngli sh. I had hurriedly l earned the usual - please , thank you, g o od day . . . but still felt bad. After a brief flight I landed at Frankfurt airport and was met by a lovey tax i driver booked to take me to my hotel in Weinheim, who was very happy to practise his English on me . . . . After a couple of hours rest I was picked up by Per, my host f rom Freudenberg Vilene (Vliesoline in the rest of the wor ld). Per drove me into Weinhiem old town to show m e around. A lot of the arch i techture is quite G othic. There were lots of fabulous towers, you could imagine Rapun zel at the top of the tower, letting down her long hair . . . A lot of the buildings still have the original wooden decorations. Great for '