Last workshop photos for 2013

Slightly belated post this time as we had to wait until our final Award was presented. But on to that in a minute. I have lots of photos to post so will start with some of your creations from the last Ashtead workshop. Lots of decorated mini choc bars, rosettes, cards and gift boxes were made in final preparation for a crafty Christmas.

And now over to Claire and Michelle, in silly Santa hats again, to announce the winners of the Altered Mirror competition!

In third place, Mandy with her autumnal dog walk themed mirror. Good use of texture, techniques and colour.

In second place, Sue with her pastel floral themed mirror. Again good use of colour and a well balanced arrangement of embellishments.

And in first place, Linda with her collage of techniques. Linda put a lot of work into her mirror and used a whole range of techniques. Lots of different colours but carefully chosen to complement one another.

Well done to you all and enjoy spending your vouchers Linda and hope you all enjoy decorating your next mirror!

And now on to the awards. This year our theme was inspired by the "Juan Sheet" technique and members were all presented with our equivalent of advertising Oscars - the Juans!! Each award was based on a different advertising slogan, carefully selected to sum up what the award was for!!

Brenda - The "Duracell" award for Loyalty and Attendance. ("Still going!")

Rachael - The "Nokia" award for Social Networking and bringing new members to the Club. ("Connecting People")

Sheila - The "Esure" award for Patience and Perseverance. (Calm down dear it's only a ...craft project!")

Carol - The "Mr Kipling" award for "Exceedingly Good...Cards!

Karen - The "Milk's Gotta Lotta Bottle" award for Active Support and being Milk Monitor.

Linda - The "Tesco" award for Active Support and sweetie monitor. (Every Little Helps)

Kay - The "Apple" award for Active Support and creative input (Think Different)

And finally, the winner of our "Juan Sheet" Juan award was Billy-Jane for Best Newcomer. 

Billy was presented with her award on Monday at Tadworth, which sadly was also our last meeting there. Our members there had a little surprise up their sleeves for us too. We each received a tub of chocolates and a lovely basket of flowers with a personalised tag made by Billy. (see below)

Thank you very much to everyone at Tadworth and a special thank you to Billy-Jane for our lovely tags and for organising swapping email addresses. We hope to see some of our Tadworth members at some of our Ashtead meetings next year. Keep in touch!

Christmas Wrapping

Our final workshop for 2013 will be on Wednesday this week. So as usual we will have our Charity Raffle, our Annual Awards and we will announce the winners of the Altered Mirror competition. As well as all that we have our Christmas decoration swap and of course we usually manage to fit in some crafting and mince pies somehow!! 

Short demos will be given on decorating mini chocolate bars ~ (see above - mini choc bars available on the night but you can always scale the ideas up to bigger choc bars at home). You can also have a go at making your own Christmas bows and tags.

And your "Don't Forget" list for the evening is as follows:

• Prizes to donate for the Charity raffle
• Decoration to swap with someone on the night
• £5 deposit for the Christmas meal (if you haven't paid already)
• Ideas for workshops next year

Quilled, folded and reflected...

...pictures from last week.

Quilled: For further information on creating different shapes with open coils click here.

Folded: Kay has instructions for how to make these cards on her blog. Click here to find out more.

Reflected: And one more important set of photos - your fabulous Competition mirrors! We spent lots of time checking they met the criteria of two or more techniques covered this year and also deliberating over our choice of 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Results will be announced at the next workshop - November 27th.

Paper curling and folding

***REMINDERS!!!*** 
For Wednesday's workshop please remember to bring your ALTERED MIRRORS and your £5 DEPOSIT for our Christmas meal out on Wed 11th December. Decorations are not due in until 27th. And also please don't forget that we are at the SCOUT HUT this week - start time slightly later 8.15pm.

Demo-wise we will be continuing with Christmas cards - this time doing quilled cards and paper circle folding. We had a taste of quilling at Tadworth today. Below are some of the card examples you can have a go at on Wednesday.

As an alternative to quilling, Kay will be doing our second demo using folded paper circles. See example below and check out Kay's blog for further info.

And one more thing - Happy Special Birthday to Penny, who celebrated at the weekend!!

October workshop photo gallery

Thank you to Kay and Michelle for their demos on Wednesday. Here are some piccies of the melt pots in action and some of the finished decorations. For more details on how to create these embellishments/decorations see Kay's Blog.

Hopefully with Michelle's decoration demo too, this has set you all well on your way with your Christmas challenge for our decoration swap.  For details on how to make these paper circle-based decorations follow the links below:

Icosahedron (above) 

Other shapes (as above) click here and here.

Or use die cut shapes folded in half and stuck back to back to create 3D snowflakes or baubles as in the pictures above.

Bring along your finished challenge decorations to the last workshop of the year (on November 27th.) and we will arrange for you to take home a different one for your tree!!

Don't forget that we have an earlier workshop in November aswell - on 13th. Your Altered Mirrors are due in on this workshop to allow us time to judge them and present prizes at the 27th November workshop. Looking forward to seeing what you heave created with your Ikea mirrors. Watch this space for photos...and for details of the next workshop...