Well it's been some time since I last wrote anything on this blog and we're in February already!! Art Club started back late January and we've been busy trying out some papier mache. The children have made bowls, some made them using balloons and the others have moulded theirs using paper or plastic bowls.

We started off with paper bowls
covered in cling film. We put loads of PVA
glue on and stuck a selection of
coloured tissue paper strips on.

We then put a middle layer of news paper
on with a good layer of glue.

And finished off with a final layer
of coloured tissue paper!
Then we left them to dry.

When they were dry, we peeled off the bowl and cling film
and were left with lovely little trinket or sweetie bowls!
BUT no good for your cereal!!!

Of course if you made the bowls using just news paper you have the fun of painting them when they're dry, for our balloon bowls we used poster paint and acrylics!

Halloween fun!

Pumpkins made with strips of paper and split pins.

Funky colours

Scary bats made from loo roll tubes!

Halloween's always a fun time to get creative with simple strips of paper and a bit of recycling. These projects are really simple but effective and can be made to either stand around or be hung in windows!

For the pumpkins you need approx' 6 strips of paper (you could have more, just experiment!) about 15mm across and again the length will determine how big your pumpkin is so play around! You also need some split pins, two for each pumpkin you make. Don't forget to draw a face! Make a hole in each of the strips, at both ends, try to make the holes in the same place as this makes lining them up for the split pin a lot easier. Make a nice green leaf for the top of your pumpkin and punch a hole in it and attach to the top, then put both split pins through and open up the backs. The fun part is pulling the paper strips apart to form your pumpkin. 

For the bats you will need a toilet roll tube, black paint, black paper, googly eyes or some white paper to draw eyes and teeth, glue stick, stapler, scissors and pencil.

To start with push the top part of the tube flat and cut a V shape out to form both of the bats ears. Paint the tube all round using the black paint. Leave to dry. 

While waiting get your bat wings drawn out in pencil and cut out. If you don't have any googly eyes then draw some onto white paper and make some sharp teeth, cut out. Once the tube is dry, attach eyes and teeth with a glue stick and staple the wings onto the top of the tube. 

At this point you could also attach a string or some wool to hang the bats up somewhere, where they will catch the breeze and fly!!

Farmers' market Apple fayre

On Saturday 20 October the Farmers' market held their annual apple fayre which is just one event of many that happen to celebrate Apple Day!

Morris dancers at the ready!

After the awful weather of Friday, thankfully the rain had stopped and we had a dry morning. As part of the fun the local schools brought along scarecrows which were judged when they arrived at the market! The children, parents and Morris 'sides' appeared in a colourful procession, the market was jammed packed! Goldfield school was presented with first prize, but all the schools did a great job and the children looked like they'd really enjoyed themselves?

The Pony and Trap

Food to sample from local restaurants

The Morris dancing begun after the pony and trap appeared bringing our deputy mayoress and a wonderful array of apples. There was Cider, apple pressing, food to sample from local restaurants and all of our great market stalls.


It was brilliant to see the market as busy as it was and I hope that we will have converted a few more people into shopping with us?!

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Etsy & Folksy!

These days as a seller you need to have your fingers in lots of pies and in my case that means having an 'Etsy' shop and one on 'Folksy'!

Make a name!

Etsy is a global selling site, with people posting items up for sale from all over the world, Folksy is the British version.

Letter pebbles buy one or make names like the picture above!

I've been on Etsy for just over a year now and it's taken a whole year to establish myself and to get any sales. But it's an interesting community with some incredibly talented people.
My Folksy shop is just in it's infancy so I envisage it taking a little bit of time, what with the economy being so slow at present.

'Menagerie' just one of the many themed pebble bags you can buy!

I also have some space at The Courtyard Gallery in Wendover, Bucks, it's a great place to shop with some wonderful art and jewellery and well worth a visit! And if you need some picture framing done then go no further than 'A little bird told me' run by the lovely Mel Bird!

Jeacock's Orchard

Just some of the things available from Anything Arty!

This is Bertie and me in front of the stall, he's actually behaving himself for once!!

As well as running my Art clubs, I also have a stall on Tring Farmers' market! This is where I sell, hopefully, to the general public. The market happens to co-incide with Tring Market Auctions, so we often get people wandering to us in between lots being called!

Times are tough at present and as a market we've seen it happening for some time. Unfortunately being a farmers' market makes people think that we're expensive, but in reality, if people compared supermarket prices to ours, they'd see that's not true. And what better way to shop then by chatting to the actual producers of the food. Think local, seasonal and affordable and that would be Tring Farmers' market!!

On my stall I sell things that are 'hand-made 'and 'hand-painted'  like cards, jewellery and painted pebbles!
So Sunday saw me at an 'Apple day' at a local orchard, with entertainment from Tempus Experientia, a band of heritage performers, locally produced food, cakes, preserves, honey and cream teas.
The sun was shy until later on in the day but the rain stayed away and it was a great success!

Anything Arty Art Club

 

Cirular 'Harvest' picture

Pastel leaves

Three evenings a week I run an after school art club at three different Primary schools in Tring! We explore all sorts of arts and crafts and with the start of the new term we've been looking at Autumn.

These past few weeks the children have drawn a circular 'Harvest' picture which they then 'coloured' with either chalk pastels or watercolours. These will be part of a little exhibition at Victoria Hall over half term, to celebrate the Apple fortnight that's held in Tring every year!

 We've also been making 'Autumn leaf' mobiles, once again using the pastels to draw leaves and bugs, cutting them out and stapling them to strings and finally attaching them to a twig ready for the breeze to catch them!