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1. Bishops Stortford, 2. Honey Lemon Tea, 3. Kleenex, 4. Watching paint (buckets) dry 6, 20030717

This mosaic is showing what I'm doing these days. I'm having a headcold and I'm drinking lots of hot lemon with honey. I also seem to be Kleenex' biggest sponsor. But we planned to do a little reorganising of our living space this week. I didn't want to postpone because of this headcold 'cause I'm too excited. Our living room and dining room were hardly used rooms because we spent lots of time in the kitchen, outside or in our workspaces.
The plan to make the living room into a workspace and the dining area into a little lounge room has been on our list for a long time. I can't wait for the major work to be done so that I can start decorating my new workspace. But for the next days, I'll be painting & putting down floorboards...

I decided to chose a favorite mosaic every week.
Please take some time to visit my favorite from last week! :)

If you like to play this week, make your mosaic and add a link to your blogpost (NOT your blog please) or Flickr in Mister Linky (click on the button below and fill in your name with the link to your blogpost or Flickr picture).
I'll pop over to have a look at yours. Can't wait to see your creations and find new favorites! :)

New in my shop...

... in case you are more one of my blog visitors then one of my shop visitors...
I listed these last week and they make me happy because they add a touch of color to my shop. :)

How to color clay gradually?

When working with clay, it's nice to bring some color into it. Since I especially love objects that are unglazed, I sometimes color clay to get some gradations into it.
It's very easy to do this but while I was doing it, I mad a few snapshots to show you the process.

Here is what you need:
Clingfoil, mask, gloves, pigment, paper, (porcelain) clay and a scaleFirst weigh a certain amount of pigment to mix underneath the clay.
I advise you to write it down somewhere so in case you don't have enough,
you can still make the same mixture.

Then add the pigment to the clay.

Mix it underneath it and when it gets too dry, add a bit of water.

I made a little schedule to mix the clay so I wouldn't make any mistakes.
The end weight for all colors is 70 grams so you just add more or less colored clay to white clay.
I made 280 grams of colored clay and then weighed all the mixed colored parts and put them in clingfoil.

Then weigh 60g of white clay.

Mix both parts really well by kneading it.

And now you can start your gradation project!

When I was done mixing it looked like the darkest color wasn't really black
so I mixed another tone with lots of block pigment.
(oops forgot to write down how much I added)And this is the result when fired.

You can do this with polymer clay too of course only then you don't need to add pigment but you can start mixing right away!
It's fun to get some gradations of color in your work! :)

Dream in progress... part 12

I took all the squares that needed to be sewn in to the fair last sunday in case I could do some work while people were looking around.
I also took a second needle in case my friend felt like helping me! Haha, and she did! We did get quite a lot done in between and it certainly was more fun to sew together then do the boring task by myself.I'm quite happy to be able to show you all the finished sewn in squares. Now I'll finish the last round of squares I need to crochet and then I can start putting my Babette blanket together. How exciting! :)
I created a Babette blanket set on Flickr so you can see the progress all together! :)

The secret project... work in progress

I went into our garden and looked for leaves...
... 'cause I wanted to mould them because of their texture.After the mould dried, I pressed little bits of porcelain clay into the textures.
Will definately make more moulds with more leave textures - I love these!I cheekily pressed a sea urchin I got from Star of the East into the plaster too.
Too bad that it doesn't come out so I'll have to find another way to mould urchins...I also collected some random stones...
... and pressed them in some plaster too.I love the irregular structure.
And here is the result when it's fired: rough and rugged! wow!And shells and corals have lovely structures too...I don't dare to mould these the regular way because I don't want to ruin them so I use an alternative way with plasticine.

Anyone knows what this derives from? I think I picked it up on a beach in Queensland, Australia once but I'm not sure.And here is a the collection of porcelain bits that I pressed onto the shells and sea creatures.
I will need to go to an exotic beach to find more amazing stuff! I love these!

To know the idea behind the secret project, go read the first blogpost here or click on the label 'the secret project' to see all the posts about it.
Can't wait to receive your guesses but think about it carefully 'cause you can only guess once! :)

My creative space

I can't escape the sanding of my mini art feelings any longer. These came out of the kiln last saturday and before I put them away, I sand them. It's certainly a job that I drag and postpone whenever I can. But they feel so nice and soft when they are sanded.
It's windy outside and quite chilly too - perhaps I should postpone it one day longer...

Want to show your creative space? Hop over to Kootoyoo's to play! It's fun! :)

Not happy...

... with the mini art feeling 'happy'.
Since creating it, I always had this feeling it was not right somehow. Perhaps because I made a 'happy' before and I liked that one much better?
So, when the feeling happy expired on Etsy, I decided to make a new one which would make me much happier... The stamp of the little flower just did not scream happy to me.
I replaced it to another one which has a more visible texture.
I think I need to see 'happy' more clearly and this certainly does make me happy! :)
Now I wonder how you feel about happy...