This month's Birthday Celebration meeting was really outstanding. We had a good group in attendance, including newcomers Jeanie Martin and Paul Frehe who live in Asheville.

We attended to business first. Irene had information about plans for an upcoming craft show to be sponsored by the Grovewood Gallery where Irene now has some of her work for sale. It is planned for July 7, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and some craft groups will be invited to show and sell work. Irene says that she has a booth we could use, and she will keep us all posted as the plans crystallize. Volunteers will be needed for demos and for many other tasks.

Someone mentioned having problems with pricing work and Sara Jane suggested that we bring in work and and discuss pricing.

Sara Jane covered the upcoming schedule of demos: her long-awaited demo, LAMPS AND NIGHLIGHTS, will be in May. A SANDING & FINISHING TECHNIQUES demo is planned for July, and anyone who would like to demonstrate their methods should e-mail
Sara Jane. Kathy has offered to do another silversmithing demo if enough people are interested, so let Sara Jane know and she can schedule it. We need demos, even repeats of past ones that some may have missed, so if you would like to do one, let Sara Jane know.

Postcards were brought in and had survived the Post Office very well, and delighted the recipients.

We then headed for the party table! Kathy made a spectacular sheet cake for our guild's birthday celebration, and the table was laden with delicious things--veggies and dip, pita bread and spread, chips, Ben & Jerry ice cream and more. Thanks to Byrd who put it all together and to all who brought goodies. We spent a few minutes nostalgically, remembering our first meeting at the Earth Guild.

A series of short demos followed. Kathy did a nifty dragon demo and with a few magical twists and coils, created a perky little dragon with wings! Maggie followed with a PC-covered pen, a dragon spiralling around the pen barrel, all done in a matter of minutes. Irene whipped out a small food processor, tossed in some pieces of metallic PC, chopped it and rolled it out for a great look. Marilyn showed us how she makes her interesting braided bracelets and necklaces with extruded coils of PC. And Byrd made a bubble bottle in about five minutes, from a small ball of PC,a few cane slices and some deft touches. Many thanks to all who demo-ed.

And our congratulations to Irene who has just been accepted into the Southern Highland Craft Guild. Great going, Irene.

submitted by Edie Siegel, April 15, 2001