The Gaslight Anthem at Leeds - First Gig of 2013

I'll never get a job as a gig reviewer with these immense writing skills, but finally writing about 2013's first show! Last week I went to Leeds for The Gaslight Anthem with my friend Kate for what must be the worst organised trip anywhere, ever! Stupidly last minute, we planned it the day before, despite me going round to hers 3 weeks ago specifically to sort it out. We ended up making cake pops and not mentioning TGA once! But look at these works of art... Obviously we were concentrating so hard on them there was no time for distractions... Something like that...

Awesome cakepops...Nailed it.

But we got there. That's what's important. Had a quick detour into One Direction World to have our picture taken with the boys (yeah we only pretend to be into cool music) and off to the academy. Support band was the Japandroids who were pretty good, two guys - one on guitar, one on drums. Couldn't really understand the vocals, which is a shame.

Then the sound of 'Jump' by Van Halen. And Gaslight time! Loved it. They played a great show with a good mix of all the records. My absolute favourite moment was in Too Much Blood - when Brian Fallon sings 'Now I am no devil but I've got things on my mind' His voice! It was fierce! Wow! His voice in general was awesome. I think I'm developing a bit of a fan girl crush...

They played so many songs, about 25 in total, the energy levels were high all through the show and the excitement in the air was as you'd expect for a sell out show with some great singalongs.

I hope it's not too long before they're back.

Gaslight Photos courtesy of Kate Wall and her iPhone skillz

Best of British Treasury Week 2

This weeks treasury is inspired by Melscraftycuts beautiful Mad Hatter art...

Alice in Wonderland paper cut wall art - Melscraftycuts on Etsy

It was tough choosing the other items to join it, I could spend hours happily looking at any Alice in Wonderland themed items.

Alice in Wonderland Treasury

Best of British Treasury

As part of the Best of Britsh team on Etsy, we have a weekly treasury competition. The idea is to create a treasury of your favourite items, including one from a featured shop, 7 from the team and 8 more that post to Europe. For this weeks treasury, we had to chose an item from AccidentalVix, I chose this cute print...

Original art illustrative print, Forever young (10" x 12") by AccidentalVix on Etsy

 

 

The bright colours and the rain got me thinking of a spring theme, so here are the other choices I made. Click on the caption to see them all!

 

Springtime



Metal Clay Day

As part of the Jewellery for Business week I did at London Jewellery School in July, we spent two days playing with Metal Clay. This was something I was really excited about using as you get great effects, I was just a bit scared of trying it on my own. I bought some extra clay while I was there as I thought I might need some more but never used it. The little packet actually stayed in my handbag up until last weekend when I finally ripped it open. I had asked for some clay stuff for Christmas, some cutters, texture mats and polishing cloths and I've recently treat myself to a blow torch for my silversmithing class so I had everything ready and just waiting for a bit of free time. To be on the safe side (and because my class notes went walkabout) I bought a book so I could swot up before going wild. I got 'Magical Metal Clay' by Sue Heaser.



Metal Clay Treats - Lump Clay, Paste and Syringe. Crystals, Roller, Paintbrush, Cutters, Texture Mat and Letter Stamps

I love anything star shaped so I played with those cutters first. I had a bit of clay left over so rolled it out over a swirly patterned texture mat. I then wanted to experiment with the syringe clay so I drew a star and a heart outline (nothing too taxing for my drawing skills) and filled them in with a swirly pattern. I also added a little red crystal to the heart to bling it up. I want to do some jewellery inspired by card suits, as I had run out of clay I used the syringe but didn't have enough control or do it thick enough so those shapes became my torch practise pieces. After the cutting, everything needs to be sanded super smooth. Boring, but neccessary to get a shiney piece.



These are the succesful pieces, before they were sanded.

I have been desperate to play with the blowtorch since I got it a few weeks ago. There's something about flames... Anyway, the blowtorch is what turns the clay into silver. Ultimately, I still like to believe its magic but the part of my brain that chose to do Chemistry at A-Level wants me to understand the heat burns away the binders and leaves behind sintered metal (where powdered metal becomes a solid). Once the piece is cooled you brush away the burnt powder, it leaves a white ashy coating, then tah-dah! You have silver! Just like magic...

The idea is to heat up the piece, the binder will burn away (there will be smoke, maybe flames) and then to keep the piece glowing orange for about a minute depending on the size. It's quite easy to get a bit carried away and go from orange to runny silver, meaning you've melted it. None of the playing card pieces survived. But never mind, I got the silver to form a ball which I will use in something else. I fiddled with the torch a bit, as I think it was too hot, then got started on the other pieces.

Once you are finished with the flame, the piece gets put in cold water to quench it, makes an awesome sound. Then brush of the white powder and start polishing... Another boring part but it makes it shine!

Shiney stars... Not so shiney everything else. All down to lazy sanding. Partly because I was scared of snapping the syringe work and didn't want to sand the pattern off the swirly piece, partly because I just really wanted to play with the flames...