More news from Nepal

The first Australian clay has arrived and Wendy feels this is an auspicious moment! Posting anything to Nepal and actually have it arrive is apparently a hit and miss adventure. I sent some Kato polymer clay via a A4 envelope conditioned flat so it actually looked like reading material. How boring is that but it worked. Many thanks to the person who came up with the idea on the Aussie Poly Clayers forum. I just took the idea and ran with it.
Soon these beautiful Nepali women will have a website produced by the amazing polymer clay artist Cynthia Tinapple. http://tinapple.com/cynthia/ It should be launched on 20th July which I’m looking forward to very much.

Wendy tells me in her email:
"I am just back from four days training where the ladies learnt to make the "Sari beads" which I'd first toyed around with as an idea for them in 2007. THEY LOVED THEM. They loved the name, they loved the multi-coloured stranded wedding beads with them, and they thought they would sell like hotcakes locally.

We chose four colours from a sari we liked and made "hair" and "ribbons" (with the extruders that Jen Tattam from Makin' Clay donated) and decorated the beads. What 5 women achieved, working on a coffee table sized table sitting on tiny stools in a very small cluttered room, was remarkable. They ADORED the necklaces they made from them. The sense of excitement in that tiny room was palpable. They all wore their own creations home and EACH WOMAN had at least one positive comment about what they wore, whether from a home member (if home was a nice place), or someone in the market, or both. One lady, took an order for an earring, necklace and bracelet set that another lady wanted to pay for and take to take to hill town (the next day!!) to get more orders for us and another, see photo, had gone home and come up with a design for a bead she knew would sell like hotcakes in the bazaar in the next Nepali month, Shrawan, when all women wear green and orange saris and necklaces to celebrate the lushness, fertility and dense greenness of the monsoon."