Happy New Year

Happy new year everyone I know I am a little late :-D but here it is

I have lots of plans for this year, and so my blog may take a back seat for a few months, whilst I get organized. This blog is now surplus to requirements as I have a new blog for my work over at www.esmedodsworthdesign.co.uk I have decided that this blog should be about me, my life, my other hobbies etc a bit more of a pastime for me :-D

I have had a bad few years recently, my anxiety has been bad and I have let people I have never even met before get to me. I think sometimes people need to take a step back from themselves and take a good look in the mirror and see if they really like the way they are behaving. Unfortunately some people always seem to think they are right and will push everyone else around to get what and where they think they should be!

I have had some interesting developments this year though!
My husband joined a band and I sing with them occasionally, I had forgotten how much I love singing and when I start I seem to forget other stuff, in fact I totally zone out completely.
I also started pottery and lino printing again after a very long break, I love it, it makes me feel buzzing with ideas again, something which I felt had been ripped from me.
I started to get some help for my anxiety, I think its time to get some things off my chest and to really start getting better!

I have decided my youtube account is for some silly stuff, I will be posting videos more often of my mad cats.
Here's Crusha

Christmas Season is Coming

Yep that time of year again!
I love Christmas, I really love making and buying gifts for people. I also like making the house look all warm and cosy. As I am already excited I have been making Christmas decorations.

This month I am also taking part in the October Owls organised by the lovely NOfkantsCurios

I have found some fab Christmas themed items below each one is a link so you can visit them if you wish :-)






Top Row Santa Ornament by Mud Meddling, Hanging heart by Eccentric Ella and Peg doll Angel by PollyKrafts

Bottom Row Fused glass Christmas ornament by blue daisy glass, Personalised ceramic christmas decorations by Tait gallery and Large willow Christmas heart by Adien Crafts

New Work

New work! fresh from the Kiln this morning

Most of these will be staying white, as they will be Christmas decorations.



This is only my second batch and I am so pleased with the results, it must be like riding a bicycle you never forget how to do it. Shhh though as I never learnt how to ride a bike :-D

A Lazy Weekend

During the week Chris and I decided to have a lazy weekend and not go out. Well Sunday morning was so bright and warm we thought it would be a waste not to enjoy one of the last days of warm weather. We often cannot decided where to go, I struggle to go too far in the car as it seems the further away from home I get the worse the anxiety is. We asked Chris's dad if he knew of any places near by. He suggested Decoy Woods at Friskney, we had a look at the map and decided if its a bit boring doesn't matter as we didn't go too far to get to it!

Its really only 10 minutes up the road, which was a nice surpise for me :-D we parked on the side the road got out and saw this rickety old bridge, tractors still use it so it must be safe?

Once over the bridge you are greeted by this ruined little cottage, it has 5 beehives in what used to be its garden, 4 of them are active with lots and lots of honey bees, buzzing about. Which creates quite an interesting eerie noise amongst the silence. We did have a good peek around the house, I have thing for ruins and urban decay. I like how nature will take over once again.

We realised we had actually parked too far down so had to cut across a field to get to the woods, once inside we were actually very surprised, it was so peaceful and pretty. We spent a bit of time wandering around trying to find the lake :-D which is really well hidden, so well hidden I couldn't get a good picture!

Once back at home I felt really good, not only had I been out and not felt anxious, but I had been to a place very near by which was like a little quiet haven of trees and nature. I spent the rest of the afternoon creating new ceramic work, which is now drying ready to be fired next weekend.

New Ceramics and Lino Printing Work

Well I fired my first ceramic items and all I can say is I am really pleased with the results, I thought I would have far more mistakes than actually happened, only a couple of things didn't work out so that's a good sign of things too come.

Below is a small selection of the glaze fired items.

I have also started to photograph the lino cut work that I have been doing. Lino cutting is something I did at school and I recently started to work with it again, I am so pleased I did as they are so relaxing to do. Below is a teaser of my new lino work.

Work in Progress

I got cracking yesterday afternoon and started making items from the clay I have purchased. Most of these items are just going to be testers, as I need to get a feel for using the clay again and just wanted to make some cute little items I can give to people :-D

So far I have made some buttons, pendants and these little snails, I think I will give these to my mum when they are finished, as she remembers me making endless snails from Plasticine when I was small.

I will be making some more this afternoon, quite excited about all these experiments :-)

Kiln

I have a new crafty tool or should I say toy hehe!!

After alot of looking reading and procrastinating I decided to purchase a kiln, I studied pottery for 1 year when I was younger and really enjoyed the making but always thought it would be far to expensive for me to do at home. I had been finding silver jewellery making very expensive and I had been struggling to purchase all the tools for it. I then hit on a plan to make ceramic jewellery and items, as clay is much more affordable. The biggest outlay would be the kiln...


...which I now have, hubby has fixed it all up, we just have to wait til tomorrow night to test fire it. I will then go mad making things :-) so expect lots of works in progress over the next few weeks. I hope I can create something half decent from my first run :-)