Origami workshop 1: year of the horse & gift pouches

So I went to The Art House in Southampton last night for one of their events - an origami workshop where I met some lovely new people including a young gay couple and a lady called Claire, who incidentally lives in the town I grew up in, just houses away from where my mother lives now. Small world. She kindly dropped me home afterwards and offered me lifts for future events as she's pretty much a regular.

I'm totally in love with this cute little cafe - the atmosphere is just great - relaxed and super friendly, everyone chats, regardless of whether they know each other or not, dogs are allowed and you're surrounded by cute things to buy, paintings on the walls, colour, texture - it has a real hippie vibe so no wonder I felt at home! I think it will be my first port of call for an exhibition of my paintings, and as long as I get my first project finished and everything organised by August, I should be able to set up for 2015.

2014 is the year of the horse, so we learnt how to make origami horses - surprisingly easy when working as a group, but it's a tricky one - especially if you want said horse to stand on 3 legs while it's waving the other one in the air.
The rest of the time was spent drinking orange hot chocolate, eating coffee & walnut cake and making miniature gift pouches from 2 pieces of patterned square paper, which twist open and closed very much like a Moroccan purse. They look like flowers, are super pretty and you can put flat gifts in them like chocolates or earrings, or even CDs in larger ones. They could also be used as colourful pinwheels.
Got the hang of these very easily and they're therapeutic to fold, so I ended up with loads! I'm thinking 25 of these would be a great addition to an elaborate handmade advent calendar and you can cut old metallic wrapping paper into squares if you don't want to buy proper origami paper - it will fold just as well.

Tempted to go back Sunday afternoon for a life drawing session - other events tempting me right now are Songwriter's Circle Wednesday evening, Holistic Connections Thursday lunchtime, Busker's Cafe on Saturday followed by comedy night and there's an open mic night on the 24th, so I might take my guitar along for some action.

birdy x