The International Criminal Court (or the ICC) is often in the news but do you know how it works? Under the guidance of Valeria Coscini we learnt everything from the court’s successes to its limitations. We even turned The Little Mule into a courtroom for the evening as we battled against each other as the prosecutors and defendants!
Next, Alexander d’Aloia took us on a cinema journey in Screenwriting: A Hitchhiker’s Guide. we examined plots, characters, narratives and did so all with some of movies greats (and a few of the not-so-greats) as examples and inspiration. When all of the elements come together perfectly you could end up with something like the Shawshank Redemption.
If you, like us, have always dreamed about eating a fondant unicorn balanced upon a cupcake, then you should have been down at Fondant 101: Cupcake Toppers. Our versatile teacher/LL team member, Maria Yebra, lovingly crafted a delicate representation of this most dignified and magical of fictional wildlife just so you can eat it.
More food was next as Elaine, head chocolatier at Cacao Fine Chocolates, taught us how to make The Perfect Tart Au Chocolat from scratch. She demo-ed how to make a great short crust tart (the secret is the butter!) and then we went on to the chocolate ganache. An important tip is to use good quality chocolate and coat your tarts with a brush (with a little of ganache) before pouring the rest. We ended up the class making cocoa and sugar drawings with stencils and obviously eating the tarts!
Bali and Queenie from the Yarn Corner taught us the very simple but impressive technique for covering buttons in Vintage Glam Covered Button Earrings. We selected from myriad cute fabrics and we learnt how to use the tool to cover our buttons that can be used for earrings, necklaces, hair clips or obviously buttons! Now we can all fill our houses with buttons, buttons and more buttons!
If there’s one thing more fun than drawing all over your hands, it’s drawing over someone else’s hands! Zoe gave us the tools and the know-how in The Art of Henna, and then we created all sorts of decorative, swirly, intricate, bold, angular, flowery, and most important of all, temporary patterns. A great idea for a party!
In Urban Mindfulness, Jo Mitchell told us all about the joys of being in the moment and attentive to what’s going on. We worked out that being a multi-tasker doesn’t make us more productive and that talking to someone who isn’t being mindful can be REALLY hard work! If you’re not sure what it means to be mindful, we like this definition – “being mindful is the opposite of being on auto-pilot”.
Finally, we welcomed back the amazing Harry Harrison to show us how to strum some of Australia’s Biggest Hits: Ukulele Style. It never fails to amaze how awesome 20 odd Ukulele’s being strummed in The Little Mule can sound. Another fantastic night – thanks Harry!