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Pottery Painting At Make Do And Mend

My first ever attempt at pottery painting
I would apologise for the Christmas craft overload, but I am not sorry, because there are so many great ideas about, and crafting keeps me distracted from the stress of Christmas. The other week I went along to Make Do and Mend in Chelmsford, as they had a pottery painting session on, and having been twice before, I couldn't resist painting something else festive for the tree.
The sessions are run by ceramics teacher, and expert painter Mell from Potters Bar Paint Your Own Pottery, and she does a great job of teaching little techniques such as dotting, stars, and hearts, and letting everyone know what colours can be layered up together, and generally encouraging those who weren't sure what to do, and lacked the confidence to touch their chosen pottery pieces with some paint.

It's pretty addictive, and relaxing sitting there coming up with my ideas, and watching what everyone
This year's decoration
else is doing. Even better when you get to pick your painting up afterwards and see how the colours have transformed after firing and glazing. This year I picked out two cute snowmen decorations to paint, and set about giving them little gloves, hat, buttons, and a face. The decided to paint a little design in each corner. I had no idea how my little holly and robin would turn out as they were quite fiddly to do, but I'm pretty pleased with the results.

My only slight criticism was there needed to be some quality control on the holes in the decorations, one of mine didn't have a hole right the way through, and fixing it, meant a piece snapped off and had to be glued back together. Apart from that, there were a good selection of things to paint, and help there if I needed it.

It genuinely is something all the family, or any age can get involved in, and you don't need to be artistic to have a go, anyone can do it. Make Do and Mend often have drop in pottery painting
Another cute snowman at home on the tree

sessions, and a whole host of other workshops throughout the year, so if you feel like getting creative in 2014, why not have a look at their website.

In the meantime I'll leave you with a few pictures of my efforts. Happy Christmas crafting everybody.

If you've done something crafty for Christmas, why not connect and share below!

* I paid to take part in this workshop and all opinions are my own.

Comments

  1. They are cute! I hope to do some festive things like this next year when Sienna is a bit older! I'm excited already haha!

    Kerry @ Lived With Love | Parenting & Lifestyle blog

    ReplyDelete

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