Arachnophobia - Food for thought

Now this is kind of interesting (well I think it is anyway).

I am terrified of spiders. Big or small - even money spiders - size doesn't matter - I am scared of them all. I also do not like any other insects that crawl along. It is the legs ... I hate them. So when I made my Egyptian inspired piece (see earlier blog entry called Eternity) it took me quite a while to actually be able to pick up one of the (dead) little scarab beetles to make the mould from it. After a while working with the piece though I was fine with them and thought they were quite cute really. This got me thinking. Would I be able to get over my fear of spiders if I started to make some pieces with spiders on.

This was my first attempt. Strangely enough I was absolutely fine with it. Even a picture of a spider in a magazine gives me the creeps normally!

But here is the really weird bit. I made the pendant, fired it polished it, enamelled it - great. Then I patinated it in LOS and the spider went black and suddenly I am like - yikes - its a spider - let me out of here!!! All this time I thought it was just the legs that got to me but seemingly the dark colour has a lot to do with it as well. Needless to say I rapidly polished the spider back to silver and it seems ok again now.

I shall try some more spider things and see if I can start to cure myself. The only problem is if there are many people like me out there I may not have many customers when I put the pieces out for sale on my stand!

Is that weird or it is just me who is weird? :)

Phew!

What a week. I bet you thought I had vanished off the face of the earth! The 3 days of craft fairs went well last weekend but it was mostly the more modest priced items selling and I was just about out of enamelled bits by the end of it. As I have 2 more days this weekend and 1 the following week I decided I had better make more if that was what people wanted to buy so I have been up in my workshop all week. I finished enamelling at 10pm last night and here are some of the results. Now I just have to put findings on them all. Phew!

Simple Chic

Do you ever buy beads and then think um.... now what am I going to do with these?
I bought these gorgeous beads from Laura Sparling a while a go but every time I thought of something to use them in somehow it just did not do justice to them. The patterns are wonderful on them. They are large at 18mm in diameter and just wanted to speak for themselves. I think these neck wires and a couple of simple Art Clay silver beads set each one off really well and they make three lovely simple necklaces.


Below are some other pendants I made at the weekend. The two on the outside have dichroic glass in them and once again the photo does not really catch their sparkle and colour. They have to go for hallmarking yet before I can sell them. I really like the middle one best though. I am calling it Starry Starry Night and the stars have 22k Art Clay Gold paste fused into them. Nice eh?

Fusing Fun

Phew, well here are the results of a couple of glass fusing days. The ones above will be made into earrings and pendants and the ones below are going to be brooches. I love dichroic glass. It is soooo colourful but such a pain to photograph. This lot look miles better than in the pictures. They are sparkley gorgeous. I will not even be listing these on my website until after the craft fairs over the next two weekends as they are always so popular and sell really quickly. I am just finishing off some Art Clay silver pieces I made as well so will be posting a picture of those soon. Don't forget to come and say hi if you are near any of the fairs I am at. (see earlier post)

Pretty 2

I am getting there with all these bracelets and earrings. 2 more finished now and 1 to go. I love these two above. Yet more beautiful Beads by Laura. Back off to my workshop now. Today is glass fusing and Art Clay so I'll try to post some pictures of the pieces when they are done.

Pretty!

So here are the first three bracelets I've made. They have matching earrings and will be in my website shop soon. Lots of lovely colours. They include Swarovski crystals, Murano glass, semi precious beads and best of all some great handmade lampworked beads by Laura Sparling. I have three more colour combinations in the making. Then I will be back to the Art Clay Silver and enamelling.

It is a busy time for me as I have 5 days of craft fairs coming up at the end of this month and then more in June and July so I need to get my stock sorted out. If you are in my area please do come and say hi and have a fun day out as well. Here are the May dates.

23rd May - Heathfield Agricultural Show

24th & 25th May - Llama Park, Ashdown Forest

30th & 31st May - Bewl Water

Busy Making Bracelets

I have spent today wire wrapping all sorts of beads to make bracelets with my handmade silver chains. I am really pleased with the variety. I'll take some photos and post them soon.

Eternity

This is the sixth piece that I entered to the Guild of Enamellers. It was sort of Egyptian inspired. The sunburst and scarabs beetles are all symbols of resurrection and life with the eye of Horus on the back for protection. Hence the name Eternity. The little scarab beetles were a real challenge to enamel. I wanted to get a lifelike look (they were moulded from real beetles - dead of course!!) and used mica lustre powders fused to the surface to get some of the iridescence of the actual beetles. It is on a handmade silver chain.

Cute Furry Hamster

Ok, well I don't think you liked the tree frog much so try this cute little hamster. You can feed him, make him follow your mouse and he'll run in his wheel for you. All together now .....ahhhhhhhhh