Thursday was a sad day as it was our last day at The Manor House Hotel. We only had two classes, though we also sneaked in 2 sessions of silk painting and a massage. The first class was candle making. There were two techniques, the first of which was dipping, which is why they had this great set up. A big table with vats set into it holding wax of different colours, and cold water for setting the layers.
We took an ordinarly taper candle and dipped it in clear wax for 30 seconds to soften everything up. Then we dipped in a colour, then cold water, wipe the water off and repeat for a total of 6 dips per colour. It was good fun.
This candle had a layer of each colour, then I went back and dipped again, but didn't submerge the candle all the way, just enough to leave a band of each colour at the top. It came out really dull and mottled which was a disappointment as the waxes were so vibrant.
I had to cut the bottom off and you can see the layers of colour better here.
I had a go at carving for my second dipped candle. Again a rainbow of dips, then carved with a knife and twisted.
Hmmm, not brilliant. We only had an hour for this class and the room wasn't left open for us afterwards which was a shame (health and safety I assume), as I'd have liked to try much more carving but I just didn't have time.
The second technique was container candles. I've done that before of course, but wanted to try a technique she showed us where she made decals from wax poured onto the table top. I cut the wax with biscuit cutters and stuck the warm decals to the glass.
After a short while in the fridge, it was time to fill up the glass. I chose yellow. And made a right mess! Luckily it can be cleaned up easily when it's set. I put it in the fridge and we collected them the next day when it was nice and set.
Unfortunately wax dips as it sets so there is a dip in the top. If we'd have had a longer class, I could have remedied that, but there just wasn't time to leave it an hour then top it up.
The next post is the last one for the Manor House Hotel and it's about glass painting.
My first time carving candles and making wax decals, so I'm linking up to Something New for 2014
I'm back again with a post about the enamelling class I took with my lovely mum on our holiday at The Manor House Hotel. Blogger is telling me I've spelt enamelling wrong, it thinks I'm American.
Enamelling is a technique done on copper blanks. I'm sure you can do it on silver too, but that would be expensive. It involves enamelling powder (glass?), small chunks of glass, strings of glass and millefiori beads. I'm sure there is much more you could add, but this is what we had.
This first picture shows my first piece. I put it together on the little metal rack and then put it into a kiln for about 3 minutes until it all melted.
Here is how it turned out:
I'm really pleased with it, it's not quite as blurry as this photo suggests! It has a little hole (at the bottom, the photo is upside-down) so I can make it into a pendant. I think the middle bit with the white stringers looks like Chinese writing.
Here is how the back looks after being in the kiln. A bit of the enamel bled onto the back, I'll have to remove that with my pliers as it'll feel rough against my skin.
I didn't remember to take any more before photos I'm afraid, I tried my best all week to take progress shots, but this was my first class and we'd just driven for 7 and a half hours to get there! This uses red powder which burns very easily, so I didn't add the millefiori as that takes longer to melt. This pendant took just one minute to melt, it has burnt around the edges, but I quite like it. I just added strings in red, orange and yellow.
Of course, when I saw the bunny blank, I had to make a bunny! Nice and simple in a lazuli blue with a millefiori tail. I made the diamond shape as a separately pendant but it didn't turn out as nice as I thought it would. I think it will look good with the bunny if I can find a way to string them together. I used millefiori and small chunks of glass on that one. The first version didn't come out great, so I added glue, more powder and some more chunks and I like it better now.
We both really enjoyed enamelling, it's such a creative craft as you literally start with a blank slate. I'm thinking of saving for a kiln next year and this would be top of my crafts-for-kilns list!
Next up, silk painting.
I'm going to be linking a lot of posts to Something New for 2014 this month, and this is another as I've never done enamelling before.
