Thame.net gets ‘crafty’

THAME.NET was recently invited to sample a course at Ardington School of Crafts, so we sent our ‘crafty’ friend, Susan Koffler along to join a two-day course making resin jewellery with tutor, Kathie Murphy.

Ardington School of Crafts was set up two and a half years ago when an old primary school building was purchased, and renovated to create a pleasant space for workshops and courses with plenty of light, as well as a lovely garden. After the primary school closed, the building had a variety of uses and the present owners have kept a file of historic papers and news clippings to show parts of its fascinating history.

Being 25.8 miles from Thame, there are various routes to take to Ardington; I chose the meandering back roads via the A329 which conveniently by-passed all the present delays at the Oxford ring-road and A34 roadworks.

There are an ever expanding wide range of craft courses to choose from – 205 on offer for 2015! from china and ceramics, to wood and willow. Some are just one or two-day courses, and others or 2 day courses, including some over a weekend. The tutors selected are always experts in their field and have usually published books in their field of expertise.

My course ran from Thursday to Friday and I was made most welcome each morning with a selection of biscuits and a wide choice of coffee or teas, in the pleasantly relaxing dining room. There were eight of us on the course and after introducing ourselves over coffee, we had the course agenda explained to us and queued up to pay for our materials (not included in the course in this instance).

Katie explained the technical issues of our first task and briefly demonstrated what to do, and we were soon all immersed in the task of forming a mould master from quick drying and microwaveable Fimo. All was silent as we were all concentrating and working on our clay forming skills…. This was baked and attached to a base and then we built cardboard walls to contain the liquid rubber compound.

While we enjoyed a relaxing and delicious lunch (included in the course) , chatting sociably and being inspired by the ample supply of art and craft magazines provided for our perusal, the tutor poured the rubber so that the moulds could start to set.

The afternoon was spent using a resin compound to create bangles and pendants from pre-prepared moulds that were bought from the tutor, or ones that we had brought with us such as silicone ice cube or chocolate mould trays. We were also experimenting with colouring compounds to make the transparent resin more colourful. For inclusions into the resin there was lots to try out: buttons, beads, sequins, glitter, paper and even fish-tank gravel were some of the additions that were used.

Needless to say the afternoon flew by. We had a delicious afternoon tea with cake and soon it was time to call it a day. We had learned so much and were looking forward to seeing how our set resin pieces would turn out .

The following morning we had the pleasure of unveiling our moulds and to fill them with a resin compound to make unique creations. This took up the whole morning. The compound used on the second morning differed from the one used on day one, and had a very strong and rather unpleasant scent during ‘’curing’’ but it sets much quicker and has less temperamental reactions with colouring media . Due to the smell however it was all stored in another room, with fans in place and open windows to maximise ventilation.

After a soothing coffee break with delicious cakes, we finished the day with advice on how to finish jewellery pieces with findings and fittings, which was discussed sitting in the lovely garden. We were also able to unmould  the pieces set the previous day and decide what finishing was needed, and watched a demonstration of filing, polishing and finishing to create smooth pieces of resin.

After a super lunch with a wide choice of delectable sandwiches, some smaller ‘’smelly resin ‘’ pieces were ready to be finished and we could practice our filing, which was very necessary as the moulds were very coarse and produced dull and textured rough resin pieces, not the glossy smooth and glass-like pieces we had imagined.

There was an awful lot of finishing filing and sanding work to be done!

Some of the participants had made bracelets the previous day and these were taken out of the moulds and were much admired, needing very little finishing as they were made from the less scented but longer curing resin compound.
( see photo)

Finally it was time to say goodbye to the welcoming and warm hospitality of the Ardington team and take our creations home.

Overall the best liked pieces made were the bracelets.

To anyone thinking of taking this course, my personal warning would be that the ‘’scented’’ resin pieces continues to smell very bad indeed for another 10 days to 2 weeks! It seemed to get worse if anything and driving home in the car it was almost unbearable, even with all the windows open. The mould-making skills and practice were very interesting and useful, though I would work on perfecting a shiny and perfectly smooth ‘’master’’ next time and use a different material, as none of the moulds made with the microwaveable FIMO were in a useable state for my purpose.

Overall I would highly recommend the Ardington School of Crafts for it’s facilities, the light and spaceous work-rooms, the lovely food and relaxing atmosphere.
Do choose your course carefully and ensure it will teach you what you are aiming for; you will have a wonderful and enriching time.