Lets start at the very beginning

Several weeks ago, in fact it was half term, the first seeds of this blog were planted. My eldest had arranged with her friend that we were goung to Pizza Hut in the holidays. There would be 5 children in all and I thought rather than just going out for pizza and going home it'd be nice to do something together whilst we were out.

I suggested that we went to a pottery place that we'd found during the summer holidays in Loughborough. It's a lovely place where you can paint your own pottery, make mosaics, make teddy bears or do decopatch. I'd been fascinated by decopatch since we went in the summer holidays and was determined that this visit I was going to have a go.

Well after our pizza we went to the pottery shop and they said they were closing early. We were all so disappointed but made plans to go back at the weekend.

Finally we got to the pottery shop. I'd already decided what I was going to decopatch. I was going to do a capital E for my youngest's bedroom door. My determination and excitement must have rubbed off on the kids as my eldest and my friends eldest decided they were also going to give decopatch a go. My daughter chose to do a cat and my friends daughter decided to do quite a large giraffe. 

But what is decopatch I hear you cry...

Decopatch is decorating an object with special paper. You tear the paper into postage stamp sized pieces and using special glue stick them on your object. It is that simple but looks great. 

My first creation - Front

My first creation - Back

Decopatch is so simple that my daughter was able to create the beautiful cat below.

It did take her a bit longer than the couple of hours we had at the pottery shop though so the wonderful people there let us take some scraps of paper home to finish it off. 

This is when we learnt our first important lesson of decopatching. The glue you use is not standard PVA. It's a mix of glue and varnish to get that beautiful glossy finish. A quick trip to hobbycraft and this was all fixed.

As for the giraffe I think it's still a work in progress!

If you are local to me, the pottery shop is in Loughborough, Leicestershire, more details can be found here: http://creationspottery.co.uk/

If you'd like to find a Hobbycraft near you go to: http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/