Wendy's blog

Atten….. shun!

A new year, a new diet (why did I eat so much over Christmas?) and of course… a new melting project! I am rather taken with melting things in the oven to create something unique – and when I saw bags of plastic soldiers in Poundland there was only one place for them to end up! They melted easily and after a good coating of gold spray I was happy with the finished bowl. If you fancy giving this a go here are a few tips…

• Make sure you grease your oven proof bowl first with a thin coating of oil.
• Scatter a good lot of plastic pony beads into the mix to help bind the whole lot together.
• Keep a few soldiers back to place around the rim when the main piece comes out of the oven. Just push them into the hot plastic in the positions you think work best.

Coffee Jars Never Die

It’s rather sad, post-Christmas, to have left behind all the festive creations – but I found happiness as always in the form of driftwood! The candle holder pictured here was made by gluing driftwood pieces around a coffee jar (I never chuck them away now, they are so useful!), then adding broken pieces of china for decoration. It really does look great in the evening with the light flickering through. If you’re not close to a beach head over to EBay for some bargain bundles of driftwood for sale. And if you haven’t got any smashed china to hand this too can be purchased from Ebay (is there ANYTHING that can’t be bought on this site?!). In terms of glue – Hobbycraft’s PVA ‘Fabric Glue’ is way ahead of the rest.

Sewing Needles & Sandals

Sewing isn’t my favourite occupation but I was glad I put in the time and effort with these wedge satin sandals. I thought they would benefit from a splash of colour, and after a trip to the bead shop in Kingston I found just the embellishments I was looking for. The crucial bit was sewing the second sandal well enough to match the spacing of the first – but I got there in the end. Roll on summer!

Facebook… FINALLY!

We have always been more Twitter people, but over the festive period we were determined to master the art of Facebook (one has to move with the times after all!). I am glad to say that Crafty Beggars TV is now up and very much running on Facebook so do check in with us there. We are under Crafty Beggars Presenters and our ‘Page’ is Crafty Beggars TV. Or just click on the FB logo on our homepage here! We put up lots of ‘makes’ and news on Facebook and enjoy sharing some amazing works of art that we find along the way!

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