Unexpected Gifts — SR STUDIO

I'm slowly coming back down to earth after an amazing couple of weeks - getting married, mini-mooning in New York and finishing off teaching and portraits for Christmas.

It has been an absolute whirlwind!

Mark…the husband(!) and I met accidentally, we exchanged numbers, went on a few dates, moved to different countries, moved back to the same country and then the rest as they say is history!

Without chance, that unplanned meeting, who knows what direction either of us would have led….we’d certainly not be married!

It probably won’t come as much surprise that I couldn’t have gotten married without some form of creativity added in there! So I created a few personal things for our wedding - one of which was making my own ceramic bouquet.

Each flower was created with paperclay where paper thin sheets of porcelain clay are peeled from a plaster batt and then manipulated into various flowers, real or imagined.

I had no idea if this would work or if I'd be making a last minute dash to Tesco to pick up flowers and anti-histamines (Mark's allergic) but thankfully it did and as an added bonus, I've now a permanent vase of flowers for my home.

But of course, with any creative undertaking, things don’t always go to plan.

You see, when working with clay, you have to be fully open to the kiln's whims. Every time you put something in to fire you’re handing things over to him, and he is a mischievous fellow because he loves to play the odd trick to keep us on our toes.

This time, my 'pansy pink' flowers were transformed into a cornflower blue. But, that was my something blue sorted and it looked better than the pink ever would have!

“ Expectation in so many ways is a false paradise. By mapping out a rigid destination we take all the surprise and adventure out of the discovery. What we end up with is essentially what we started with, and it is entirely circumscribed by the paltry limits of our own imagination.’”

— Carter Gillies Pottery

When working on creative projects, we have to open to these 'happy accidents' and embrace chance occurrences because they present us with a new option we had not yet considered.

They're like little unexpected gifts, a direction we didn’t know we could follow.

And on the topic of gifts….

I have a gift for you…

I didn’t stop at the bouquet, I also created ceramic favours for my guests and I have a few left over as a yearly gift to my mailing list.

These ceramic tea light holders were created to act as both table decorations and little favours. Each one is decorated with impressed leaves, ivy, ferns or herbs from my garden and I made sure to keep a few over for you.

I'm not offering these anywhere else, they're solely a gift to those on my mailing list who receive a twice monthly email of tips and strategies to make time for your creativity, plus encouragement and lessons to develop your skills.

Would you like a chance of winning one of my wedding favours? If so, press ‘I Do!’

[EDIT: this competition is now over, but you can sign up to Studio Notes, a twice monthly email to be in for the chance of winning 2019’s gift, plus receive studio insights, tips to make time for your creativity and lessons to develop your art.]

Studio notes

Wedding Links include:

Our wedding was so good due to the support and expertise of this team of magicians - our ‘home from home’ Ballybeg house, our wedding co-coordinator Tee who made sure all we concentrated on was enjoying ourselves and the restaurant level food from Molly’s Larder.

To compliment this amazing day, we had our rescue DJ Jim from In Crowd Weddings who provided some old school vinyls, our patient hair stylist Michelle who went back and forth to multiple venues; Caroline, our photographer from Wild Things Wed who felt like a family member taking snaps of the day and Nicola from Ndear Florists who created our flower girl’s beautiful posy and wedding party boutonnieres.

If you’re getting married in Ireland, I couldn’t recommend these folks more: