And relax.....

Over the last couple of days I've done lots and lots of making.  How so?  Well, one of my constant dilemmas is that I don't have a set workspace, but for the most part I have tools and some materials in the kitchen and everything else lives in the cupboard under the stairs in the living room so I can sit on the sofa and watch TV or listen to music as I'm playing around.  I keep wondering how easy or not it would be to make myself a workroom in one of the bedrooms whilst the children are still young enough to share.  But I keep feeling as though that's really over-indulgent of me (I prefer to be around for the kids and I do a lot of making at night when they are in bed) plus I like pottering in the kitchen and sitting on the sofa when I'm making.  Anyway, I cleared some more space in the kitchen and as a result got lots done whilst the kids were playing.

First up I had a revelation.  I can't wear earrings as everything makes my lobes itch like crazy (ok, so I've not yet tried titanium or gold but I'll get around to trying them sometime).  Anyhow, I thought I'd have a go at making some ear cuffs out of some bits of copper I had etched.

This is they before they've been liver of sulphured. They're kind of cute and I plan to add a couple of dangles to one or two of them before I take some proper pics and get them up in the shop.  And obviously I'm wearing a couple of them all the time.  Have you ever tried getting a picture of your own ear?  Seriously hard to do.

Next up - earlier in the week I read on Beatnheart's blog about a polymer clay tutorial sold by Ginger Davis-Allman in her Blue Bottle Tree Etsy shop.  I was suitably impressed and so bought it and this weekend was the first time I'd had a chance to play around.  I didn't make many bits and bobs but here's the outcome.

I don't know why this pic is sideways - blogger won't let me turn it around.  I have a couple of pieces of ammonite, one fossil and one piece of rock where an ammonite was extracted so I used them to texture three pieces of clay.  I love ammonites.  These aren't done yet in terms of being painted/finished but they're getting there.  I'm quite pleased with them.

These three pieces were textured with a couple of old belt medallions.  Yes, the colours on all of them are pretty similar so I'm going to have to do way more experimenting with different colours but my brain gets stuck into a green-ish purple place more often than not.  More on that later.

Some pods.  I quite like the pods, I just need to use them all now.

I made another bangle stack. These are probably for me.  I'm going on holiday with the kids next week and realised that I don't often wear jewellery so i figured I should make something that will go with mostly everything I have.  Again, the groove is a neutral pinkish/purple/green/black/metal thing going on.  Dinge.  I like dinge, it goes with a lot of things.

Some necklaces - etched copper, a Buddha pendant (left as-is, for now) and a key assemblage piece.

Some earrings using etched copper and beads, etched copper ammonite (again) that's a bracelet. 

Another sideways one.  This was my experiment in making those bright shiny Buddha cases look aged and grungy.  I've a couple more of these somewhere so I shall grunge them up too.  But my experiment was fun - I used gesso, alcohol inks, embossing powder and my heat gun.  My heat gun nearly killed the whole thing because these cases are made of plastic.  There's no metal or glass in these at all (although the Buddha's themselves are stone).  But the heat-gun made the clear cover go all warpy but in the end didn't do too much damage.

Then because I was playing with embossing powder I decided to try and add some silver dots to the pods - I love when bead artists do this with real silver on glass beads.  I think my technique needs some refinement (as in, not doing it when I'm cooking tea for the kids) but I'm liking this a lot.  In fact I've realised that all I need is to keep hold of a felt-tip pen that's lost its juice and I can use that to dab the ink or the PVA glue on.

In the meantime the postman came and delivered these babies!  Wowsers.  These are a lot bigger than I thought they'd be, even from the description that was given.  Excellent.  And yes, they are that purple, greenish. goldish colour again.  I've decided to stop trying to get away from it and just go over-board with the purple green gold thing.  Once I get it out of my system I might be able to do other colours.  

Funnily enough my current costume commission has been from someone who wants a fusion belly dance costume in, you guessed it, purple and green.  She might find herself with some crystals on it.

So all I've got to do now is settle in and get some jewellery made.

And to finish?  In amongst all of this my 4-year-old geek son wanted me to find the teeny tiny sonic screw-driver for his teeny tiny Dr Who and friend.  I'm sure you can imagine how easy it is to lose them?  Anyhow, what can I do?  I dug a lolly stick (the rolled paper kind) out of the drawer (I keep them at the moment because you can make light-sabers for teeny tiny Star Wars figures....) and using the kids felt pens made a new sonic for the 11th Dr.  My son did a 10th Dr version for the 11th Dr's friend.

Men at work.  Best not get in the way.

Crystal Headdresses #2

So here's some of what I made at the weekend - just simple band headdresses from chandelier beads - the time consuming bit was making sure all the links were in the same direction and bending the wire in so that the beads won't come apart -plus ensuring there are no "snaggy" bits to get caught on hair.

There are some more of these to come, with more elaborate drapes...

And whilst I was in a slightly Medieval mood I added some beads and drops to some pendant necklaces I made this weekend too.

Crystal Headdresses

I have a huge bag of old chandelier crystals so today I am having a go at making gorgeous crystal headdresses.  My fingers are a little....ragged shall we say from wiring them together, but sometimes my pain is your beauty!
Obviously the next task will be to photograph them and do them justice, but for now I'll just keep on making and we'll see what happens.

Necklaces and things that go deeper.......

So.  In my huge collection of stuff I have beads, bead wires, spacers, threads and all of the paraphenalia associated with jewelery making.  And every so often I am inspired to make something from this ever growing stash.  Here's a couple of pics of the stash...

So in the world of jewelery what is still really hot at the moment are necklaces made up of slightly incongruent elements.  The colours integrate but the necklace isn't symmetrical.  This is harder than it sounds to recreate properly and I strive to make something beautiful each time I create a wearable item.

I was too late in taking some proper pics this evening as the children were enjoying playing in the garden and with a river at the end of the garden that takes some supervising believe me.

But here are the quick pics of what I've done today:

 
When I was at school I wanted to go to art college and fully explore the artistic side of myself that I knew existed.  My parents, being more pragmatic, wanted something else for me and so I pursued a career working with people, that to their credit has stood me in good stead.

Now I get to pursue both of these avenues and that makes me very happy.

Earrings

If you've worked out my process yet then you will have worked out that my earlier post about fly fishing feathers
was going to lead to a blog about how I've made something from feathers like those I mentioned earlier.

I've made a few pairs tonight and once the glue has dried I can get them finished and get some pics up to show you what I've done.  I've yet to decide whether they go onto the Blackwillow Tribal site or the Etsy shop.

Bindi pics

Ok then, here are the picture of my recently made bindis.  I'm not sure I'll have time today to get them measured and described for the Blackwillow Tribal website, nor will I get any up in the Etsy shop, so that's a job for tomorrow.  Here's a sneak peek in the meantime:

The bindi pictured above is SOLD

The bindi pictured above is SOLD

They've all had some extra bling added in the form of Swarovski crystals and are backed with clear vinyl.  I'll let you know once they're up on the websites.