Not quite busy enough for my liking....

....but I do try and make the most of my weekends when the children are at their dads.  So.  With two Christmas fairs to attend over the next couple of weeks I figured I ought to actually make some Christmassy items, and then the rest of the stall will be what's left of my stocking-filler priced jewellery and gift items.  I feel a bit out of my depth with Christmas items as I'm....well, I'm just me.....I make things that are somewhat left of centre.  In fact one of the fairs I'm only going to because I was asked to go out and belly dance there as part of the entertainment for the day.  I figured if I was going I might as well go and have a stall.  The second event is one that is connected to my daughter's school so for both events I shall take along my Christmas goodies, all of my more commercial makes and one or two statement pieces just to see what reaction they get from the general UK public.

Anyhow, here's what I came up with and so far I haven't had to buy anything to get any of this made but I am going to have to get some ribbon and I might add some little silver bells....

Domino and chandelier bead Christmas tree decorations, coated in sparkly sealant.  I need to add some ribbon loops to these babies and then think of a way to package them.  The vintage images are ones I found a little while ago and you may see some of the images repeated through my small range.  I've got about 15 of these altogether (all of the pictures are different) and may sell them in sets of 5, or decide on a per piece price and let folk choose the ones they want.

Next up these microscope slide tree decorations.  There are ten of them in all (again all different) and on the back of each I've place a sheet of vellum printed with Silent Night sheet music. Ribbons are required here too and I might add a little bell or two to each of these as well.

Vintage images cut out as tags.  Again, need some ribbon or string to finish these off.

The good thing about all of these things is that if no-one likes 'em I shall use them on my own tree this year.

I've got some decorations made from just chandelier beads and a loop but I forgot I'd made them as I did them a while ago and didn't take a picture.  Silly me...

Twelve Days of Christmas - decorated tags on a canvas box board.  There are three gifts on here - a keyring, a pendant and a vintage brooch.  All of the other items are purely decorative.  I've got another two of these to make - I would have made them yesterday as I got the tags all ready but when I unwrapped the canvases I noticed small marks and flaws in the canvas surface so I'll keep those for painting on and get two new ones and get them made up this week.

The cinnamon sticks make them smell nice and Christmassy.

So, feeling like a happy bunny that I had achieved quite a lot yesterday (as well as popping out to send a card to my parents for their 45th wedding anniversary) I sat down and made three necklaces.  They took longer than I would have liked but I'm happy with them all - although I only manged to get good shots of two of them. I really need to get myself some day-light lamps.  Anyway, here's the necklaces:

 I am loving playing around with things, taking bits off and adding things on and generally just playing.  This is a Turkoman pendant.  The red stone in the centre called out to the huge briolette that I've for aaages and didn't know what to do with.  I seem to have a massive amount of antique keys at the moment so that was a no brainer; the long dangles were on the piece anyway (and the ones I've taken off will be used elsewhere); then I added beads and bits and some Tibetan pendants on the outer edges.  It sits just on the collarbone with a double chain.  I can't decide whether to darken the metals or not.....

This next one, that I've called Dark Night, is a vintage brooch at the top (you can see it better in the next picture) and because the pin was broken it needed to become a necklace.  There were some stones missing so I replaced them and then added some dangles (aha, see one of those Turkoman dangles?) and a set of rosary beads with a clasp so that it sits on the collar-bone.  And then I dunked it all in patina fluid.  I love patina fluid, especially when it works immediately like it did on this piece.  Everything has been treated with paste wax to stabilize the patina and imparts a wonderful scent.

The brooch was so sparkly my camera couldn't handle it, it was like it was blinking, so when I do some proper shots I shall have to set up a background that is not so white.

And that's me done, til tomorrow at least.