craft class - concrete

Last month a post popped up on facebook advertising last minute spaces for a workshop at Two Little Magpies.  A gorgeous shop selling handmade goods in a suburb of Nottingham, I'd never visited before so was happy to try out one of their classes.  My ....  agreed to come, with no persuasion.  I really don't know what to call him.  I'll call him Z.  

The workshop was in a space at the back of the shop and led by a lovely tutor, though I didn't get her name (I struggle with names and when I meet someone, it takes me months to address them as I have a terrible fear I've got their name wrong!).  We were making concrete tea-light holders.  Clearly that's not a tea-light holder in the picture above.  That's a flannel draped over a cylindrical plastic pot, covered in wet concrete.  Obviously!

I didn't get any process photos as it was a little messy, which meant that I was covered head to foot in concrete!  Above are my tea-light holders, still wet and still in the mould.  The tutor had made us each 2 geometric shapes from thick fluted cardboard.  We covered the moulds in duck tape to make them more secure, then poured in the concrete.

Luckily, I'd driven (we had discussed getting the bus and going to the pub), as we had 2 very heavy trays at the end of it.  I went to Centre Parcs the next day, so they got a good week to dry.  First up was the flannel.  Well, it's not a flannel anymore, you'd struggle to wash with it.  It's a plant pot!

Here it is displayed on my garden table.  Really funky!

I could paint it with acrylic paints (they will fade outside, but I don't think it matters).  I might do that when the craft room is done and I can find my paints.

This one was an added extra.  Whilst we were waiting for the concrete to start to set, we were given pre-made tea-light holders to sand and decorate as we wished.  I went for turquoise paint and a bit of copper leaf, though my copper leaf came off at one point.

Here are the geometric shapes.  The reason it's taken me this long to post about this class is that they needed sanding.  Yesterday was the first chance I got to do that, sitting in the sunny garden.

You can see in the pictures above that this had gold glitter all over the top.  Unfortunately, most of that came off when I took it out the mould and sanded the edges.  I also added a bit of glitter to the concrete.  You can see it glinting when the sun catches it but it's not obvious.

I'm not sure why the concrete is two different shades of grey.  Whilst making them, I was mixing concrete, pouring, mixing, pouring, I assume it's a different ratio of powder stuff to water?  

The last pouring of this one had turquoise paint added.  Perhaps not quite enough as you can only see it in patches.  I quite like the effect though.

Here they are all together to give you an idea of size.  I only had blue tea-lights - a white one would be better in the little blue holder.  I also had to take them out of their foil cases, seems my tea-lights are bigger than the tutor's!

I really enjoyed this class, and it was great that Z wanted to join in.  It's not a craft I'll be taking up but I'm happy to have experienced it.