Friday, 17 February 2012

A good day for raku

Today has been a good day!

Decided to do a bit of raku today, as the weather was at least dry, if not sunny.  Some die hard ceramists will tell you that you cannot raku during the winter months, but we have never found a problem with it.  Maybe it is the reasonably mild climate in the South of England that helps.....who knows.

Anyway, about a week ago I had glazed some tiles with a picture of an old ironmongers in Havant, Hampshire, that has been empty since the end of 2007 (I think).  The building is looking a little neglected now, and it's once beautiful clock has fallen into disrepair with a big hole in the bottom.  But I think, for me, the most poignant part of the picture are the Christmas lights still hanging from when the store was closed for the last time.......This road in Havant has now become a bit of a ghost town, with many of its shops boarded up.

So today was the day that the tiles were raku fired.  Here is the result!










My Inspiration photo

Friday, 3 February 2012

Going selling (hopefully) tomorrow

Oh my word, what a busy week!!!! Been getting 'stuff' made for our first craft fair of the year tomorrow.  It's the first of a new monthly makers market being held at The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre, East Street, Havant, Hants

Copper Foiled hanging Heart

We thought we would take along some smaller things like fused glass fridge magnets, and copper foiled hanging hearts, seeing as Valentines Day and Mother's Day are coming up.

A selection of our fridge magnets


My daughter has been unemployed for a couple of weeks (she started a new job today!) and has been making patchwork padded hearts and matching greetings cards to compliment our range of hearts.  So we will be giving these an outing for her tomorrow to see what sort of response they get.

Matching heart and greetings card
























































Beautiful padded patchwork hearts

Hopefully there will be a fair amount of footfall, as The Spring has clubs etc going on during the day, and also I think the event has been well advertised. We shall see, fingers crossed!

Tuesday, 24 January 2012

What a difference a day makes!!!

Last Monday (16/01/12) I was blissfully unaware of what the week had in store for me! By Tuesday evening bad things started to happen, and you know how the old saying goes "things come in three's", well not wrong there.

Tuesday evening my daughter was told that the new job she was starting the following morning had been made redundant.  Having recently taken out a new mortgage, you can imagine that this was a bit of a blow for her, however as a small consolation she has been able to put them in breach of contract and claim a months pay. 

On Wednesday morning I had a phone call to say my son was in casualty suffering from chest pains and difficulty breathing.  He was given all the usual tests for a heart attack, but fortunately this was not the case, he was suffering from Pericarditis, which is an inflammation of the sac around the heart.

On Sunday my brother, who suffers from Dermatomyositis, was taken to hospital with light headedness and chest pains so again all the tests for heart attack were run. Again, this was not the case and he was diagnosed with esophageal spasms, .  He was kept in overnight and released yesterday.

So as you can see, a fairly traumatic week!

BUT...............from the midst of these troubles have come forth some new work!  Oddly enough though, one of the new pieces is a heart shaped tiffany suncatcher...........was someone trying to tell us something?????????







We have also started a new line that we are calling Pic Stics. These little fella's are about 3cm wide and 14cm long, and are fused glass.  They will be presented with a ribbon to hang, and a gift bag.

We are also working on some fused glass fridge/noticeboard magnets at the moment, as well as leaded hanging strips, so I will post piccies of these when they are ready.

Hopefully the rest of this week will continue like a well oiled machine!
LOL...........who am I trying to kid!





Wednesday, 11 January 2012

A bit of housekeeping

Well, what do you know?  Not only have we managed to update the website over the past week, but we have also at long last (18 months after opening it) finally managed to get some "stuff" posted to our Folksy shop. http://www.folksy.com/shops/Decima

Also I have finally managed to get my head around Twitter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's loads easier to use than I thought it would be, especially as I've linked it to my phone ;o)   https://twitter.com/#!/DecimaDesigns1

So there we have it....................making inroads at last!

Tuesday, 3 January 2012

Happy New Year to All

Hello everyone, and a Happy New Year.


Today has been a computer day for Chris and I.  We have been updating the website with course dates etc. and have also decided to go for a new image in our header.  This image is a close up of a photo which one of us took some time ago, it has been manipulated in Photoshop and then we have fused the image onto glass to make a framed picture from.





















We can produce images from anyone's photo's, either digital or conventional paper, and we find these work really well with vintage photographs, as below



We have a busy year in front of us, with several shows and events, not least an exhibition with our art group Group AF at The Spring in Havant, Hants starting early March. Details of our activities this year can be found under the events tab on our website.


Here's hoping everyone has a happy and healthy 2012


Eileen





Sunday, 4 December 2011

Not a bad weekend!!!

Well, all in all not a bad weekend. 

We were at the Christmas Craft Fair at Making Space in Havant yesterday and today, and we had a very good weekend indeed.  Plenty of sales, loads of interest in our raku fired portraiture, as well as people becoming very interested in the raku firing process. 

We only took the raku stock and copper foiled glass Christmas decs to Making Space as my niece Melanie was selling our fused glass decs and other fused glass pieces at a Christmas Fair in Wickham on Saturday.  She also had good results on the sales front, and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of "stuff" she sold.  Well done Mel!!

I'm hoping that we have enough glass Christmas Decs left for the stall we have at a Craft Fair next Saturday in Rowlands Castle, I would prefer not to have to make more during this week as we have plenty of other things to be catching up on.

It's well on the way now isn't it???? Christmas that is!  Hope everyone is getting organized, and not like me, leaving it till the last minute. I really must start buying some pressies soon.

Hopefully, now that the classes have finished until after Christmas, and the making has slowed down a bit, I may be able to make some headway!

Until next time.

Bye!

Thursday, 24 November 2011

Christmas Craft Fairs

Make, make, make, that's all we seem to be doing at the moment.  Lots of bits and pieces to make for a couple of Christmas Craft Fairs that are coming up and also for selling at 1000 Lakeside, North Harbour Portsmouth next Tuesday.

We will be at the Christmas Craft Fair at Making Space, Leigh Park, Havant, Hants on 3rd & 4th December, and on the same day (3rd) we will also have a stall at a Christmas Fete in Wickham.

On 10th December we will be at a Christmas Fair in Rowlands Castle, Hants.



Come along and say hello if you are in these areas!!!