Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

This week I was helping out with the beginnings of putting together the special Christmas exhibition in the gallery. The first job of the day was to wrap up some of those pretend fake presents that always look so much nicer than any actual real presents. This was quite fun, as I actually enjoy wrapping gifts, plus it's amazing what you can do with just a little bit of brown paper and ribbon: Prizes After that I spent quite a while carefully unwrapping deliveries, checking them over and pricing them before wrapping them all carefully back up to be stored until the changeover to Christmas. Most of the goodies I unwrapped were ceramics and here's a couple of my favourites: Jessica Thorn Super cute cups, jugs and spice shakers by  Jessica Thorn , white outside with coloured seams and insides. Very yummy indeed! Alex Allday And very pretty, delicate ceramics by  Alex Allday  with overlapping surface patterns and textures, giving them a sort of 'lacy' effect. S...

My third day of volunteering at Walford Mill Crafts began with the creative cupcake decorating workshop for kids. This course is run by Lauren Foster of The Cakery Shop  and it was a lot of fun. First we set up the workshop with tools of the trade and places for everyone: Then once everyone had arrived Lauren demonstrated on some sample cupcakes a few techniques for the kids to try out: I can confirm that these were delicious And after that the kids were let loose to decorate theirs however they pleased, and here are some of the results: The kids were really clever and creative and didn't just stick to the examples that were shown. I have never decorated a cupcake and therefore mostly stuck stickily to the perimeter passing different coloured icings and tools and giving tidbits of common sense type advice. And talking about cats. After that it was time to clear up and then finish the decorative christmas kite I started making last week for the kids workshop on 17th ...

Today I started out by finishing the Halloween creations from last week. There's three kids' workshops coming up; Spooky lanterns (which I created last week ), mummies and monsters and Halloween cupcake decorating. This morning I made the mummies and monsters samples to show the kids, so without further ado here they are: Many-eyed alien / monster, Vampire, Mummy Cone Dracula  I think they're all pretty exciting, but the vampire guy is my favourite. Other than specifically using bandages to make the mummy I had free reign to do anything I wanted which was really fun. After some general admin duties (washing out jam jars for the lantern workshop) and lunch, it was time to start working on some christmas goodies! Decorations for the christmas exhibition and decorative christmas kites for another upcoming workshop. I didn't take any photos of those yet but all will be revealed in it's glittery gloriousness soon! Then at 4 o'clock it was time for the ...