Fantastic Fjords Cruise Diary - Part 1

Hello again everyone!

I have been back a little while from my crafty cruise but I wanted to tell you how it went. I can sum it up in three words:
It was fabulous!

I've written a short diary of my experience so I can share this with you. It was a wonderful new way to teach a whole new host of people and one that I hope to do again very soon.

Day 1 - Setting Sail
I arrive at 9am at Southampton Docks, my car boot filled to the brim with jewellery making materials, clothes for every eventuality and nervous knots in my stomach! The ship I'll be sailing on (the Aurora) is sitting there majestically and it looks absolutely enormous. I want to turn back and drive home but no pain no glory right? So on I go. After several rounds of form filling and security checks, I face the very steep gangway to the ship. As I'm considered to be a member of staff there are no porters to help, I have to get all my gear onto the ship myself. It is only the kindness and brute force of a lovely Officer who came to my rescue that I manage to drag my trolly on board. I honestly want to burst into tears, why did I sign up to this? It feels so stressful.

Pull yourself together Natalia...now go and find your cabin! This is a feat in itself as my sense of direction is terrible. I do eventually (after several wrong turns) manage to find my cabin and my way around the ship with great aplomb over the coming days. In fact this is the thing I most proud about. 

It's at the lifeboat and safety meeting that I finally begin to relax. I'm introduced to my fellow Guest Entertainers. There's Andre the comedy Magician, Billy Bubbles the Children's Entertainer (and another magician), Julian the public speaker, Richard the Concert Pianist and Suzanne and Michael the Dance Teachers. I'm feeling much less terrified now and it's very interesting to meet such a diverse range of people. Suzanne, Michael and Billy (aka Stephen) will become my best friends over the course of the next 7 days, as we swap stories, chat, laugh and generally have incredibly good fun together.

Day 2 - Let the Classes Commence

It's the first day of my jewellery making classes and I'm up early and off in search of my floating classroom. The room I've been allocated is called Vanderbilts, it's normally used for bridge and card games and it's the perfect venue. It's very cool, bright and has a wonderful, calm ambience - perfect for jewellery making. My first students appear early, all very keen to get started and soon I have 16 very chatty and happy ladies all merrily making nappa leather bracelets. After this class, I just have time to tidy the room and my next group of students arrive. Running these two classes back to back is tiring but very rewarding, as everyone is so proud and happy with what they've made. This is much better than I'd imagined. People are so much more at ease on these workshops than they are back home. Everyone wants to get to know one another and is happy just to chat and do something creative. It's always amazing to see how creativity brings people together.

I have the rest of the afternoon to myself and head off to the salon for a quick hair appointment and to get ready for the welcome ball. It's amazing to see everyone dressed up to the nines. I feel like a princess in my new evening gown. Everyone dances the night away as Dance Teachers Suzannne and Michael lead the live band with lots of fabulous ballroom and sequence dancing. There's something so wonderful about dancing, even though I have two left feet, I feel free and all my cares melt away. I promise myself that this is something I must do more of when I get back home, it certainly releases your inner happiness.

Day 3 - We're in Norway
I have the next 3 days off to do as I please so when I wake up and open the curtains, I'm excited  to discover that we have arrived in Norway at a town called Stavanger. It's so beautiful, with little winding streets and pretty flowers everywhere. After a lovely walk around, I'm back on the ship and enjoying some peaceful time in the library. This room is wonderfully calming. It has large windows where I just sit, sip on a coffee, reflect and watch the scenery. 

I'm loving this trip so much, it has opened up a whole new world to me and also given me much needed thinking space. Life back at home jam packed with activity and is often so full that I don't give myself the opportunity to be alone with my thoughts. At first all I want is to find a distraction, something to do to fill the void, but in being still and embracing this thinking time I feel more in touch with myself than I ever have done. I feel truly blessed to be part of this experience.

All at Sea!

Today marks the day when I embark upon a whole new adventure in jewellery making; teaching jewellery making at sea.

Whilst I was running a silver clay workshop in January this year, a lady who was at the workshop asked me if I'd ever considered teaching on cruise liners. I told her that I would not have the first idea how I would do this, to which she replied that she was scouting for craft instructors and if I was interested she would arrange me an interview. Within two weeks I was confirmed as a Craft Instructor with P&O and sent the contract for my first cruise to the Norwegian Fjords.

I'm very excited about this trip and new way of teaching but I'm extremely nervous. Ask me to go on TV to demonstrate jewellery making and I feel no fear, yet the thought of going off on this cruise alone scares me very much. The saying goes "feel the fear and do it anyway" so I'm going to embrace this thought and face my fear full on. I won't be taking my kiln or my silver clay as my classes are just 45 minutes long. This alone has been a challenge, deciding what to teach but I've found some wonderful jewellery making materials and I will be showing the passengers how to make nappa leather bracelets, wire wrapped nest rings and shrink plastic flower bracelets.

I'll be blogging about my experiences at sea so look out for my diary blog posts. I hope to tell you that the next seven days have been a wonderful experience, so let's see what this next little adventure has to offer!

Best wishes,

Natalia

Falling in love with Copper & Bronze

Hello everyone!

Well, this morning I thought I'd post some thoughts about copper and bronze clay seeing as I've been working with them so much lately. 

I'll admit that it took me a while to become interested in these metal clays, simply because I really love silver and I didn't like the idea of firing clay for hours on end or having to mess around with a carbon box. Copper and bronze clays react with the oxygen in the air so as soon as they become hot and then cool down the metal develops what can only be described as a 'crusty' oxidised layer. This looks like a black coating on the fired metal and it needs to be removed by placing the fired piece in a pickle solution. I've never had much success with this in the past so I threw in the towel and stuck to working with silver clay.

That is until a new product came on the market called Prometheus copper and bronze clay. These clays are also marketed under the name of Creative copper and bronze clay. Prometheus clays are very straigthforward to work with, they can be fired in a kiln for 30 minutes or with a gas torch for between 8 and 10 minutes. You may think 10 minutes is a long time to hold a gas torch but it's well worth the effort and time spent to make your own fabulous metal clay jewellery. It's also a lot harder to melt these clays with a torch, the trick is keeping them hot enough so that they are fully fired. I've found that firing with a gas torch reduces the amount of oxidisation that appears on the piece as long as you plunge it straight into cold water as soon as it has been fired.

Prometheus/Creative Clay has also introduced its own pickle solution called 'Picklean'. This is a safety pickle that is made from food acids so is 100% safe to use, does not burn your skin and can be disposed of by flushing it down the toilet. Pickle achieves the best results when it is warm. Simply add 1 tablespoon of picklean granules to 200ml of hot water and place the piece into the solution. I find that certain items need longer to pickle than others. I also find that keeping the solution warm and keeping a lid over it speeds up the process of removing the oxidisation. The pickle will always remove the oxidised layer, it can sometimes take an hour or more to do this.

Above is an example of a pair of earrings I made using copper clay. The metal has a beautiful, warm pink colour. I really like to polish the copper as it seems to look so much nicer when it's shiny. The beauty of copper and bronze clay is that it is so much cheaper than silver. In the early days, I found myself making huge pieces of jewelley, just because I could! Now, however, I have tempered this and do prefer to make  small charms and more delicate pieces as they just look so effective.

I'm launching copper and bronze clay on Jewellery Maker TV on Thursday 17th May at 9am. I hope you join me and discover the wonderful world of copper and bronze clay!

Fantastic Shrink Plastic Book

It's been a very exciting day for me as I see another book launched into the world! My new jewellery making book 'Fantastic Shrink Plastic Jewellery & Crafts' has gone on sale today at Beads Direct. 

I designed a special series of kits to accompany the book and these are all exclusively available from Beads Direct. The first 50 shrink plastic starter kits will also include a free, signed copy of  my book so don't delay and order your kit straight away!

I can't wait to see what everyone makes with their shrink plastic, so please send me photos. There will be some free videos to inspire you. Keep checking the Beads Direct website for further updates by clicking here.

Silver Clay Workshop in Hertfordshire

Hello everyone,

I've had lots of enquries about my workshops from those of you who live in the South of England. I ran a silver clay workshop in Dorset towards the end of last year and wanted to make sure that I catered for the other half of the south too. I've teamed up with Artshed Arts to run a silver clay workshop on Saturday 14th July. Artshed Arts is a fabulous creative skills centre in Ware, Hertfordshire. It is one of the finest places I have seen for all things crafty. So if you are interested in learning how to make fabulous jewellery with silver clay, or indeed if you would like to learn other crafts, then Artshed is the perfect venue.

The workshop is £105 and includes lunch, 20gms of Art Clay Silver, use of all tools and materials and a copy of my DVD 'Silver Clay Made Simple'.   To book a place on my workshop please e-mail me at info@silverclaycreations.co.uk or call me on 07775 932782.

To find out more about Artshed Arts and to learn about their other wonderful facilities and workshops click here.

New Copper & Bronze Clay DVD

I have been a little quiet of late because I've been working away in the background on my brand new DVD 'Captivating Copper & Beautiful Bronze Clay'. I created six new designs for this DVD and working so much with these two clays has given me new found respect for them. I've learned an enormous amount in the process of creating this DVD, so it's been a perfect opportunity. I've expanded my own range of skills and knowledge in working with these clays, which I take great pleasure in passing on to you.

Here is a still image from the DVD where I'm firing a copper clay earring with a gas torch. I love brandishing the torch and seeing the clay turn to metal, it's alchemy at its finest and no need to be scared of melting the metal, copper and bronze need a lot of heat so the challenge is keeping it hot enough!

In the DVD I'll be showing you how to make small projects that can be torch fired and larger pieces that go into a kiln. I'll also be sharing how to add accents of silver clay to your copper and bronze clay pieces. We ended up with 108 minutes running time, "it's as long as a feature film" my camerman Tim keeps telling me. I'm thrilled about that because I wanted to pass on as much information as possible so that you all feel very confident to start using these clays and achieve some fantastic results.

I'll let you know as soon as the DVD is due for release. I'm hoping it will be out on sale in time for my birthday on 5th June...fingers crossed!

Lots of love,

Natalia

by Natalia

I'm very excited to tell you about a new aspect of my business that will be called by Natalia. I've been designing and making jewellery myself for many years, running jewellery making workshops for 5 years and I've worked with two home shopping channels and other on-line craft and jewellery retailers. During this time I've noticed there are certain products that I would like but that just don't exist. I've seen where there are quite a few gaps in the market so I decided to create my own range of products to meet this need. 

I 've called the range by Natalia, simply because all of my products will be personally designed and sourced by me especially for you!

The first products in my new range are a series of shrink plastic jewellery making kits that I have designed exclusively for Beads Direct. These kits are the perfect complement to my new book 'Fantastic Shrink Plastic'. Everything you need to make the projects in my book is in these kits and I've had great fun putting them together.

I'm in the process of editing my next DVD 'Captivating Copper & Beautiful Bronze Clay'. This is the first DVD that will be part of the by Natalia range. There are some other really fantastic products that I'll be bringing you as part of the by Natalia range. These include a range of accessories for working with metal clays and polymer clay.   All of these new and exciting products will be launched very soon; it's my birthday on 5th June so I'm hoping I can get them out on sale as my birthday gift to you!

I can't wait to show you what I've created and hope you love everything as much as I do.

Lots of love,

Natalia