Etsy Adds

Some recent additions to the jewelry shop! Check them out here!

Make-a-Day 2/12 - 2/18

After a slow start, it was a pretty productive week for making. The first few days were devoted to making collage examples for my Art Appreciation class, but I did manage to finally get my accordion book content sorted out. I'm pretty happy with my final results. By Thursday afternoon, I found myself with no pressing deadlines, so I took time to make some pins (not pictured) and start some pieces to ultimately sell at the Trunk Show at SNAG this spring. Saturday, which seems to have replaced Friday as my hard core studio day, was super productive. I made several charms and finished several pairs of Mica earrings. I fired up the kiln and spent some time enameling, which I hadn't done in months. After a few more found object brooches, I even got some time to just relax and watch a movie.


Gearing up for another jam packed week! I'll be subbing metals classes for my dear friend Autumn Brown, while she's rockin' it out at the Yuma Symposium!

Make-a-Day 2/4 - 2/11

Well, it was another crazy week, and another one is coming up, but I did manage to make everyday this week. Still playing with the bottle caps, I made this charm yesterday. I'm fairly happy with this one, but I'd like to buy an antique tin to cut up and use before I put this whole tin as a material thing to bed.
I made a bunch of these found object brooches this week, mostly because they're quick, and come together in a few minutes. I like making these and I'm considering for using them for the pin swap at the SNAG conference.


I also made a couple books this week, including an X book with pockets out of an old map. This was trickier than I expected, since the structure wanted to follow the existing creases in the map, and not the creases I'd made. The creases are also only 3/8 of an inch apart, so I kept confusing which was which. It took me a couple days to complete the blue book, and I started an altered book, which I now can't find. I'm having trouble coming up with the content for the simple accordion book. I know the theme I want to use, but I'm not sure about the imagery.

Well, lots to do as usual! Happy weekend!

Etsy Adds

A few of the recent adds to the shops! Check 'em out!

Jewelry Shop

Paper Shop

Charming

A few more notes from the ECU symposium, here are two charms I acquired during that weekend. The blue and green fuzzy one I needle felted in Masako Onedera's workshop entitled "Fibersmithing". She covered various techniques of needle and wet felting and even though I have some feltmaking experience, I still found this workshop exciting and informative. I always thought I didn't care for needle felting, having tried it once before for about 5 minutes. But this little piece was a lot of fun to make! I added the polka dots to make it a bit less floral.

The red plastic and copper charm was made by Molly Mitchell, which I received in the Charm Swap. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to meet her and thank her in person, so Molly if you're out there, Thank You! Tina Lazzarine, current ECU grad and co-coordinator of an awesome exhibition, The Art of Influence, that took place during the symposium got my enamel and pyrite charm.

Make-a-Day 1/29-2/3

I thought I'd been doing so well at blogging until I noticed if was Friday and I hadn't blogged since Monday. Oops. Sunday through Tuesday went well for making things and I made the three little bobs pictured below. The star hangs on the wall, the other two are brooches. It's a good and fun challenge to actually USE all these things I've picked up over the years.

Wednesday was the deadline for Hot Under the Collar, and I got COMPLETELY swamped with emails and entries. I'm still going through them. I did manage to make some sunprints (not pictured here). Thursday and Friday. . . . I fell off the wagon. Already. I didn't make anything either day. Work at the museum and dealing with the show just crowded everything else out. I've decided not to beat myself up over it, and just keep trying.

So yesterday I was off and after a few errands in the morning, I spent most of the day in the studio, doing both metals and book stuff. Many of my friends use tin in their work and after watching Marlene True's workshop at the ECU Symposium, I'd been wanting to try my hand at the material myself. After all, I've been saving all these bottle caps. So I made two bottle cap charms, start to finish yesterday. While I like the look of tin in other people's work, I doubt I'll ever be part of that club. I also threw together two more charms out of stuff I had laying around the bench. You can find all of these charms for sale in my Etsy shop.



I also managed to make a book yesterday too. I bought a copy of Making Handmade Books by Alisa Golden, and I'm trying to make my way through it. Yesterday I made this X book with pockets. It was a little tricky, but I'm please with the overall end result.

So that's where I'm at. Happy Sunday!

New Charms

New charms in the shop!

Etsy Adds

Finally got around to added some things to the shops yesterday: books in the paper shop and charms in the jewelry shop. I'm really excited about the books. The paper is double sided so the design on the front cover of one book is on the inside of the other book, making a perfectly coordinated pair. The charms are a just a few bits and baubles I made at Peter's Valley.

You can check out my paper shop here.

And my jewelry shop here.

Etsy Adds

Some recent Etsy adds to both the jewelry shop and the paper shop.

Charms!!!!!!

I know I'm behind on posting a lot of things, but I'm WAY behind on posting about our charm swaps. Here are all the charms I've gotten in the swaps and a few I traded for, since last fall.
Paper creation by Josh Craig.
Gold powder coated lady by Marissa Saneholtz, silver and steel double crystal charm by Sarah West, pierced coin with tin by Bob Ebendorf.
Silver and dried paint "Create" charm by Kendall Booth (back)
Honeycomb by Sarah west, black coral by Lisette Fee and wood and brass figure by sculpture major Dudders.

I've been real bad about taking pictures of the charms I've put into the swaps. Sorry. They've all been different. I've been making myself my own collection of charms as well. I'll post about them later. As always, anyone can participate in our swaps. Just contact me and I'll put you in touch with Tara. Want to jump start your collection? Check out the "Chams" section in my Etsy shop!