working 925 {or, what I got for my birthday}

'twas my birthday last week & my lovely family was very good to me yet again. My big present (& the one I knew I was getting) is a seven week introductory silversmithing course, run by/at the Jam Factory. The first class was this week & although I don't have anything to photograph yet, it was good fun.

My sneaky family did sneak in a couple of surprises too - a lovely notebook from ShePinTea & a beautiful dish by Creativewithclay. Plus of course another awesome card, drawn by my brothers :)

build { the teleidoscope }

building my knowledge....& a larger image - week #16 of The Teleidoscope - Build.

My first ever photo expansion... above is not the exact image I used, but shows the size/scale I started with. Below is an in progress shot - because the background is so bright, it's hard to see all the edges, but I used 12 images, plus the central one.

I followed this tutorial.

on Flickr

wonderful workshops...

The Saturday of the conference was spent learning some new skills (or attempting to anyway)...

First Trish from TrishAlan Designs gave an interesting talk on teaching craft...not sure I want to go that way at the moment, but it certainly raised some things to consider if I do. Then we had morning tea  - & I would like to thank Ali for insisting on organising real coffee :)

My first workshop was Freeform Crochet - taught by Meggan. I made a cord for my id tag & started a circle...I didn't pick it up super fast, but I started to get somewhere. Then I travelled by train with Meggan on Sunday & got an extra lesson :). I not a crochet prodigy by any means, but I will spend some time playing & see if I can get anywhere...(in the photo below, the purple string & the smaller circle are my work - the larger circle Meggan made to show me a pattern).

After lunch, I did a zentangle workshop with Melanie. Zentangle is heaps of fun - I've been playing since I got home & have introduced my Mum & sisters to it. Amy has been especially taken with it & has produced some gorgeous drawings.

The bigger sheet in the photo below is the tangle I started at the workshop & have since completed. The smaller drawing is one that Melaine gave us the outline for, so we could all fill it in & see what we came up with - they have been great so far.

a better look at my first zentangle...