I had such a great time at The Big Bead Show!  It was a complete whirlwind and travelling down and back in a day was exhausting but definitely worth it!

I first had to demonstrate how to make the Daisy pendant below.  I hadn't realised I was going to be "miked up" and have a TV screen and camera pointing at my hands (why I didn't realise that I'm sure not) so that was a surprise!  I was worried that nobody would be interested in watching metal clay as, after all, it's a bead show BUT I started setting up and there were about 10 people sitting waiting for me to start and by the time I had got going, I looked up and every seat was filled and there were loads of people standing - eeeeeeek!  No pressure then!

Actually I loved it and my daughter said that the camera angles were good too - something I'd forgotton about as I was demonstrating, so just as well! 

Then I packed everything up (with my little helper) and had time to catch a quick coffee before I had to set up for the "Meet the Tutor" section.  I met lots of lovely people who stopped by to look at my work and there were some great questions.  It was thoroughly enjoyable.

I've been asked to submit proposals for next April and October (2016) and there's a possibility that I'll be holding workshops as well so I've been busy thinking through ideas and trying them out in polymer clay (first) and then metal clay (after).

I've wanted to make a Sugar Skull for SOOOOOOOOOOOOO long but halfway through it was seriously scaring me!  I don't know why but I really did wonder whether to continue making it or not.  Sugar skulls need to be a combination of deathly and beautiful but this was just looking deathly!  I'm still not sure it's beautiful enough but luckily the more I added to it, the less scared I felt by it and I started to fall in love!

I've used a brand new technique with this pendant.  I've added fine silver wires AFTER I had fired the pendant.  I learned the technique from Joy Funnell (who in my opinion is a clay genius)!  I took her online class in mask making - where she makes everything look so easy!  Of course, like any new technique, it's only when you're a true guru that things look easy and so I felt like I was wearing a strait jacket and had my eyes closed when working with the clay and wires!  It's all about learning though isn't it?  I learned tons by doing this so hopefully when I use this technique again, it'll be much easier!