My Glass Projects Have Arrived!

As promised here is a photo of my finished glass pieces - the underwater scene didn't quite turn out as I'd envisaged but it isn't too bad:

Great Fun @ Class Fusing & Slumping

I had a great time and met some great people at the Glass Fusing & Slumping workshop last week.  The tutor, Becky and the workshop at WarmGlass were excellent - I really wanted to bring all of their glass home with me, they had some lovely stuff.

I finally found out what glass fusing and slumping are - basically the fusing part is where you fuse two 3mm sheets of glass together with glass powder, pieces of cut glass, fritz (larger granuals of glass) or glass paint in the middle or on top.  Its then put into a kiln and fired - WarmGlass are going to post me my finished projects sometime this week but here is a photo of my pre-fired coasters:

My four coasters are in the bottom corner

My slumping project combined fusing and then slumping - which is basically sticking it in the kiln again and melting it over a shaped over a kilnproof mould.  I decided to do an underwater scene with sea urchins - but you wouldn't guess from my photo below:

Underwater Scene Honest!

And Finally.... thanks to Lesley, we've now got 4 people on our next Felt Making Course on the 1st Oct!!!  And in case you know of anyone who may be interested - I've reduced the cost to £30 for one or £50 for two!

What a Week!

Busy Bee
Loads seem to have happened in a flurry this week.  Firstly, I booked our next felt making workshop at the Comeytrowe Centre on 1st Oct and already have two people booked (so please spread the word amongst any of your craft friends). 

Then I received an email from Coldharbour Mill - they have sold 9 of our felt making kits and need some more!! 

Yesterday I received an email from Kate, from The Makery in Bath asking if we can hold a workshop on November 11th, followed swiftly by an email from Katie from Cafe Culture in Taunton saying that their room above their cafe is ready to hold workshops - so much is happening!

Finishing Off
Although not completely successful in completing 1/2 of my outstanding crafts I have finished one - my mosaic door number:

Jeanette and Lydia also grouted their mosaic projects at our last Thursday craft club night so I am hoping that they'll send me some photos to stick on our blog. 

Ebay Shop
If you have an Ebay shop, Ebay provide graphs and reports on how well you are doing - ours showed that we've sold £280 of goods in the last 3 months - but it doesn't show you how much you profit you make after they have taken their fees. 

So - I decided to analyse my sales and calculated how much I had made after taking away the actual cost of the stock and the Ebay listing fees - in our case coming to £57. 

I then took off the cost of the monthly Ebay shop fee - £50, which means we made the grand total £7!!  To cut a long story short - we've now decided to ditch the shop and just list as a normal seller.  Another business lesson learnt :-(

Birthday Treat
I'm so excited...  Mum, Wendy & Bob have paid for me to go on a Glass Fusing and Slumping course for my birthday and its on Friday!!!  Heres the link: warm-glass.co.uk - I will let you know how I get on next week!

Crafting Hols Again
We've done it at last - Mum, Wendy and I have booked a week at the The Manor House Hotel, Okehampton for our annual crafting holiday - we're going the first week of November

Its bliss - not only do they have a whole range of craft facilities on site, they provide inexpensive pampering services, swimming pools and saunas and excellent food - what more do you need for a superb holiday.

Jet Setting Wendy!!
Wendy is off to the Big Apple tomorrow to celebrate the 50th birthday of her sister-in-law, Gill

Happy Birthday Gill!



Wendy is going for 5 days and will investigate the crafting scene over there - she'll feedback on her findings when she gets back.