Recycling fun

Today was spent having fun with newspaper shredding and then throwing :-) I spent most of the day cleaning up after my son spread the spreaded paper around every room in the house. He had a ball thowing it at me and i have to say i enjoyed it just as much!
I want to be as eco friendly as possible with my packaging so will be using reused or recycled boxes and protective materials. One of those is shredded paper it makes a brilliant protective insulation around my toppers and is by far more enviromently friendly then packing peanuts!

I am still sourcing a wholesale supply of boxes that are cost effective strong enough but also astetical pleasing. The best so far is http://www.boxmart.co.uk/products/details.aspx?typeId=88&ProdItemID=1577&ChildID=&menuId=2  I want the inner box to be Keepsake boxes to be resuaed to house the toppers or other precious items. The then outer protective box will be a nomal packing box. Both items need to be from recycable sources and able to recylce again. Its took me moths of reseach to find BoxMart, i think thier the best company to suplly what i am in need of. I will be ringing them next week to discuss my first order !

I am in love with Liquid Sculpey!!

I cant belive it has taken me so long to try this wonderful meduim the results are brilliant. I have had a bottle of liquid sculpey bought way back when i first began crafting, but i never used it. I thought its only use was as a paper picture transfer. ( Liquid sculpey is a translucent  liquid clay) Skimming through one of my clay books i came across a refrence to using liquid sculpey to smooth out the lines between to pieces of clay. On my my models i like to blend the pieces of together so you can no longer see the lines. This is hard to create epecialy in tricky areas such as the neck and head. Using liquid sculpey for the first time i almost jumped with joy watching the lines vanish to make one smooth piece. As you can see in the photo above  the effect is amazing no lines blended together prefectly. This made the job of blending far easier and less fiddly :-)

Ooooooo playing around with Picasa on my computer i found i could upload directly from them. Its not very often im excited about technology, usually you can find me cowering behind a sofa quivering with fear lol.




I have had mylovely new Fujifilm s1500 camera for a few weeks but not had much chance to use it.

Still getting used to all the buttons got to stop thinking it's a point and click camera and use it to its full capabilities.

Im having a go at editing the lighting and background of some of my picturers using both windows gallery and picasa.

Ummmmmm i think photography is not one of my strong points, do you agree


This is a picture of my latest creation a Mother's and toddler babywearing ornament for a fellow babywearing Mamma.

She is an avid photogapher so had to add a little camera to the ornament, this lady takes stunning pictures some of which i have used in the past on this blog.

O. Sebastian Jewelry & Crafts: Earring Entry 8/20/10

O. Sebastian Jewelry & Crafts: Earring Entry 8/20/10

Lots of Catching up to do

I have not been on in weeks and so much has happend....
I made a last minute decision to go and visit my family up North for a week. It was a wonderful time away my son enjoyed every moment of being with his Grandparents and playing with his cousins :-) It would be so lovely is we still live close to each other, i miss the North sometimes!! Anyway back to chatting about clay

The lovely lady i made this for kindly sent this image in, its a much better picture then the fuzzy ones i took
Thank you

My latest creation was a christening cake topper made in a hurry due to going up North.
Id like to have spent longer on it but feel it still looked cute
Picture sent in by the lady i made this for, i didnt make the cake by the way lol

I was going to send all of my toppers large and small via special delivery. But after sending the christening topper relised with it being so small and still strongly protected. To in future send all small toppers and ornaments via 1st class recorded delivery. This keeps the costs down for me so i do not then have to pass it on to the customer. All my larger more delicate toppers will still go via special delivery

Horror story of the week!
I have had a mad panic over one of my favourite exctruder gun discs, the finest one i use for hair. I can not find it anywhere there was a lot of tearing the house apart i can tell you. I blame my son i am sure hes has it somewhere little darling of mine;-)
Ive had to buy another set of dics just to replace that one but it is worth it. The effect it creates for my toppers hair is brilliant!


I have now bought and paid for my craft insurance with Ian W Wallace.
http://www.craftinsurance.co.uk/index.htm
the price is worth it as it covers me for ever eventuality and it is talor made for crafters. I had heard a lot of good things about this insurer and i can now add my vote for them. It was so quick and easy to fill in the forms and the lovely lady on the phone aswered all my questions in full. I came away - £69 lol, but feeling secure in the fact i am now insured.

To pay for the insurance and to purchse more clay it broke my heart but i sold two of my babywearing woven wraps. I am happy they have gone to good homes and it was worth it in the end :-)

I have plenty more i need to add but i'll leave it for another day

News update

I am no offically registerd as self employed exciting but very scary
I had buttierflies dancing around in my tummy as i rang HRMC as this is ahuge step.
I have also booked myself on the Business link course as i have heard they give you a lot of helpful advice on starting up your own business.
This means i'll have to learn book keeping and do tax returns ( very scary)

I also have a new logo my wonderful friend Niki designed it for me
I love it :-)



I am still building my fan page on facebook and today has been spent writing and re writing my terms and conditions as well questions and answers form.
It was a relife to finally do a bit more crafting tonight as admin isnt may favourite thing in the world.
Still no website my lovely friend Sarah said she will help me set one up. I have no techinical capiblilites, even the though of attempting to make a website brings me out in a cold shiver lol


I am looking into and found a craft insurance company and will be ringing them tommorow. I will need insurance for the Baby and Toddler event in Septemeber.
http://www.babyandchildrensmarket.co.uk/Default.aspx
My stall will only be for information and advertising purpases. I need to get onto vista print and order posters leaflets business cards ect ect. I am thinking of making clay kerings with my logo on it, to give away to everyone who takes a leaflet or contact details. I also need to find somewhere that dose backing boards to attack larger photos of my toppers to.
I have a lot to plan and prepare for but i am looking forward to getting out there and spreading the word about Ama Aqua cake toppers :-)

Right i need to get of to bed as it is 2 am oh the joy of late night crafting

My creative son playing with clay

My son loves to sit next to me while i am crafting and copy my actions.

He is so adorable rolling out the clay trying to roll it between his hands into a ball.

He shouts out "rol, roll, roll"and "pat,pat, pat" as he crafts bless him my cutie pie :-)

Mind he is forever stealing lumps of clay and runnning of into the sitting room giggling

I now have a huge stock pile of 'junk' clay due my son attempting to hide clay around the house.

Its like a little game of treasure hunt instead of treasure its find where the earth he put the clay. Oh there it is under the seatte he' s even posted it through the letter box ( little monster)

My junk clay....

Talking of junk clay this is a good tip never throw away 'ANY' clay even if it is covered in fluff.

Keep it back and build scrap pieces of clay into a huge ball to use for model making.

If your low on a certain colour use the junk clay mould into desired shape,t hen place a thin layer of the chosen colour clay on top. This way you never have any wasted clay it all gets used it saves on resources and money :-) I found it invaluable to use epecially for larger models where ever scape of clay is needed to create my art work :-)