Sugar and spice and everything nice!

Yep, that's what all these little girls are made of, including the instructor and students. Especially the instructor. And her girls. I had the privilege of learning how to make one of these adorable paper clay music box figurines at the ZNE Convenzione last weekend in Pleasanton, CA. My class was taught by the so-sweet Gina Gabriell in her newly-renovated and soon-to-be-opened shop Tangerine in Dublin, CA. Gina http://www.elevenmorning.com/ is such a kind, supportive and generous instructor. Within eight hours every student had a darling girl all done, and each and every one was unique and sweet and well done, as demonstrated in the second photo. There's a lot of sweetness in the student photo too, and thanks to Deena, aka scrappydeena and roomie, for the finger tiara for me!

The next photo are our little girls, formed out of paper clay and styrofoam, drying in the heat box while we went out for Chinese at lunch. The last photo, immediately above, is of Gina Gabriell's materpieces, which she had out on Sunday at the ZNE vendor fair. Gina also had mixed media packets, ATCs, other dolls and the book "Pink Sky," which she wrote and illustrated and of which copies are being donated by ZNE to children's hospitals and hospices around the country. You can read more about Gina and another classmate, Pink Sky graphic artist and watercolorist Iva Wilcox and the book here http://chelise.typepad.com/stevie_brianna/.

The class was just a charmed day and a perfect gathering of like-minded souls that doesn't happen all that often. There was a lot of love in the room on Saturday.

I posted a picture of one of Gina's girls in the post below this one to announce I was heading off to class, and now that I look at my girl above, I know I learned something I will use again. I am pretty proud of my music box (though don't ask about all our striped stockings), and I definitely love her and hope to play with paper clay again soon.

ZNE Convenzione http://www.znecon.com/ was almost a once-in-a-lifetime event since it was the first-ever convention. But since it will be offered again in 2009, everyone gets a second chance. I highly recommend it, and I will be posting more pics soon.