A little taste of THE SHOP

Hello again,

Has anyone in the UK got snow????  We haven't got it on our part of the South Coast of England......Booo!

It was bitterly cold yesterday when Chris and I went to Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth to do a photo shoot of some of the bags we have handmade, and which we plan to put in our online shop which is opening at the end of this month  Isn't if funny how some people give you the weirdest looks just cos you're taking a few photo's.  Doesn't everbody spend their Sunday afternoon on their knees on a freezing cold pavement taking shots of bags hung on masts and bollards??????

Anyway, here is a little peek at one of the messanger bag which will be in the shop soon (photos are not edited yet)

Just got to get a photo of Diana our mannequin modelling the bag and we're ready to go.......

Chris says this bag is her favourite...........do you think that's a hint!!!

Well, Happy New Year everybody and may all of your dreams and wishes come to fruition in 2013!

Another year gone..............it went so quickly that I think I missed most of it.  We were very busy with a lot of shows in 2012.  This was an experiment really to see which shows were worth doing and which, if any, were a waste of time.  I don't think any of them were a waste of time really, but we came to the conclusion that the bigger, more expensive to enter shows, were the most profitable.  So we will continue with them this year.  We will also continue to take part in the Handmade in Havant fairs which, as well as being local to us, are committed to supporting all that is handmade in the area, which has got to be a good thing.  Details about these fairs can be found at 

https://www.facebook.com/HandmadeInHavant.

For Christmas I received an electric Teppanyaki grill.......mmmm nice you might think......well yes it was, because I didn't want it for cooking on as such, I wanted one to warm my encaustic waxes on as I delve into the exciting world of encaustic painting.

 

 I have been researching encaustic painting for quite some time now, and once I had my hotplate there was no stopping me.  I could have bought ready made encaustic medium, but never one to make things easy for myself, I thought I would make my own because it was cheaper!!!

The beeswax and damar resin (tree resin) was ordered and once it turned up, I needed to melt it and mix together to form a much harder and shinier wax than beeswax can manage on its own. I used a ratio of 10:1 beeswax to resin.

 Look at the yummy melted wax..........the debris in the bottom of the container is bits of tree etc from the damar resin, it is captured in the resin and needs to be sieved out when melted or scraped off once the wax has set.

And, after ensconcing myself in my craft room for many hours, here is my first real encaustic painting.  This is done on a 6 inch square ceramic tile and will eventually be mounted into a box frame.  The painting is loosely based on the colour, motifs, and patterns of the Maasai tribes of East Africa.

I think me and my hotplate will be very happy together.

Eileen