I had to keep these for my self . . . ! The Brighton Artists Open House s as part of Brighton Festival are now in full swing. We are halfw ay through the secon d we ekend with two more to go. www.aoh.org.uk I believe Br ight on was the first to start the Open H ouses - we have been doing them for thirty one years and every year the number of houses grows. It is big business down here on the coast . I have work in the Pink Bird House no 26 on the Independent Trail www.aoh.org.uk/may-2013-trail-list and I will be there next weekend if you want to come and say Hel lo! This weekend I am at Foredown Tower (number 1 on the Independent trail) with more of my jew ellery. Today is gorgeous - the sun is shi ning so we should be even busier than yesterday.The views from the Tower across the downs and down to the sea a re stunning.   S ome of my new stock ready for the studs and the wi res.    . . . and more . . ! It is great to have found something that I so enjoy making

Busy girls on the workshop. Sorry this is a bit late in co ming - it's been a bit of a busy week. The sec o nd w o rkshop I taught was Hot New S urfaces. It was a four hour ex p erimental workshop playing with the all the weights and colours of Vilene S punbond. The group were very keen and got stuck in straight away. We worked with layers first. A pplying painted B ondaweb onto Spunbond and then decor ating it and then zapping it. They loved the gilding flake - I don't think many of the group had seen it before.   Spunbond decorated with p ainted Bondaweb and then zapped. They were happy to play and not make anything finished. It was great fun teaching this group, they were so keen and had not had a chance to play with these products before. We were using fro m the heaviest to the lightest - CS800, CS700 and CS500. The CS500 comes in seven colours as well as white. You can see the full range here -   https://www.nid-noi.com/product/LU.php  T he gro

   Decorated black sew-in interfacing and coloured CS500 ironed onto Bondaweb then shapes were cut with a soldering iron. The shapes were then ironed onto another piece of CS500. Well that was a great weekend. The group produce d some fabulous samples. I'm go ing to split this post into 2 as there are too may images for one post. I will post the next part tomorrow.   The thing to remember with most of my workshops is that you don't create a finished piece of work. The idea i s for the students to experiment with whichever products we are working with to help them generate their own ideas. Designing through process is an impo rtant part of my teaching and indeed my own work.   Some scrummy experi ments with different weights of Tyvek.     After expe rimenting with the T yvek we went onto working with painted Bondaweb and dec orated the black p elmet Vilene light. This is a great weight to cut with a soldering iron. The idea wa

  Layered Tyvek and polyester organza. We had a great day to day at Foredo wn Tower. I t was the f irst day of a two day workshop - Zap, Pow, Slash an d Burn! This workshop gives stud ents a chance to play with all the zappable products that I work with namely, Tyvek, Vilene Spunbond and polyester organza.    The group painting their Tyvek . There were nine in the group and although it was pouring with rain outside and blowing a hooley, we were almost snug and warm inside.    Working with a heat gun, an inch away f rom the surface of your work and holding the heat gun at a slight angle.   The group ha ppily using their heat guns.   The following images are all three layers of heavy (75gm) Tyvel layered with polyester organza and then stitched together on a sewing machine . The samples were then zapped with a heat gun. This exercise helps the stude nt learn contr ol - by moving the heat gun away from and towards the work, you can control the amount of lay