Obsessions & Distractions - Beach Hut Crafts

There's nothing like a good old British Seaside - complete with beach huts of course! Here's a few of our favourite crafts incorporating these much loved icons!

... and a Homemade Lightbox!

On our stained glass course we met the lovely Jane Bonney. She is a local textile artist and runs courses at South Hill Park Arts Centre in  Bracknell, Berks. Her latest course is Creative Machine Stitching starting 15th February 2013. Jane first did stained glass with Nicola Kantorowicz about 5 years ago at an Oxford summer school - she has since been to 3 of her week long courses. This time round, Jane was working on the above piece inspired by her love of Rome and was using a technique called Sgraffito. The shaded areas within the glass panels are painted on with a special paint, and then the light details are etched off before the pieces are fired in a kiln. Jane wanted to use a lightbox to ensure the areas she was etching were in the right places. So she made her own!

PS. If you would like to read about our DIY Light Box that helps with taking better photos etc please click here. Otherwise please read on!!!

... and our Stained Glass Class

Back in September 2012 we both booked onto an evening Stained Glass course at a local community arts centre (part of Maiden Erlegh School, near Reading, Berkshire). We decided not to do a blog post on this until we had completed our pieces (especially as one was a Christmas present!!) but can now happily show them off!