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

Blast from the past!

A few weeks ago my brother Frank cleared out his 3 bedroomed house, as he had sold it and was moving into a smaller one bed place.  It stands to reason that a lot of "stuff" had to go, and as I was helping with the removal I was on hand to say "don't throw that away, I can use that".  I'm one for reusing, recycling and upcyling where possible.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, Frank was on the verge of getting rid of some old Beano and Dandy comic books that he had kept for years, so you can guess who claimed them!!!

At the moment I am into making bags. Tote bags in particular at this time, and I got to thinking how I could incorporate the comics books into the bags.

The result is this

An original Mothership Makes (a division of Decima Designs) tote with a pvc covered panel holding a page from a 1992 Beano comic book.  I think it looks pretty good!  On sale soon!!

Well, who would have guessed???

Well, would you credit it?  It's August Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, we are attending a Craft and Garden Show at the National Trust Propery of Kingston Lacy near Wimborne Minster in Dorset over the 3 days and guess what.............................it's raining!!!!!

Good old British weather,  just after we arrived at Kingston Lacy today to set up it started to rain a little, then it got harder, then it poured.  Getting our products from the van into the marquee in the rain was not much fun.  Luckily we have just invested in a range of lidded plastic boxes to store our stock in, so nothing got wet (except for Chris who was unloading the van).  Me......I just stood inside the marquee and took the boxes from her!!!

It's difficult to decide what to put out at some of these shows, as this one is termed as "Craft and Garden" we thought we would hedge our bets and put a wide(ish) selection, some garden stuff and some craft.  You just never know.

Anyhow, this is how our stand looked before we left it overnight in the marquee, hope its not too windy tonight! 

More new kids

Well, what do you know!  Playing around and experimenting with fabric is great.  I sorted out my fabric stash this week. I got it all organized, measured and cataloged, but then just HAD to do something with it.  Some time ago I had seen some lovely little fabric brooches somewhere, so I thought I would try doing my own variation on them.  Here is the result.

Once this was done, I moved onto bags.  I have been wanting to try making a reversible tote bag for some time now.  Well now I've done it!

This comes with its own removable embellishment/brooch

Here is the lovely Diana modelling

These may very well be going onto our new Etsy shop in the very near future!!!

The beginnings of a new range!

Quite excited about this one!!!  The 'Beachcomber' Range.

Chris and I often walk along the shores of The Solent which is quite close to where we live in Fareham, Hants.  Some of our favourite haunts are Hill Head, Lee-on-the-Solent, Portchester, Hayling Island and Milford-on-Sea.  We have even been known to go out to Selsey at times.

As artists we are always on the lookout for inspirational finds, and over the years have picked up many a pretty piece of pottery, or "must have" pieces of driftwood.  As the collection grows, and I look through the finds, I often wonder what we can do with them. 

As with most of my "good ideas" this one came to me in the shower.  Why not upcycle them into useful or decorative items.  So that is what we are doing.

The jewellery pieces are carefully ground to remove sharp edges, while keeping as close to the original found shape as possible, they have a hole drilled through (carefully) and thoroughly cleaned before adding a ring and chain to complete.

The wooden pieces are from found wood.  This had obviously not been around long enough for the sea to round the edges, but enough to make it look rugged. After drying it out we painted and distressed the wood some more, before printing onto it and sealing with a polyurethane varnish suitable for indoor or outdoor use.

We quite like the results. What do you think?

Stansted Garden Show

Hello all,

This weekend we are taking part in the prestigious Stansted Garden Show in Rowlands Castle, Hampshire.  Open from 10am - 5pm 15/16/17 June.  A great day out for all the family. Lots to see and buy for the garden and home, along with speciality foods and children's entertainment.

The Decima Design stall at The Stansted Garden Show

 

Craftfest - online craft fair

Hello all,

We are trying something different next weekend (as well as attending a craft event at Winchester Discovery Centre), we are taking part in CRAFTFEST.  This is an online craft fair, open 24hours of the day for a week, where we will be hosting a virtual craft stall.  The way it works (I think) is that visitors wander around the virtual stores buying unique handmade gifts etc directly from the maker.  It all sounds very exciting, and we are looking forward to taking part.

More details later in the week.

Another busy weekend

Well here we are at Friday again.  I'm sure the week keeps losing days! 
It's another busy weekend for Decima Designs as we split ourselves between two arts trails. The Emsworth Arts Trail, as mentioned last week, is where Chris will be. And I will be at our studio, along with Alan Longmore, as part of the Havant May Days Arts Trail.  Pop along if you have time!

Emsworth Arts Trail

If anyone has some spare time over this Bank Holiday weekend, you could do worse than visit some of us artists on the Emsworth Arts Trail. There is a very good selection of artists working in a variety of media, and work is generally for sale.  You will find Decima Designs under the umbrella of Group AF at location 35 (20 Tudor Avenue)

Firle Garden Show

Well, I think I am just about recovered from a really good weekend at the Firle Garden Show in East Sussex.

Chris and I were exhibiting at the show, so we set off on Thurs morning with our camper van "Bob" crammed to the gunnells with stock, tables, gridwall and all our bedding and clothes etc. for 3 nights camping.

I can tell you that the show was certainly a brilliant day out for all the family, with entertainment, birds of prey, childrens play as well as the expected plant and garden stalls and gift marquees.

As a stallholder I was fairly pleased with how the show went in terms of customers, and although we were in sun for most of the time, all around seemed to be having torrential rain!!!

Hats off to Jane and her team for a very well organized show, she is also hosting the Stansted Garden Show, Hampshire in June where we are also exhibiting so I am really looking forward to that event.

BTW "Bob" did us proud both in the travelling and accomodation department.  Well done Bob!

Successful Day

Well, looking out of the window this morning before setting up stall at the Unique Craft Market at The Spring in Havant, I was very doubtful as to whether many people would be around today seeing as it was pouring with rain!

But, lo and behold, about 30 mins after the market opened the sun shone and the punters started to arrive.  It turned out to be quite busy by lunchtime.

Our best seller of the day was.....................................

Etched aluminium plant labels!!!  This picture doesn't do them justice, but at £2 each or 3 for £5 they were going like hotcakes. BTW nobody bought just one.

Gardening and flowers were certainly in the air because the other items we sold several of were fused glass plant sticks, copper foiled butterfly plant sticks and fused glass bud vases.

So all in all a successful and profitable day.

Although the Unique Market is a monthly event, we won't be there next month as it's on over the Easter period and we will be at a BIG show at Somerley then.  In May we will be taking part in the Emsworth Arts trail when the market is on, and in June we will be at the Winchester Discovery Centre, so not back at The Spring until July.

Oh...........and.............we, along with several other stallholders were interviewed for Angel Radio!

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

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!

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!