Now, when we said our full report would follow in a few days, there was no taking into account the family commitments entered into. So, what we actually have is a few weeks! Do hope you are still with us and are ready for this short report of our last meet. Short, but hopefully, giving you a flavour of what we do.


We extend a warm welcome to our new members Alex Norman and Carrie-Anne. 

Our tools library is now up and running. Several members took advantage of the opportunity and we hope it will become a useful resource for everyone.

As always there were some lovely items displayed on our Show and Tell table, photos of which can be seen in our gallery.

Demo 1

Jess gave a wonderfully intricate demo of sculpturing dragons and was most generous with her time.

Demo 2

Sue I showed ways of using wire to create findings for jewellery and a very interesting discussion ensued about a range of metals and how to make the most of them.

And as usual, we all had time to work on our projects and discuss ideas and techniques.

Raffle: As always, there were several prizes including a Polyform multi-pack. (I can't believe it, why do I never win! Ed.)




Thank you everyone – our next event is on Sunday 17th November – hope to see you there!

What with the very generous donation from the lovely people at Polyform and five (yes, five!) new members joining our group, this was an exciting day. It's lovely to welcome Sue, Sam, Kasey, Jess, and Lorraine to APCG - all bursting with talent.

This was quite fascinating. Maxine showed us how to use salt to texturise clay. It gives a lovely stone or lava effect.  Here is something Shelly made after seeing the demo:

Another of the interesting Polyform gifts was packs of bead cores. Tricia used these to show a simple technique for making Pandora style beads. 

Raffle

10 lucky people won raffle prizes this time. Thank you everyone who donated a prize.

Yes, we hear you cry “where is our Clay Day report”?  Well, here it is. Sorry everyone, a busy week has delayed production!   

But what another lovely day we had. We welcome Patricia who joined us today.

We began with a few notices.

1.      Flower bead swap with our Greek twin guild.

If you didn't leave your beads with Nicky on Sunday, we hope you have posted them to Sue Heaser.

This is exciting - there were some lovely beads and we’re all looking forward to seeing the beads from Greece.

2. Texture plate swap with NWPCG in Seattle.

We are having a texture plate swap with our American twin guild in Seattle.  Sue gave us a demo last time showing ideas for this. If you are willing to join in, you will need to bring yours to our next meeting in May.  The suggestion is to make 5 of postcard size although this may be negotiable.  We’ll keep you posted (and we’ll be pestering you to sign up over the next few weeks)!

Show and Tell: As always, we were treated to a beautiful display of designs and ideas. Some of the photos are shown in this report but you can also see them all in the gallery at www.anglianpcg.co.uk/gallery.html

Trash to Treasures: This time we had some lovely musical charms available free to anyone. Thank you to whoever placed them here – they went like hot cakes! 

Demo

Carrie gave us a demo on some lovely ways to use scrap clay and produce a range of different sheets.

We were enthralled. Carrie showed four different techniques which gave a variety of great results.


Do send us your photos of ways you have used this – we love to see them and they will be posted in the gallery.

Question and Answer session

This was very informal. We were all keen to try out the ideas Carrie showed in the morning and, at the same time, were able to ask others about ways of working

Raffle: Diana won the Pearlex Powders – we hope you have fun using them Diana.

Thank you everyone – our next event is on Sunday 19th May – see you there!

Hurrah, the snow disappeared and despite a slightly foggy start to the day we were able to hold our event postponed from January. And what a great day we had.

We are thrilled to extend a warm welcome to two more new members, Alex Gunn and Nadia Michaux.









There was a slight change to our plans as Terry, who was scheduled to do our first demo, was unable to be with us as she is not able to drive at the moment while she waits for an operation on her ankle. Hope your operation is successful Terry and best wishes are sent from all of us.  

Notices. 

1.Twinning with guild from Greece.
Sue Heaser has been liaising with a polymer clay artist from Greece who has just started a guild there. A twinning was suggested and all were keen.

Our first activity will be a flower bead swap. Everyone who signed up will make 5 flower beads between 1cm and 2.5cm in size.  They can be the same or each one can be completely different – the choice is yours.  Once we receive them at our next meeting on 17th March they will be posted and everyone who submitted beads will receive 5 beads in exchange.

So, if you are participating, don’t forget to bring those beads on 17th March!

2. NWPCG Seattle twinning. Two items for discussion:
a. E-mail pen friends
Members are invited to become an e-mail pen friend with another polymer clay enthusiast from the NWPCG. Those who were interested picked a name to link with.  We’ve already had great feedback from Maxine who is very enthusiastic about her e-mail friend. They will be coming up with ideas and we look forward to seeing some of their work.

It’s not too late, if you would like to do this just let us know.

b. Texture plate swap

We will be doing a swap of our own designed texture plates. We will talk more about this at our next meeting and aim to have swaps ready to send in May. 

Show and Tell:There was a lovely range of items to see and admire. This is always fascinating as there is such a diversity of ideas. Pictures are displayed in our website gallery so do have a look.

Trash to Treasures: This was inspired by Enid who unfortunately couldn’t make this event. Items no longer required were placed on a table with a price and name attached. Members were then able to buy items they wanted. (Note from ed: it worked very well and I for one was able to buy a book I had been eyeing up for ages!) As it worked so well, it was decided it will be a regular feature of our meetings now.

Demo 1 Cardboard presentation boxes - Tricia showed us how to make cardboard boxes for display and sale of items.  This is such a useful craft – purchasing ready made boxes is much more expensive than making your own so thanks Tricia.

Demo 2 Texture plates - With our NWPCG swap in mind, Sue Heaser gave us a demo on how to produce texture plates. There were some lovely ideas and inspiration.

Sue also gave those new to polymer clay a run through the basic techniques for making canes and skinner blends.  

Demo 3 Mokume Gane Jackie treated us to a demo on the making of Mokume Gane. There are so many possibilities and varieties of colour and style here. Thanks Jackie.

Raffle: We had a range of item for our raffle. Jo brought along items of chocolate and some bantam eggs. There were some of the new Premo! colours to be won and we had 5 prizes in total.  (Note: Jo confessed that she had eaten the chocolate intended for January and had to go out and buy some more)!


Thank you everyone for a wonderful, inspirational day. What a friendly group we are!

APCG just keeps growing and we extend a warm welcome to our new members, Terry, Anne and Linda. 

Well, weather-wise, what a contrast to our last clay day in August. Then the weather was scorching hot; this time cold and wet.  Yet again, however, our venue proves to be an excellent choice as the powerful heaters (and possibly quite a lot of hot air we generated) kept us warm.

1. British Polymer Clay Guild anniversary party

BPCG is holding a 25th anniversary event in Sutton Colfield on 25th November.  We will submitting a display and extended an invitation to members who would like to attend. Let us know by e-mail.  

2. Website news

Hooray! We have our own website.  It is in the early stages of development and we welcome ideas and submissions. These could be photographs of your work, inspirations you have found, tutorials and so on.  If you would like to contribute, e-mail us with your ideas, links and photos. And you can always comment on our posts.

Subscribe to the site to receive e-mails when there is an update.  All you need is your e-mail address. Messages are sent once per day but only when we have posted new information. The e-mail will contain a summary of posts with links to visit if you would like to read more.  

3. International Polymer Clay Association
IPCA have asked us to consider twinning with a US group.  An excellent idea which we hope to get started soon. We’ll keep you posted.

Show and Tell:  
Yet again, members brought stunning examples of their work, just a few of which are shown in this post.

Maxine demonstrated her technique for producing extruded rainbow canes which she then used to coil, bray and cut to achieve a rainbow flower.  Off we all went to try it out. Some produced flowers, others used a range of different shapes and all looked great.

Sue Heaser gave us an outline of her progress from experimenting to becoming the author of a book on mosaics.  She showed us how to use graph paper to mark out the tesserae and explained how to arrange, attach, bake and finish a polymer clay mosaic. We were enthralled.  

Micro mosaics are next on our list if we can persuade her to do another!

Pictures of your finished pieces using today’s techniques are more than welcome.

Raffle
We held our first raffle with the prize of 12 of the new Premo! Colours.  Won by Maxine. We look forward to seeing the projects you make with them Maxine!

Social Event
We must not forget to mention our social event to Newmarket Bead Fair on 18th November.  You are welcome to join us for coffee, lunch and shopping.  We meet at 11am in the foyer.

Finally, some ideas for the future:
Enid suggested a “Trash to Treasures” table. This will be held at our next clay day in January. A great idea - details to follow.

Pat will be showing how to make display boxes from card.

Terry has offered to demo a clay technique.

We will post more detailed information later so keep an eye on our updates.

It was a marvellous day thanks to all of you. See you soon.