Crafty update

Time has this fascinating habit of slipping by doesn't it?  There have been no blog posts for the last couple of weeks as I was entertaining children (Easter holidays) and visiting family, and last Monday was a school inset day and then suddenly I was busy with lots of catch-up things.

I've been a bit unfocused of late so it's time to narrow my eyes and get on with things.  This weekend saw me playing with my huge stash of bits and bobs to see what I could come up with and I decided that Saturday night was asymmetrical earrings night.  This is not a new idea, just Google asymmetrical earrings and you'll find lots of examples, but it's something I fancied having a go at.  Because this was a new thing to try it took a little time to get the balance of colours and the aesthetic right, but I'm actually quite pleased with what I came up with.  Next job is to get some better pictures and then get them listed in my Etsy shop, Blackwillow Boho.  Here's a sneak peek:

All three are a mixture of contemporary and vintage elements and different bead types including some fresh-water pearls and little semi-precious stone beads.

Somewhere in my stash of findings is a bag of sterling silver ear-wires but can I find them?  It is most annoying that I cannot but I figure than in the meantime I'll get some silver coloured pairs made up and then attach them to the ear-wires once I've been through every box, drawer, bag and corner of the house and located them.

And once my son goes to school soon I shall settle down with a cup of tea and go and see what all of the other crafty folk have been doing on the Handmade Monday blog.  You should go and check it out too, there's lots of talented folk around!

Sneak Peek, earrings and necklace

Here's your sneak peek at the new items.  They probably won't go up on Etsy until later tonight as I'm grabbing time whilst cooking a roast lunch, mediating a teddy bears party and getting ready to teach this afternoon.

Feathers!

Today saw the arrival of many new feathers to stash and I will confess that fly-tying feathers are officially my new objects of joy.  I've not been able to buy as many colours as I would have liked but I have lots of plans for the ones I've got, especially the beautiful strong and flexible generic hackles that enable me to thread things onto them without damage to the filaments.  The dust-buster will come in very handy in getting rid of the excess fluff that needs to come off of them in order to make sleek and sexy earrings and other accessories.

And now I'm working my way through a huge list of *things to do* so that I can free my mind of clutter and get on with designing and making as I can find the mundane things in life can get in the way of creativity (although I'm pretty good at not doing the ironing, that one never bothers me.)

I've paid for my Deb Rubin workshop that will be happening at a weekend event in Southampton in April (details can be found here) and I'm very much looking forward to that.  As well as doing a workshop I shall be dancing with Covert Bling in the evening Hafla and vending as Blackwillow Tribal on the Saturday.  Make sure to come along and say hi if you're there.

I now have to go and pay for my WOMAD ticket as I plan to take the kids there this summer, reply to a couple of emails, and have decided that I need to take a trip to Fabricland this week in order to see a couple of fabrics in the flesh before putting in an order for some fabrics for Covert Bling.

Once that's all done I'm going to sit back and play with feathers for a bit!

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.