You Know It's The End Of The School Year When...

... The kids bombard you with artwork! All of the wall displays are taken down from the classes and the pictures are sent home. Most arrive ripped, covered in twisted staples or slightly crumpled after being rammed into their bags, but it's always lovely to see how creative they have been.

Minxy has so far this week returned home with quite a collection!

A cat carrying flowers...

Aquarelle *Review*

Minxy is the artistic one of the family and loves being creative and crafty so she was pleased to receive Aquarelle from Ravensburger which makes watercolours easy.

 

Aimed at children aged 8-13, Aquarelle includes everything your child needs to make some beautiful artwork;

 

• 3 watercolour paper canvasses with paint resistant image outlines
• 5 liquid watercolour paint bottles
• 1 double sided paintbrush (2 sizes)
• 1 water pipette
• A mixing palette
• Instructions

The instruction booklet has a very useful guide on how to mix up different colours and explains different techniques artists use when painting. Minxy found it easy to follow and enjoyed sitting and painting the horses. The paint resistant outlines helped to keep the canvas tidy and made it near impossible to go over the lines meaning the paint stayed where is should be.

 

The paint being in small bottles with dropper style lids minimises spillages and makes it easy to mix the exact colour you require. I could leave Minxy without worrying I'd return to a messy floor and sides and I didn't feel the need to have layers of newspaper down either!

 

The palette has lots of areas to organise your colours and the pipette makes adding water to the paint simple. The brush is small which allows finer detail to be added and creates lovely results - it's great for those with a delicate touch or a heavy hand.

 

We were all very impressed with the final product... she has even tried sell her masterpieces to grandparents!

 

 

Aquarelle has other styles available in the range which include cities, dolphins and fairies so there is something for both sexes to appreciate.

 

You can purchase a set on Amazon

 

 

 

*We received Aquarelle for the purpose of this review. The opinions given are honest and our own.*

Potz Ceramic Studio - Family Fun

Situated within Billing Garden Village, Potz Ceramic Studio is the perfect place for some creative fun in a warm and friendly environment. A wet weekend afternoon we headed to the centre for a plate painting experience, despite our lack of artistic talent!

We were seated without delay and shown the large variety of pots, cups, money boxes and more that were available to decorate, settling on two different styles of plates between the four of us. 

The member of staff was always close by to offer assistance and he explained that we would need several coats of paint for the best finish, that there were a variety of paint pens and stamps that we could use too and that the different shades of paints were all on the brush pot so we could see how each would turn out. He also offered complimentary drinks.

We all set to work decorating our pieces with the large selection of brushes and 18 paints on our bench. The ceramic tiles were really handy and helped to prevent wasted paint with small indentations for the colours you require to go in. I decided to draw Spartan, our Border Collie, on mine and the Mini Mes did bats and flowers with the stamps while the Mr decided on a beach scene after attempting a motorbike unsuccessfully and painting over it!

We were in the studio for around 90 minutes and we had a lovely time comparing our masterpieces as we made them. It was quite a pleasant, relaxing experience. 

I was surprisingly pleased that mine actually looked like an animal as I don't really have any skill when it comes to drawing at all! We painted our names on the reverse of our creations and handed them in to be glazed and put in the kiln. We were given a receipt and told we would be able to collect our plates the following weekend which we did...

The final result was great, they were smooth and shiny and the colours had all brightened such a lot. We gave them a quick wash when we returned home and had lunch on them, they were easy to clean afterwards too and stacked nicely away with the rest of our dinner set.

The plates we created were £9 for each bisque and the studio time for each of us was £4.50. This is quite an expensive activity but considering we all had a plate to take home that we can use on a daily basis it doesn't seem as costly. We enjoyed our visit and would go again.

Apart from plate decorating you can have a party at Potz, have your child or pets hand, feet or paw prints done or even have a go at Decopatch.  There are a lot of options available with budgets to suit all.

*We received studio time and plates for the purpose of this review. The opinions given are honest and our own*