Bidding closed for Level Best Christmas Auction

It was nice to see the our gallery walls steadily emptying, as work was collected post-bidding after the Auction closed on 18th December 2012.

In all ten pictures have received bids and we have collected over £70 already, with a further £36 to come. 

A BIG thank you is in order to all those who took part, both trainees who created the work and customers who bid on it. 

This is our last post of 2012 so we wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and we will be back in 2013!

Dresser

Recently at the cafe, we have had a move around of our furniture. 

The idea was to make our preserves more accessible to the public and to make better use our glass cabinets. 

We have purchased a new dresser from the British Heart Foundation, which Shona had spent a long time looking for and made us all carry it back. 

We hope it will draw more attention to our seasonal produce products such as Jams, marmalade's, chutney's and cordials, as well as just looking nice.

Festive and creative use of our 'Staircase to nowhere'

We have a very special trainee in Artco who enjoys wrapping presents, to make our auction bid box that more noticeable, we decided to put them ALL on display in our blocked off staircase. Really do make you feel festive passing it.

Christmas Cakes and Yule logs from Level Best Art Cafe

This Christmas we have been very busy with our ever popular cakes and yule logs. 

Unfortunately last orders have now come and gone so if you missed out, you will have to wait until next year to order your own, here's what you missed.

Festive Preserves 

Also this season we have been making chutneys and jams, which have been very popular, both in the cafe and at our Christmas market stall in Castle Park.   

Louise Waghorn Workshop, from KTM care.

The back story 

Today we had a special workshop run by Louise Waghorn who comes to us from KTM care, making highly decorative Christmas iced buns.  

Louise has been supporting one of our Daconbake trainees and knows us at Level best quite well.

Vanilla iced buns wrapped up, ready to go!

The process

The Buns were made on Tuesday afternoon as part of our seasonal session, half as chocolate and half as vanilla. 

Chocolate iced buns, ready to be wrapped.

Today Louise, along with Anthony, Simon, Kayleigh and Olivia from seasonal and Daconbake, decorated each cake exquisitely in icing, with individual designs as snow men, snowflakes and Christmas trees. 

They were then put in cups and wrapped in cellophane and are now on sale at level Best for £1 each.

A perfect present, they really look the business!

Christmas Market in Castle Park

This year level Best Art Cafe had a stall at the Colchester Castle Park Christmas Market, which was held on wednesday 12/12/12 (last recurring date we'll ever see [fun fact].

Castle Park is just across the road from us, but it still took time to set up and move all the items. 

We were leant a Gazebo by staff from the local Natural History Museum and 2 tables from the Methodist Church next to the park. 

We brought over everything we stock, including art and craft cards and baskets from Artco, Christmas cakes, Yule Logs, Rocky Road and Iced buns from DaconBake and Sundries and preserves from our seasonal produce sessions. 

We were there from 3pm - 8pm and sold around £70 worth of our goodies, for our troubles. 

The night was very festive and fun with a troop of Bag pipers doing the rounds and free mulled wine from the Castle itself...

...Which helped stave off the cold. 

We'll see about doing it again next year!

And we'll make sure and bring our blow up snowman and christmas lights.

They really came into their own as the night drew in.

And got us a lot of attention from passers by

On what was a fairly dark night!

Watch this space for more Level Best news, as it happens!

Christmas Art Auction 2012

Our trainees from Artco have done it again, we have another great looking show in our gallery for auction. We have a wide selection of paintings and sculptures produced by dozens of trainees between August and December. Each piece has a reserve bid of £5 though feel free to bid what you think it is worth to you. To get bids in before Christmas we are provissionaly closing the bids Tuesday 18th December, but will keep our catalogue online over Christmas to tempt you further.

28. Three Little Pigs

21. Bernadette Sea

2. Colour Abstract

15. Danny Circles

4. Danny Drawing

34. Elephant Sky

33. Elephant Flag

22. Emily Hollyhock

5. Floppy Clocks

33. Hanzel & Gretel

27. Johns Castle

8. Summer in the City

16. Naomi Canvas

25. Pink girl

30. Postman Pat

20. Sam Portrait

12. 3 Characters Sam

14. 3 Princesses Pink

44. Shakka's Horse

24. Robin

6. Townscape

26. Wild Animals

13. Winged princess

32. Acordian Player

19. Bernadette Church

31. Cutty Sark

34. Humpty Dumpty

11. Kayleigh colours

3. Parrot

29. Pen Holder

35. Bob Marley

45. Suit Jacket

7. Sawn

31. Mr Wolf

23. Tinkerbell

10. Wayne's Church

17. Dog and Cat

41. Circles

40. Country Village

39. Flowers

1. Dog and Tree

36. Black Silhouette

15. Black and red 

38. SCAS

35. Sea Shells

43. Boats

42. Goya

18. Smiley

 Level Best Christmas auction runs from 7th - 21st December 2012 and can be viewed monday - friday, 9am - 4pm.