Hochanda

It is always at the end of the year where many people will start reminiscing over the year gone by and reflecting upon their achievements over the last few months but what I always find more exciting is the anticipation of what the New Year will bring after the Seasonal Festivities are over. 2015 has been a great year for me personally culminating in some ways with my debut on the Hochanda Channel showcasing some fantastic equipment from the range of SIP Woodworking Machinery, demonstrating its abilities and hopefully passing on some of my experience as a Professional Cabinet Maker . Looking ahead to 2016, I am quite excited as not only will I continue the job I love creating bespoke hardwood furniture in my workshop just outside Diss on the Norfolk & Suffolk border, undertaking one to one training in Cabinet Making skills but also regularly being able to bring the Hochanda TV viewers further shows which I hope you will find entertaining and informative whilst also in...

1.      We love your creations. How did you first get into Encaustic Art and can you remember the very first thing you made? In 1986 Shona bought a painting at a big craft show in Alexandra Palace where we had a woodturning stand. It was an oil pastel and wax background, then finished off with a small iron by a French Canadian man. The mystery caught my imagination and I couldn’t resist trying it at home. These are my first 3 creations. Ten weeks later I sold a load at St.Davids Cathedral in Pembrokeshire, and it all grew from that. 2.      Your shows were a hit with our customers in November; everyone loves your designs and techniques, where do you get your ideas from?  It’s a joint effort really. We both have a willingness to explore and try stuff out. A sort of “Keep your eyes open” where we play with the wax colours and iron and watch the results appear! Ideas just pop up! Not only with wax and Encaustic Art though – with everything i...

Classic Cars aren’t a fan of the cold winter months, with many being taken off the road and put in the garage, and we think their owners are quite happy with that too. We understand that for motor enthusiasts and classic car collectors looking after your pride and joy is a must,  so we have put together our top 10 tips for looking after your motor in the winter. Tip 1: Keep it Dry Dampness causes rust, deteriorates electrics and often causes more troubles than you would like. Ensure your storage area is waterproof and that air can circulate; try to leave a window open to allow air to circulate through the car. If you are planning on putting a cover on your car, make sure it’s breathable so the moisture in the air doesn’t get stuck between the cover and the car, this would cause you all sort of problems when you come to take your car out after winter. Tip 2: Maintain the  battery Due to lack of use throughout the winter month’s batteries tend to suffer, and th...

Hi there Crafters! It's been an absolute joy having the lovely Jill Ablas from Creativ Company at Hochanda today. We love the product so much that we have got our hands on an amazing project for you! An artificial wedding cake made from white boxes which are glued together, just to jazz up your table decorations on your big day. Decorated with artificial sugar balls made with a Pearl Pen and flowers made from textured paper, it the perfect addition to your table. Small boxes with satin ribbon, decorated with the same flowers as the the cake, which you could even use as favour boxes. Step 1 Print and cut out the template which is available as a separate PDF file for this idea. Draw the outline of the template onto textured paper. Here we have made approx. 30 flowers in four different sizes. Step 2 Roll each flower/snail shape around a pencil as shown.   Step 3 Put a small blob of glue in the middle of the flower as shown and tighten the petals....

Hi everyone, we hope you are well and ready for Christmas.  It doesn't seem 5 minutes ago when we were saying it's to early to mention it - and now it's just 10 days away!!  My word, where does time go.  Talking of time flying, we had the lovely Paul Church join us just the other day, and we managed to grab an art piece from him, to give away to one of our lucky blog winners!  This is the stamped image up for grabs: Isn't that beautiful.  If you want to be in with a chance of winning, please leave a comment on this post, and we'll choose someone at random. If you would like to read more about Paul, and see more of his work, check out Paul's blog: http://paul-church.blogspot.co.uk/ You need to look at the whole blog, including some of the older posts - as Paul has done some seriously beautiful work, look at this: Stunning.  Watch out for Paul bringing us more inspiration here at Hochanda , soon. Tune in to Hochanda every day 24/...

We missed our normal blog candy give-away date!!  To make up for it, we have an extra special card, signed, and made, by the wonderful Sue Wilson.  It's a beautiful card, and deserves to be framed by the lucky winner.  All you need to do in order to be in with a chance, is leave a comment on this blog post, and we will pick your name at random.  Please do watch out for a message from us on the blog post announcing the winner, as we have a couple of cards that haven't been claimed.  Anyway, this is the card that's up for grabs: Tune in to Hochanda every day 24/7 for lots of fun and crafty demonstrations! Watch our programmes live >  Hochanda.com You can also tune into Hochanda on Freeview channel 39, Sky channel 663 or Freesat  817.

Christmas decorations are lovely to make - whether you are doing them for the tree, for the Christmas dining room table, or if it's part of your gift wrapping - handmade just looks that bit better.  Sizzix have helped make box making so easy - and they look great. This little box could be full of chocolates, it may hold a special piece of jewellery - you may just have it empty as part of your Christmas decorations.  You can make them in any colour, decorate them just as you wish, and they are so inexpensive to do. First cut the box from a piece of card, and re-enforce the score lines Add adhesive, the instructions show you precisely where the glue needs to go.  I used strong double sided tape, to make sure the box holds together.  And now to decorate.  You can use anything.  For this box I stamped a snowflake stamp, using a Versamark Ink Pad, randomly and allowing the snowflakes to fall off the box.  I then dusted the images over wit...

You will definitely recognise the talented, and very lovely, Katie. She demonstrates for Sizzix, and manages to inspire us, whilst juggling a hectic life - and has even managed to find time to answer some questions: Hi Katie, thank you for taking time out to answer a few questions for us. You are such a busy lady, with your family, designing, and being on the motorway so much - how do you manage to fit it all in!!  Thank you for asking me! It’s an absolute pleasure. To be totally honest I don’t have a clue how I do it! So many people ask me how I manage to make it all work and keep the children happy, the business running smoothly and everything just so! In all honesty I don’t! Things are always chaotic in our house and sometimes I feel guilty that I have dragged my family into this crazy rollercoaster of a life I seem to have! In fact just as I am writing this my husband is mumbling something under his breath about everyone in this house being insane!! I suppose really we ha...

In my last post, I shared some experiments I had done with Starlights paints, from Imagination Crafts.  These are so scummy, but I wanted to finish a project for you as well.  Here's the above card. I started by embossing a plain piece of scrap white card.  Isn't it wonderful when you can turn a piece of scrap card into something so pretty.  I used a sponge to gently sweep the paint over the top of the embossed card, it just highlights the embossing and emphasis the detail.  Look at the sheen on the card!  Isn't that attractive. I then cut a frame out of white card and then gold card, which I glued together.  I decorated the frame with Christmas flowers I then painted a piece of scrap card with the White Gold paint, and blasted it dry with my heat gun.  When it was dry, I used a rub-on sentiment.  I cut this down and matted and layered gold, then red.  I really like this sentiment topper - and all the colours...