You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Jewellery’ category.
Some of you may have noticed I’ve been a little quiet of late, three of the reasons are that I’ve been revamping my glass storage in my studio (thats a whole other post! coming soon!) I’ve been preparing for handmade Arcade, and finally, I’ve been working on some exciting new products!
So, firstly, Handmade Arcade, Yay! its back! the only regular independent art and craft makers market in Exeter!
For some great shots of all the action, including live bands go to the handmade arcade blog and don’t forget to check out their facebook page too
Here is my little piece of the action:
Handmade Arcade Stall
what you can also see in the corner there is some of Heather from Little Owl Crafts delicious handspun yarn! That orange one was calling me all day! its still in her etsy shop looking rather lonely since she sold so many of its friends on Saturday!
and what else can you see?
thats right, my newest latest thing that I am excited about!
Foxes in boxes…Hares in Squares!
These are so much fun! I have had the designs for the beads in my head an indeed in my notebook since before Christmas, but no time to let myself play, finally I caved in and got some prototypes in my kiln
Hare Prototype
I was so pleased with it that more soon followed:
Bronze Hare
now, as you can probably tell, this bead isn’t really designed for wearing, so, having gathered supplies, I made this:
Hare in a Square
and since I’d also been playing with the fox beads:
Fox in a box, with socks!
Scuptural beads, removably mounted in little box frames, ready to hang on your wall, or they stand like this.
I have more, but I’ll show those later, keep an eye on my facebook page for more!
hope you like them!
Well its been a busy few months, I’ve been going to craft fairs, creating new designs, and rebuilding my website.
also I made big batches of stock for Galleries in Bristol and Canada.
So, first, the craft fairs, Handmade Arcade at McCoy’s Arcade Fore Street Exeter, its a little craft fair full of local & handmade products, its on the first Saturday of every month and I’ll be there, selling my beads and jewellery. In December, it will be on EVERY Saturday!
I also took my work to Unique Boutique, at Exeter Phoenix, here’s my stall,
My Stall at Unique Boutique
So why not get off the high street, and find yourself something unique at the next Handmade Arcade on the 6th October?
Theres also live music and all the McCoy’s Arcade shops including The Real McCoy, Bunyip Beads, No Guts No Glory, Good Golly Miss Molly and more will be open as usual.
check out the Handmade Arcade Blog for details of other fab stall holders, they also have a facebook page
New Designs?
well, theres my little bird earrings for starters,
Little Brown Bird Earrings
I make them in lots of colours, and I also do a few specific birds, such as Cardinals, Magpies and Ravens. Check out my etsy or my website to buy them, or if you just want to peruse beautiful images, try my flickr.
speaking of my website , its had a complete rebuild,
I’ve kept it fairly clean and simple, theres still a shop, but at the moment it has mainly made to order items, my one off items are in my etsy shop.
I also have a news and events page over there, which works like a blog, so be sure to check that out for news on where to find me
oh, there were some other new designs too,
Sunset Cherry Blossom Focal
This is my new cherry blossom design, its also available in blue, but each one is quite different.
Other new things? yes, theres more!
Poppers.
A new system of interchangeable jewellery, this one is great fun, small glass cabochons are mounted onto nickel free brass snap fasteners, then you have a bracelet with the other half of the snap mounted to it, and you swap and change to your hearts content! I think the poppers deserve their own blog post, look out for that soon!
Also when you buy one of my poppers, I supply the back half, which can be stitched on to anything you like! I have some attached to my flip flops (though sadly the weather for flip flop wearing is fast disappearing!)
so, I couldn’t be content with making just pretty round cabochons for my poppers…it had to be
a bunny!
I also made my raised flower design, both with a polka dotty background, and just as one flower taking up the whole space
Polka dotty flower
and because I am just an awkward individual, I have very skinny wrists, and I felt that some of the bracelets available at the time were too chunky for me, I designed my own!
(though since that Manda has brought out her Mango Pops Bracelet which is gorgeous! you can usually find them in her etsy shop)
Heres my leather cuff design, which accepts a single popper, and is available in lots of sizes and colours
Leather Cuff
and finally, theres that big pile of new jewellery stock for galleries, photos of the Canada stock can be found on my facebook and if you are in Canada, and you’d like to visit The Glasshouse Gallery and Restaurant, or just their facebook page, that can be found here.
well, I think thats it for now, except to say that lots of my new stock, beads jewellery and poppers, is headed for my etsy shop over the next week or so, so keep checking in! (or be kept up to date on my facebook page, where I post new listing links!)
I’m having a great time with style fusions at the moment, by which I mean the integrating of 2 of more of my previous designs to make a new one.
this is the current one, it started life as a large lentil bead that popped into my head one morning, featuring a flower motif I had toyed with a while back but never really pursued.
The first polka dot flower flower lentil
the flower has gone through a few changes and style variations, and become a ring top in some of them, but until now, just the flower
Original style rose ring top
a silver glass 2 layered variant
the first in the anemone styles
anemone mark 2
triple layer, no centre dots
same again in red
and finally...
actually, it probably isnt final at all, I’m sure there will be more style variations. my next plan is to do one of these in the original yellow green and red colourway. plus I have another bead in mind to go sticking these flowers onto!
it occurs to me that some of my best designs have been style fusions, bunny beads got mentioned in a forum post about ring tops and bunny ring tops were born, midnight shores came from a previous design but in an utterly different organic colourway, as opposed to the super brights I was working with.
watch this space for more style fusions!
I think this could be a fantastic way of restarting your inspiration when feeling a little mojo-less. get your box of beads that you liked enough to keep, or versions that didnt quite work out so you kept anyway, pick 2 or more, and style fuse them!
Just a little heads up for you, tomorrow, 29th February, I’m having a leap year sale!
I’m knocking 20% off every item in my Etsy and Artfire shops!
this is the coupon code : LEAPYEAR20PERCENTOFF, just enter it in the box at checkout!
Midnight GMT tonight, til Midnight on Wednesday!
dont miss out!
heres a small selection of items you could choose from my Etsy and Artfire shops
well, its no real secret that I’ve loved Amy Kuczewski’s beads since I first saw them,
but now I own some!
oh, and they were sent by rocket or something, I ordered them late Saturday PM and they arrived first thing the following Saturday…from the States! I was impressed!
and it wasnt much longer before I’d made them into a necklace for myself,
Bollywoods Necklace
but thats not all…
its actually a 2 part necklace, the front beady part detaches and can be worn as a bracelet
bollywoods bracelet
heres another shot of it, because, how often do you get a sunburst?
bollywoods bracelet - sunburst
In the latest issue of Soda lime times, an e-magazine for lampworkers, there was a tutorial for making Amy’s Raja Heart,
so of course I had to have a go!
Raja Heart
this is actually my second attempt, I made the first too small to get all the stringer work on, and oh its alot of teeny tiny bits of stringer! mine is so much more clumpy, and not teeny! Amy, you are clearly a genius…I bow down to your teeny tiny stringer skills ! (skills with the teeny tiny-ness, not skills that are teeny tiny…obviously?!)
here is her etsy shop for anyone who wants to buy or simply drool over more of Amy’s beads
enjoy all the fantastic juicy colours!
I’m taking some of my newest stock to the Vintage and Handmade Fair in Plymouth tomorrow, Saturday 8th October, in the Main Hall at the University, 11am to 5pm.
so if you’re nearby, come along and say hello! For the first time ever, I’m taking loose beads to sell too, rather than just jewellery, so you creative people can inlcude a piece of my glass work in your next project. The facebook event page is here
if you can’t make it, there are some pictures on my Flickr! heres a couple:
Polka dot flower necklet
Pink and Teal Bracelet
I also have some new outlets for my work, maybe one of them is near you! the full list of stockists is on my website here
Firstly, The brand spanking new Glass House Gallery and Restaurant in Middleton, Nova Scotia, opening Early November. The Newest Venture of Glass Artist and Ceramicist, Sally Tully.
Here is the facebook page, and their blog
And a little closer to home (for me anyway!) than Canada, Glass Designs and Gallery in Bedminster, Bristol, run by Stained Glass artist Claire Dadswell, Here’s the Website
Just one more, I’ll also be sending work to Toe in the Water Gallery, Fowey, Cornwall very soon! Artist Max Harrower is the owner, another website for your perusal!
I have been such a busy little bee lately! with all these new galleries now stocking my work, its a wonder I have any left for my craft fair…but, there is still plenty, so don’t worry!
I’ve been quiet for a while now,
A couple of things have been keeping me rather busy! firstly I went to spend a day absorbing some of the Genius of Lucio Bubbacco at Di East’s wonderful studio (more on that in another post soon, and pics of what I made on my flickr)
The other thing is several things rolled into one, I’ve been asked to supply jewellery to three new galleries! yes three! oh and all of them want it at the same time! not only that but requests for top ups and Christmas stock (Oh no, did I just use the c word? aaaaarghhh!!!) are beginning to filter in from my existing galleries (ever wondered if my work is available near you? check out my stockist list here)
so, amidst being distracted trying to clutch frantically at any skills I might have fleetingly got hold of whilst watching Lucio, practicing away at some very odd figures, oh but two years of life drawing are paying off! proportion is a lesser worry on the figures…well mostly, theres still an element of the glass doing what it wants!
I have been making ALOT of jewellery. As an absolute minimum I said to myself 6 pairs of earrings, 3 pendants, 3 necklets and 3 bracelets per gallery, some of them are also wanting silver cored beads, of which 25 is the minimum I like to send.
For once I have actually taken proper photos of the jewellery, and they’re not bad! and further to this I’ve actually edited them. and uploaded them! well some of them, I felt as if I was going to be stuck to my chair if I edited anymore and left it at a mere 64! added to the ones I did a little while ago, thats 104! the rest of the pictures are on my flickr, but heres a few highlights:
-
- Wig Wag Bead Earrings
-
- Rose Ring Tops
oh, and I’ve also created a new ring top design, morphed from two other designs I’ve been doing, the daisy style (see buttons) and the polka dot rose beads
Rose Ring Tops
Thats all for now, keep an eye on my flickr for more photos, and here I’ll be announcing where the new galleries are when they have my stock!
well, ammonites, its a bit of a limiting shape, isnt it?
er, no! I was beginning to feel like I could only do simple things with it, and that plainer colours and styles would work best, and then I realised I was wrong, and that my bright organic style would be fabulous on this shape, so out come the enamels and the EDP and of course the goldstone!
bright organic ammonite -purple with turquoise side
bright organic ammonite - purple and pink side
bright organic ammonite - fin
another colour variant
bright organic ammonite - green
and I’m just gonna stick this here cause Im not sure where else to put it, an ammonite in neptune, I had to eh? just some spots of clear, I am in love with the tealy green colour of this, therell be more!
neptune spots
at a few of the new items I just sent to the Cooper Locke Gallery, London
-
- Asymmetric Bracelet
-
- Asymmetric Bracelet – close up
-
- Double Flower Hairclip
-
- Double Flower Hairclip – Close Up
-
- Earrings
-
- Earrings – another view
-
- Flower Hairclip
-
- Flower Hairclip
-
- Flower Hairclip
-
- Flower Hairclip – Close Up
-
- Flower Hairclip – Close Up
-
- Flower Hairclip – Close Up
-
- Heart Pendant, matches earrings.
-
- Kalypso Pendant
-
- pretty flower silver cored bead
-
- sparkly green silver cored bead
I also sent a few of my Japanese inspired Hair accessories, which have a handmade glass flower bead for the middles.
I’ve been waiting for this tool for what feels to impatient child in me like ages, but its brilliant, and worth the wait.
These are some of the beads I’ve been making with it, the one on the right was one of the first ones, then the purple one on the left, then the oval, then the yellow tear-drop. I’m really pleased to be able to get lots of different shapes out of the one tool.
Bead Pendants
but my favourite bit is the end profile of the beads, slim at the edges, and smooth, not a tablet shape with straight sides like you get with flat mashers. To get the different shapes is simple, like with using flat mashers you start with different shapes, a bicone, cylinder or cone, any variation on proportion, then squish squish! I also then used the plates at various angles to get the final shape how I wanted.
Bead Pendants
Bead Pendants and New Tool
In fact, I like this tool so much, I’ve ordered the one they make in the other shape, a lentil! another impatient wait while that comes to me from California! its perhaps not the most gorgeously finished tool like another I saw recently, but its very well made and the smooth action of it is great. I love it. Its a good size….not so big it takes up all my desk space, and not so small it buries itself under all my other tools (like my pesky glass rake…can never find that little beasty when I want it!) the thing about it not being highly polished is that it doesn’t matter all that much, because the metal leaves chill marks on the glass that you have to flame polish out anyway, that said, I am tempted to polish the masher faces on it, just because I can!
