Strolling through

Memory - crochet wrapped crystal cuff

Dear me, I do leave such gaps between my postings! I am quietly working away (mostly in my own head, though I do spend quite some time on Pinterest lately, as it suits my style of mass input of imagery with little communication involved. I'm not a shy person, just recently not very...communicative. I'm sure by this time next month my brain will have adopted a completely different method and you won't be able to shut me up. In the meantime, my mind boils and bubbles. Ideas. Thoughts. Theories.

Object - hammered 14g wire and mis-matched beads

Attempting to combine my photography style and my jewelry shop for a more cohesive look. As my pieces become more and more organic they sit better in a background of simple props than on layers of romantic paper. This is spoiling you somewhat for my coming-soon-er-or-later post on using props in your work. Hopefully I can get most of that written this weekend while I'm spending some time at a friend's house.

Prairie walker - reclaimed metal and magnesite

I've been feeling the fire engine red lately- just small nods of it; I find it gives a liveliness next to the sun faded colours I usually prefer. These earrings above have cotton wire on them, found in Jardindepapier's shop; I'm assuming it's old milliners wire, but it's perfect for getting that 'painted sketch' look I'm after. I've used it in other projects to a more obvious effect, but those still lay half thought out on the desk. Bubbling away.

More pretties

Painted desert - painted wire and pink missfickle hoops which I squashed about a bit for a more organic shape. Kiwi jasper is so pretty, like turquoise and jade mixed together.


Pale Venus - missficklemedia rings (hammered slightly), painted vintage copper stampings (also hammered) and the most delightful little spiral shell beads that I found at the thrift. I can't help thinking of them as mermaid breasts!


Aztec Gold - vintage copper bezels, hammered flat and punched. Hammering does so improve things...


Light Warrior - the pendant on this was wrapped in wire and then -taking the basic principles of fanci's headpin tutorial- I dipped the top in UTEE to keep things all sealed up and pulled together, and detailed it with pigments and paint.


rust and rain - here's some more painted vintage tin; I love that the rust came through on this like speckled bird's eggs! These were so pretty all they really needed was a simple stack of 3 beads to be complete.


Here's a shot of some more painted tin pieces- it's very meditative making these, not just the cutting and sanding, but painting the tin before hand and watching the little speck of rust come through as the paint dries. I'm cutting them wonky on purpose; I want them to look like little watercolour drawings.


Oh and some of you want me to share the cookie recipe from an earlier post, I shall do that later!

Sale away sale away sale away...

If anything in the above graphic takes your fancy, then you're in luck! It's been put in my clearance sale- just follow this link to shop. All the prices have already been adjusted with the original price displayed in the listing body, so you can see how much of a bargain you're getting!

Sale goes till whenever I decide everyone's had a good chance, and I take down the stuff and violently sacrifice it on my work bench and turn it into something else. You wouldn't want that to happen would you?

Shop Update - more soft shade lovelies

More lovelies available in the shop:

love token - bohemian bridal earrings with vintage chain, pearls and lampwork drops from numinosity.

fire seed - orange bohemian earrings with lovely vintage beads and Bollywood bangle scrap


Prairie - vintage doily scrap brooch and an age-worn antique button


ice and snow - vintage tin earrings - these are two of the beads I got from shipwreckdandy, paired with some antique tin I've painted. I've been doing a lot of that, I shall blog about it later.


pink salt - organic metal earrings; more painted tin and some gorgeous ceramic beads from potterygirl1 - it's been a long time since I've made something I kinda sorta don't want to sell!


Star - another doily scrap brooch - found a bunch of these bases in the bottom of a box, so I finished them up watching after-dinner TV. I can't just sit and watch TV, I got to have something else to do otherwise I feel like I'm wasting time!


Unicorn blood - some more of my large double hoop earrings, this time in pretty sugar pinks.

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I've also been putting as much time into the antique/vintage supply shop as possible- I'm on a mission to get all my excess things cleaned out by the end of the year, so i have to list list list! Thankfully in weather like todays (grey and rainy) it's not too much of a burden to sit at the computer with a nice big cup of earl grey and make beautiful photos. Especially with a few homemade cookies in the deal!


mmm toffee oat crisps.

pretty junk

Painted - using raw amethysts sent to me by Corvid, these earrings show my very first attempt at punching my own bead caps! I'll show you more of them in another post, but I left em not-so-dapped in these earrings so they'd stand out.

faith hope love and luck - using a beautiful ceramic pendant by boonepottery. I love the colour scheme in this one, sage green and wheat.


Insignia - pink Peruvian opal, another gift from Corvid. I painted the red bits myself! Gosh I'm clever. The purple n white ones are from missfickle who really gets a huge credit for sending me some extra stuff, it's been the catalyst for my new style.


Rainmaker- earrings that came out of my head that are very Fanci. She laughs when I say stuff that cause she usually says she got the idea from me! So they're inspired by what fanci makes when she's inspired by me. Like Chinese whispers but with metal. Yeah.


wonkaville - brooch using one of the mysterious buried buttons.


love token - super-pretty shoulder dusters with stick pearls and numinosity's pink lampworks.

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In other news, my Dad (65) has discovered the internet, and of course- eBay. He's been ringing me up constantly giving me item numbers to look over and bid on for him. I've expressly forbid him from bidding on his own because it's dangerous- he can't even work emails yet! But he can search ebay and talk to my brother on Skype. He is a bit over-excited at 'how much stuff the Americans have' and how cheap it all is- yesterday's bargain was kerosene lamp parts that would've cost him a couple of hundred here, but he got 'em for $30. So you can see, I have to keep an eye on him. He did get me to buy him some reproduction advertising signs which lead to me buying this:

So now I have to keep an eye on me as well, because we tend to both like the same stuff, and I go to things to bid for him and then I see things and it's all downhill from there. I need that sign though, truly. It will keep me motivated to knock off the waterworks, suck it up and just get on with gettin' shit done. Everyone needs a sign to mentally kick them in the arse. Plus I like wartime stuff.

Also today my 'mature age' postmaster was wearing a t-shirt with a dragon on it, and a bow tie. Which is awesome enough, but he also sports a huge white handlebar moustache and is the most flamboyant straight man I've ever met. I think he's a wizard.

The sun always shines on a sunday

Holidays are over- and there's three new things in the shop! (And more to come.)

Gobstopper - scrap doily brooch, I have more of these to come (though this is the only one with a tail)

Holy Mountain - Bollywood bangles and missficklemedia patina charms


Sketchbook - missfickle wire circles, hand cut tin scrap, Moroccan beads

I've been making an effort to do something new with my work; it's time to evolve and the sketchbook earrings above are the result of that. Working on the mantra 'make it look like a drawing', I'm trying to replicate every wonky edge, like one of my 'on the phone' sketches, which I should've thought to take a picture of. Oh well. You get it- they look like a drawing, yes yes?

The rings are from a box of random things missfickle sent me when I ordered some fixin's from her shop:


...so much patina trinkets! This is only the smaller bits- there was wire and other stuffs too. It felt like Christmas going through them.

I went to a car show this morning- truth be told the lure was mostly baited with the words 'swap meet', though non-car junk was thin on the ground. I bought two knackered tins to cut up, but that's it. I did see some rather smashing cars though, and some really cute caravans all dolled up in appropriate gear.


The 1940s is SO the business. I'll blog more of them later when I fix the photos. Aside from the junk it was a good excuse to get out in the sunshine (first day in the last 4 that hasn't been rain-soaked!) and to flex my photography muscles.