Live Below the Line 2012

by emma Posted on 7 May, 2012

This week I am taking part in the Live Below the Line challenge, to raise awareness (and hopefully some money) for those around the world living below the poverty line. The challenge means that from 5-11 May I can only spend £5 on my all food and drink – without accepting handouts from well-meaning friends!

Here’s a photo of what I managed to get for slightly under my budget from Tescos yesterday afternoon:

This lot cost me £4.69

My plan is to live off two large meals for lunch and dinner – with some dodgy looking cup-a-soups to keep me going in the morning. I’ve got enough here to make vegetable pasta, chilli and curry. As I can’t afford any meat, I’ll also be doing the first vegetarian week of my life to boot!

I’ll be keeping a separate blog on my fundraising page, so check there to see how I’m getting on and any donations to my charity, UNICEF, would be greatly appreciated!

 

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Work in progress

by emma Posted on 18 April, 2012

After months of procrastination I finally decided it was time I got on with something more creative than slobbing in front of the TV watching Netflix! So I set about making some broach prototypes from polymer clay. Here are the results:

Broach prototypes

Springtime broach designs!

I’m quite happy with the designs, but I’ll be taking a bit more time over the final versions. Cutting the bird out of clay with a craft knife was a bit fiddly – and I’m not happy with the slightly jagged edges it produced – so I’m going to experiment with making a custom cutter or mould to make the process a bit easier.

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From the tiny ant…

by emma Posted on 21 March, 2012

I saw this tiny canvas in a craft store recently and was suddenly inspired to blow the dust of my acrylics and get painting!

Obviously, such a small canvas was crying out to be adorned with something fittingly tiny, hence this rather quizzical looking ant! For my first attempt at painting in quite a few years I’m quite pleased with it.

Acrylic painting of ant on red background

Ant on Red

Ant on Red (3.5″ x 2.75″) is part of my snappily titled “black-and-white-big-eyed-animals-on-a-coloured-background” series, which I will be posting more of as it grows!

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Let there be Lumina!

by emma Posted on 6 February, 2012

Today I received an order of Lumina polymer clay from Rainbow Silks. I have been looking forward to testing out this clay for the best part of a year since I first discovered the work of clay artist Camille Young.

Lumina clay is an air dry clay that boasts being both highly durable, and incredibly flexible – it’s also very difficult to find! After months of searching I finally managed to find somewhere that actually had some of this brand in stock.

Lumina quite expensive compared with other polymer clay (setting me back a whopping £9.75 for a small packet) so I’ll have to think carefully about what I want to make with it before I start!

I’ll be posting my review of Lumina on this blog in the future, but in the meantime take a look at this amazing video showing the properties of the clay – then maybe you’ll understand why I’m so excited about working with it!

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