Look what my kids made!

These are the end of year present for my kids teachers. I tried to persuade them to make a covered spoon or a pen as I thought these would be more useful presents but they were both quite determined to give jewellery (guess it is often what I give these days). Daisy in particular really loved my necklace below and wanted to make one just like it for her teachers.

The inspiration made by me

I obviously showed them what to do but the following necklaces were made entirely by my children! They chose the colours and the way the beads were put together.

James aged nearly 6 made these for his teacher and his Beavers leader

Daisy at work

Daisy aged 4 and a half made these for her 2 nursery teachers

Daisy made the blue one first about a week ago and then made the other today - she even remembered how to make Natalia's 'Spongia' beads (they are the central ruffled looking ones)

Can't wait to see what they are creating in a few years time!

And the winner is....

Congratulations to Gayle who was the lucky winner of the CSN stores voucher. Hopefully she has already received her voucher code so she can get shopping in any of the CSN stores. Do let us know what you buy!!

My daughter really loved picking out a scrunched up piece of paper from a bowl and she spent some time picking them up and opening them all and did it again! Unfortunately there could only be one winner.

Life has been hectic recently and haven't had much time for clay :( I hope to get a chance to do some tomorrow as it may be my last uninterrupted time for the summer holidays.

Giveaway thanks to CSN

I am pleased to announce that I have a £25 gift voucher to give-away to one lucky reader thanks to CSN Stores. CSN Stores has  amazing online stores where you can find everything from cookware to ceiling lights to furniture!


They sell an amazing selection of goods, here are some of my favourite items

Beautiful bone china mugs 

Fab cup cake stands!

Italian designed Chandeliers

To enter all you need to do is leave a comment below. You can have an extra entry if you become a follower or if you blog, tweet or facebook a link to this give away - please leave a comment to let me know you have done this. I will place every entry into a hat  and my 4 year old daughter will pick the winner on Tuesday 20th July at 6pm GM time. 


The giveaway is open to entrants from the UK, US, Canada and Germany. I am afraid people in other countries won't be eligible due to shipping restrictions. My daughter will pick the winner and the prize will vary slightly depending on where they live.


For a UK winner they will be sent a one-time-use £25 gift voucher  to use as they wish on any of CSN Stores UK websites listed below

http://www.csnstores.co.uk

http://www.allmodern.co.uk/

http://www.cookwarebycsn.co.uk/

http://www.furniturebycsn.co.uk/

http://www.lightingbycsn.co.uk/

http://www.tvstands.co.uk/

If the  winner is from the US or Canada, they will receive a one-time-use  $25gift voucher will is valid on one of the 200+  CSN US websites which can be found through their main site http://www.csnstores.com). 


A winner from Germany, will recieve a one-time-use  €25gift voucher will is valid on CSN's  German websites which are http://www.kuecheundhaushalt.de/
http://www.leuchtenbycsn.de/
 http://www.moebelbycsn.de/
http://www.csnstores.de/

Good luck!!!


(updated to included details for international readers)

Really Round Natasha Beads

I made another tube Natasha bead but then decided to make some balls so I cut it in half and reshaped them. I think the tube bead works better cause you appreciate the 'mirror' better but it is always good to try something new. Hope you are all having a fab weekend. I had a wonderful afternoon with the girls enjoying cream tea in the sunshine and then a night of cocktails - fun, fun, fun!

Dora's anemone cane

I had a few minutes today and wanted to try something new. I went to Google Reader which I now use to follow all those lovely blogs people write and found some of my items tagged  'want to try'. I decided to have a go at this anemone cane from Dora's Explorations blog as it looked like I would get it done in the time I had (lovely husband has gone to pick up the kids from school for me).

I went with rainbow as I wanted to try out the method of doing a rainbow skinner blend we did with Lindly Haunani at Polymer Play Days. Using her advice I cut of a bit I didn't like and this is the cane I ended up with

Made a bracelet with the pearl spliced flower beads

Finished bracelet
Originally uploaded by surfingcat clay

So they have been growing on me and now I love this little bracelet! I hope my friend does too.

I started making spliced flower canes when I watched Cindy Leitz's tutorial

New twist on the Bam Bam

For my latest Bam Bam bracelet I tried putting twists of extruded clay around the end of one of the parts to disguise the join. This would have worked well if I hadn't of snapped one of the pieces whilst sanding a bit too roughly! I repaired it with Kato Paste but I can't get the elastic through so I guess some paste must of got in hole. I may try poking some wire down to see if I can clear it. This is what it would look like if I could assemble it. (you may notice that it isn't quite round - did a bad job sanding the ends - oh well more practise needed)