James & Kate Wedding Cake Topper

This clay cake topper was commissioned by James for his marriage to Kate on May 6th 2012.

James is wearing pinstripe trousers and a black Morning Coat for the occasion. Now pinstripe trousers are not the easiest things to make with clay, trying to get the stripes to stay 'straight' can be quite difficult but after a couple of goes I managed to manufacture a piece of 'material' to my satisfaction.

Next came the waistcoat and Morning coat.

and hair, short at the sides spiky on top.

This is Jenson the German Shepherd without his hair.

and with his hair.

The brides dress.

There is a lot of detail on the bodice of the dress and if you look closely I have tried to copy that by placing small beads around the top.

She now has her head, the hair and tiara will follow.

 

The finished bride with her stunning dress and bouquet.

The back view of the couple, I like to put as much detail into the back as the front.

The finished wedding cake topper.

I hope you like it.

A Christening Gift

A unique and personal Christening gift for baby.

I made this gift for my great nephew Ryan Mason. A personalised photo canvas.

I started with three small canvas's and painted them blue.

I printed images to fit onto the canvas, I decoupaged them to give them depth and added Stickles in give the impression of fireworks. The images were taken from a Forever Friends Celebrations CD, you could of course add anything you wanted to these canvas's the choice is yours to make.

The middle photograph is of Ryan Mason, you do them without a photograph but this personalises the canvas.

I hunted around on the internet until I found the instructions to make the perfect bow.

The round hanger at the top is a metal washer covered in very narrow satin ribbon. I hot glued the ribbon running down the back of the canvas's and looped it through the hanger at the top and placed the ribbon just to the bottom of the round hanger. The silver 'studs' were done with a Viva Pearl Pen.

I added the name and his birth date on a label at the bottom.

Hope you like it.

Holiday.......without a Cat! and other things.

Came back a few weeks ago from our hols in Lanzarote, lovely blue skies and a mini heatwave gave us temperatures of over 30 degrees, (been shivering since I came home)...... and no cats in sight. If you have read any other posts on this blog you will see that we usually find a cat that befriends us. This is a mystery to us as we are not cat people and my other half doesn't even like them but they seem to attach themselves to him. Probably because he is a push over and feeds them, so they visit him every day.

Nevertheless, no cats just a lovely relaxing holiday for 10 days.

Steve had to stop and admire this car. The owner obliged by lifting the engine cover and made them drool.



We arrived home to cold wet weather and a few days later we even had snow mixed with the rain. British summer you can't beat it.

I have managed to get my tomato plants in the greenhouse (plastic not glass). and Bert went in for the inspection. Caught him once or twice sneaking in and sniffing about, he's partial to strawberries so will have to watch him with those.

Everything is a lot bigger now so the hanging baskets with the strawberries and tomato's have now gone outside. Popped some Iceberg lettuce in pots yesterday so we will see how they go.

A pot of Geraniums on the patio will add a splash of colour.

A nice hanging basket full of strawberry plants, now hanging well out of the way of Bert, although he is good at climbing on the chair that is underneath so will have to watch him when and if they get fruit.

I had an redundant metal trough sitting at the top of the garden filled with weeds so I turfed them all out and filled it with Sedum, Sempervivum Hybrid Mixed they have a lovely tinge to the end of their leaves and grow little off shots that I hope will trail down over the top and eventually hide the plastic liner. I popped a Hosta in there too but if it gets too big it may have to come out but for the moment it's fine, Saxifraga Monarch which grows pink and white flowers on the end of a tall stalk and a Sedum spathulifolium. I hope they will all cluster together and form a carpet of colour, just thought it would be unusual and fun.

A handy tip for green pepper plants, Spray the plant with Epsom salts (1 teaspoon dissolved in a spray bottle of warm water (about 4 cups). That gives the pepper plant a boost of magnesium that is required at flowering time to produce fruit. Spray them again 10 days later and then again in a few weeks time.

Bert obligingly stood and let me use my new camera for a couple of photographs, he looks a bit solemn on this one. He's probably wishing I would go away!!

Enjoy the summer!

Puppies & Butterflies

It has been a long time since I last posted anything on my blog. I am afraid I have been too busy with other things. If we haven't been DIYing in the house I have been in the study with clay creating another wedding topper. (More info can be found on weddingsofclay.co.uk)

But for this post I thought I would share with you my polymer clay puppies and my kaleidescope of Butterflies. I suppose this could be used on the top of a birthday cake or perhaps a paperweight to give your desk a bit of colour. For the moment this is going to sit on the coffee table in the conservatory and then when we do eventually get a bit of sun in the North East it will catch the colours shimmering on the Butterflies. Another idea would be to pop them into your plant pots along with your plants to brighten them up.

First the puppies.

This is Flip and the one below is Flop!

This is a photograph of Jenson a German Shepherd who featured on my latest wedding topper for James & Kate.

This kaleidoscope of Butterflies was just a fun idea I had and it gave me a few hours of relaxation just sitting here and painting them.

I placed the wires in the back and bent them around a paint brush to give them a spring. Two small pearls and a larger one were placed on the top of the wire and a pair of antennae on their heads.

I made nine in total.

I painted them with Stewart Gill and metallic paint.

Lastly I made a base out of a lump of scrap clay, covered it with imitation silver leaf and when it was fired gave it a coat of alcohol ink then water based varnish. When it was dry I threaded a load of seed beads onto thin wire and then wrapped them around the base. If it was going to be made as a cake topper I think a heart shape would have been more suitable.

Please feel free to leave any comments.

Wedding Pics

As promised here are some photographs of my daughters wedding which took place on 17th December at Horsley Hall near Stanhope, County Durham. It was a beautiful clear crisp day, we had the odd snow shower but nothing major.

It was a really special day and enjoyed by all.

Please feel free to leave any comments.

Another commission finished and despatched

I really enjoy creating these wedding toppers and this last one was no exception. It threw up a couple of challenges.

My first challenge was the veil. Veils are really hard to perfect on the toppers and it is very difficult using the clay, they tend not to last long, the clay would have to be so thin it would crack either when fired or while in transit and the second challenge was the kilt. It has to look something similar to the actual garment.

I think I managed on both counts, to see all the steps please follow this link and let me know what you think.

http://tinyurl.com/cm92vme

Thanks for taking the time to look.

My daughter Rebecca gets married on 17th December and her husband to be is a Wii addict. I wanted to show this in the Wedding cake topper I created for her.

She chose to make her bouquet from beads, brooches, crystals, pearls and porcelain roses. Her headdress is also jewelled.

You can see all the steps that it took to create this topper on http://www.weddingsofclay.co.uk/blog.html

Please feel free to leave any comments both here and on my website.

Thank you for looking.

Poorly Bertie

Poor Bert had an operation to remove his longing for girl doggies on Monday 14th November. He came home as right as rain and then went slowly downhill. He developed an infection and by the Wednesday he was very unsettled, agitated and wanted nothing more than to put himself in the smallest corner of the house. Another trip to the vet took place and he confirmed the infection and gave him painkillers, antibiotics and a buster collar! 

 For some reason his favourite place was the bathroom.

He looks like a sunflower and I was tempted to draw petals on it but thought it may embarrass him when he went out.

He was on short walks only, no running, playing or jumping, not that he wanted to at the time. Only problem was he wouldn't spend a penny with this collar on and he stored it up for two days, then we stood at one tree for a full five minutes while he got rid of it. Because he couldn't go in the garden we were walking the estate at 5 am when he needed to go out. I have to admit I was a little worried when he seemed to show no improvement.

He had a little difficulty eating his tea so I ended up holding it for him and for some reason he wouldn't stand and I had to hand feed him till he decided he wanted it. I have gone through a load of pasta, he loves it.

You may notice the grey around the collar, we had to tape it up several times to keep it from dropping to bits. He crashed into all the doors several of which have no paint left on them. My legs are covered in bruises, you would think someone had whipped me with a stick, he couldn't judge the distance and would crash into you from behind. He did enjoy loads of cuddles and would sit with his head on your knee and go to sleep.

After several more visits to the vets and more antibiotics he was more or less given the all clear, he is 99% healed.  The collar is used only for bedtime and then after another couple of days it is going in the bin. He is running around pinching slippers again and looks forward to his walks and meal times.

Boy am I glad, I have been totally stressed out and worried about him all the time. I have been told off for fussing over him too much, but I am sure all you pet lovers out there can identify with that. It's just so nice to see him back to 'normal'.

Another Holiday, Another Cat

Just had a week in Lanzarote soaking up the sun and yet again Steve found a friend. He is not a great lover of cats so why do they take to him so much. It followed him all over the complex.

This poor cat who we christened Fang had a bit of a deformed chin, it was much larger than it should have been and the two front canine teeth were longer than normal, one even came half way down his chin and he found it difficult to pick things up off the floor. He wasn't a skinny cat and he was very friendly, in fact he would sit by your side and lift his paw as if he was begging.

The complex Las Tabaibas was well looked after very clean and tidy and we were very central to shops, bars, restaurants etc and the sun shone the whole week just at the right temperature. Bliss, wish I was back there now.

The old town habour.

View from the patio.

The pool which was deserted much of the week making it nice and peaceful.