I Love Cake

Coffee and walnut cake. Ingredients: butter, caster sugar, SR wheat flour, free range eggs, Fair Trade coffee, vanilla extract, walnuts, icing sugar.

Compared to a Shop Bought Cake. Ingredients: palm oil, sugar, glucose, fructose, invert sugar syrup, dried egg powder, skimmed milk powder, wheat flour, corn flour, modified maize starch, soya flour, disodium diphosphate, sodium hydrogen carbonate, glycerol, emulsifiers, flavourings, potassium sorbate, xantan gum, tragacanth and salt. 

What's to compare?

Glass Finds

Today in Ilkley I popped into Cakewalk for a chat with Emma and a browse in her lovely shop. Cakewalk is a mixture of hand made loveliness and vintage finds and I was delighted to find three vintage Murano glass animals on a shelf. 

I love original Murano glass animals as they remind me of my childhood when we had "nick-nacks" on small wooden shelves. My middle sister collected Whimsy animals and my eldest sister had a Murano deer, complete with little gold chain.  This little fish has Millefiore at its centre and also a tiny shard of Gold Stone, which is not a gem stone as those people who sell rocks would have you believe, but is glass. 

Aren't these two tiny dogs just delightful? They are less than 2" tall but the detail is exquisite. I have a large shoe box full of this kind of glass, all carefully wrapped in tissue paper. They aren't displayed because I don't want them to break and I don't want to dust them either! 

Buying vintage Murano glass is very much a case of "Buyer Beware". Much of the glass you see on eBay is not real Murano, particularly if it comes from Hong Kong or Russia. Vintage Murano animals have a quality to the glass that shows they have been made with a torch and mandrel, not poured into a mould. 

Fused Glass Workshop for Jewellers

Individual workshops available at Glassprimitif studio near Keighley, West Yorkshire for jewellers.

Design and make your dichroic glass cabochons. This one day workshop will give you the skills to cut, grind and prepare glass for fusing. Glass fusing tuition is also included and your finished cabs will be sent to you by post. 

Costs: £40 including materials and kiln time. This workshop will suit glass fusing beginners and is tailored for jewellers. Suggested further workshop: Designing for Fusing.

Workshop dates: Saturday 12 March, Sunday 13 March, Saturday 2 April, Sunday 3 April 2011. 10am to 2pm. Tea/coffee included. Please bring a packed lunch and a notebook.

Tel: 07919302908 or email: jo.artsbiz@gmail.com

Brighton Rocks!

Recently I visited my sister for a weekend and flew down to Southampton to celebrate her birthday.  We had a lot of fun together, including a shopping trip to Brighton. I love Brighton, it just gets better with delightful shops and eating places, the pier, the beach and The Pavilion.

The Royal Pavilion is completely over the top - a pastiche on oriental architecture and a mix of Chinese and Islamic styles - but it is the white stone that stops it becoming tacky and tasteless (mind you, you should see some of the interiors)! 

It's such a striking building, built as a holiday home for George IV when he was Prince Regent (wasn't he the one who died on the toilet)? The gardens are quite pretty - although not very imaginative - and, with the busy road outside, it's not a tranquil place. 

However, it has inspired me enough to make a diorama from watercolour paper of the architecture that epitomises The Royal Pavilion.  If you want to make a diorama of your own please visit Made In The UK and follow the simple steps to creating your own. 

Potfest is the best!

It was "Potfest in the Pens" on 6 August and I couldn't wait to get in my car and do the 1 1/2 hour drive to Penrith. I LOVE Potfest because there are over 100 ceramic artists selling their lovely, tactile pots, each pot shouting "buy me"! (and I did).

But this year I had another reason to go to Potfest and that was as an intrepid reporter for 

UK Handmade, the on-line magazine and blog that supports designer makers and hand made artisans. So, with camera and voice recorder in hand(s) I spent  merry day talking to my favourite people - potters. 

One of the most exciting attractions of Potfest is the competition, sponsored by Craft and Design Magazine, where potters submit a ceramic piece on the theme of Altars, Shrines and Markers. I took some pictures of my favourites below. 

Jan Lewis Eccleston - "Cod Above"

Stef Storey - "Shrine to Love" Teeny tiny hearts and wafer thin porcelain - gorgeous!

Jackie Needham - "Pilgrimage" I loved this so much that I bought a little bird. 

I interviewed four of the potters for UK Handmade - John Hudson, Sue Candy, Ben Nicolson and John Townsend - so please click HERE to read the interviews. 

If you are passionate about ceramics then Potfest is well worth visiting for affordable and original pottery.