Vampires....

......I loves me a vampire and at this time of year they are stalking for costumes.  I am NOT panicking about getting two Akasha Queen of the Vampires headdresses done by Saturday.  No I am not....... ok, I am!!!!!

This time last year I made a very nice version of the above-mentioned headdress and now Google has me firmly in it's sights so that when a costume lover wants one of these I come up third in the images list.  Now, understandably most people baulk at the cost I quote for making this headdress.  It's not excessive by any means, I know there are others out there who charge more than I do.  But it fully represents the time I put into it and the fact that I make some of the adornments myself so that the whole things does not come it at £300+.

So this year, out of the eight queries I have had two people actually want one, one of them wants it by next Thursday.  They live in the US (well they both do) and DHL can deliver within 1-4 days so I have to be done and on the case by Saturday.  I will be able to do this....I will...I also have to make a Dr Who birthday cake and remember to buy food and party bag nonsense for a party for my 4 year old on Saturday......

And every day the postman teases me by bringing me one more thing I have ordered recently that helps to scratch my creative itch - I'm still awaiting religious medals, twisty pearls, raw crystal beads and.....I'm sure there's something else but I can't remember......I'll be keeping you posted though.

And in case you don't see me punting this on Facebook, if you would like to help me clear out my Etsy shop you can get yourself a huge 33% discount by ordering the things you want and entering the code IWANTSIT44 when you checkout....  trust me, what you see there now is nothing compared to what is coming.....the difference is huge so I would like everything gone so I can make a clean sweep.  (!)

OMG.....

Crystals....

MOP and wooden buttons and glass pearls....

Awesome buckles and other stuff....

Tribally stuff.....

The overall stash...

Wow.  I haven't even shown you the vintage lace, the dyed silks, the embroidered fabrics, bits of saris, cholis, mirrored belts and the feathers (OMG the feathers.....)

You can fully expect my Etsy shop to be fairly full of some de-stash packs very very soon....

I've been thinking.....

....and buying....

Even though I have a ton of stuff I have been buying more stuff....

I am a very lucky girl (by the way don't argue with me about teh girl bit even though I'm far too old to warrant it).  One of my belly dance students is a lovely lovely lady who happens to work in a place that means she can bring me a bag of unloved jewellery and bits and bobs.  I love to get a bag from her on a Sunday afternoon - I get it home, leave it tantalising me till the children are in bed and then I pour a glass of wine and very slowly get each item out. It's like Christmas when she does this for me....  

About 50% of what you can see above is from her and the picture above is about 0.0005% of what I have stashed.....

So what have I done recently?  Bought more!  OMG.  I've sold stuff recently and so I decided to splash out on new tools and new things to add to my stash so that I can play with more creative avenues.  I shall add these new creative avenues to some of the other things that have appealed to me recently because as we all know, when you have no free time why not pursue myriad avenues.... (hoho).

One of the things I bought recently was a tutorial (ok, three tutorials) from the hugely talented Fanciful Devices (OMG I am her blog stalker extraordinaire at the moment) and in accordance with her generous instructions I am posting photos of my version of her gypsy tribal bangle stacks.  If she reads this I have to assure her that I still need to age the bangles properly (I will, I will I promise!) but the main point is I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  Finding the right wire was a pain in the arse but that's another story.

Here you go:

Yes, I know the photos are bright and shiny and as soon as I can I will be putting into practice the lessons given by Sparrow Salvage (someone else I'm blog stalking, not just for her photography tips but her equally awesome and inspiring jewellery).  I plan to be better at everything I do and at the moment I am consumed with reading/drinking in the blogs by these two artisans in particular in order to ensure this happens.  (I won't blame them at all if I turn out to be crap.....).

Although I should not forget to mention Tribalis and Stregata - ohhh how I covet their style and artistry....

So, here's a little peek at what I've been up to in my creative corner of the kitchen...

(yup, that's it just there..)

Some of what you see here has already been taken apart and re-worked a little and you can be sure I'll keep you posted once I'm happier with what's going on.

I should also add that I now have creative constipation because I'm worried about copying other people (see above) too much.  However, I have a weekend without the children coming up so I shall try and make the most of it.  Don't hold your breath though.....

Dark and Dirty

I feel as though I am at an interesting cross-roads in my life.

In two days time my youngest child will be 4 years old.  Let's take that sentence apart a little bit.  "My youngest child."  That means I have another older child.  Quick head count....ok, I have two children....  Once upon a time I would have assured you that I would bear no children and in all fairness to myself I was thirty seven years old when I had my first.  Forty one years old when I had second (the one who will be 4 in two days time).  In two days my youngest child will be four - that means that he doesn't go to school for another year.  I love my children dearly and would not be without them but there was a time when I thought that having children would satisfy a creative urge inside of me that would supersede all other creative urges.  Thankfully I was wrong.

I'll spare you some of the details for now but will share that I am happier now than I have been for a long time, even though there are parts of me that are unfulfilled and unexplored.  With a favourable moon I am about to explore a part of me that I have not yet delved into....

Recently I sold some stuff (you know, the kind of stuff that you surround yourself with cos you need it) and with the proceeds I've been able to invest in some basic tools and materials and once I'm done with making cakes and wrapping presents and teaching belly dance and trying to sell a few more things to make ends meet I shall begin to explore a side of myself that even I am a little wary of.  I could well fail at what I want to achieve, but unless I try I'll never know will I?

Gesso, Franken-Barbie and the Best Bargain Evah!

Hi all, hope you've enjoyed your week?

I have been gagging for the kids to go back to school and that golden moment is soon upon me, although let's not forget that my youngest is not in school full-time for another 12 months!  Ermaghad!

Anyway.....I'm preparing, or battening down, or something.  But most of all I'm trying things out.

First up, some microscope slide thingies I finally got around to having a go at.  here are the front sides:

And here are the backs:

I used some frames from Ranger that I got really cheaply on Ebay but it still feels a bit cheaty so I think I need to get the soldering iron out and do a proper job with copper foil tape and solder and all that mularky.....

Next up, a decorated journal cover:

I know it looks rubbish but I can assure you it looks pretty fab in real life - I made a silk rose and stuff since and as yet none of these pics have been adjusted to take into account being shot in a dark dark house in end of summer UK (which means no sun....) so you can't see the nuances and you definitely can't see the vintage image that I printed onto printable shrink plastic and edged in gold Krylon.....better pics are my mission on this one.....

Oooh, here comes Franken-Barbie.....so those jewellery mannequins you can get.  They are always kind of short and I like to make long necklaces and earrings so I wandered around Internet land and found a tutorial that wanted me to pay to find out how to make my own.  Uh uh.  No way, there'll be something free out there.  And so I found a couple of posts that suggested hacking a Barbie into bits and using her torso.  Excellent!

Here's my version.  Get yourself an unwanted, unloved and matty-haired Barbie, a cheap candlestick, a hot-glue gun and plenty of glue sticks, duct tape and some wire coat-hangers (I know, who has those anymore?  I bought mine on Ebay) and some good wire cutters.  If you don't have everything you need at this point go and buy them from Ebay (or 99p stores cos that's where I got my candle-stick and duct tape).  

 Hack off Barbie's head, arms and legs.  Get your hot-glue gun good an' hot and pump about three sticks of hot glue into the candle holding bit and add a bit more for luck and then jam the Barbie torso into the top - it may or may not fit well.  Mine didn't fit well so I put more hot glue around the area where I wanted to join them and smeared it around with my asbestos fingers.  (Yes, I have green glitter hot glue - and yes it was a design choice, I thought the glitter might help the adhesion process).

Those bits that are sticking out are her "hip bones".  I know.  Grue.  I decided to use my 99p Store duct tape to cover them up:

So, whilst the glue cooled down and set I started to cut up my wire-hangers.   14 gauge steel with nowt but a pair of pliers I nicked from my ex when I moved out plus a tea-towel made these awesome curved armature thingies.  I added a strip of duct tape wound around the wires and then onto the body to sort of secure the wires and then I pumped in a bit more hot glue.  There's too much empty body at this stage to the tape really helped:

I added more badly curved steel.  If you look carefully you can see the teddy with a hanging-off leg I was trying to ignore who had mysteriously found his way onto the bread-board....sometimes my kids seem to think that if I'm being creative I am also in the mood to mend stuff....

Cos her neck was all broken some duct tape got wound around it after I added more badly bent coat-hanger steel.....

And then I decided to completely duct tape her up:

At this stage I'm going to finish this off by decoupaging her with some tissue paper I shall print with an antique letter printed on it and if she's lucky she might get some tulle for a skirt or a piece of awesome fabric for a dress.....

And then, today (cos she was constructed yesterday) as I was adding some gesso to something else I decided that she needed a layer of gesso to add some bite for the tissue paper/Mod Podge frenzy that will occur in the next couple of days....

Now she looks like Franken-Barbie.  And I will be digging through the bin to retrieve the arms and legs so that I can saw her hands and feet off and drill through them to make something gruesome.  Just because I can...

I can't leave without mentioning the other thing that I was gesso-ing.....

So for ages I have been coveting a print-tray.  On Ebay those things are going for £20+ and shipping.  Today I want to a local car-boot sale and saw a print tray.  I asked the seller how much she wanted and she said...20 pence!!  I gave her 50p.  I know, I'm a big spender.

Here it is:

I want it to be cream coloured or white for my up-coming craft fairs (I shall use it to prettily house some of my wares) so here it is covered in one layer of gesso:

And that's about it for me this week - unless you know where I can source 1.6mm annealed dark steel wire?  (I'll save that post for later in the week).

If you're not all crafted out, please go visit Handmade Monday, they are all much more sane than I am.....