Tiny post

I made tiny earrings. And tiny earrings (just one inch including the leverbacks!) get a tiny post. Here they are - tiny shells caught in fine silver wire to dangle on your ears, now listed in my ArtFire studio.

Cloves and flowers

Did you know that cloves are flower buds of a tree? I didn't, but I do now.

I just wanted to prove to you that I'm still alive and thought I'd do so with my latest listings. The clove earrings are for the Handmade in Europe challenge "Herbs/Spices". Have you checked out our blog this month? The subject is really interesting, even for non-cooking people like me.

One of a kind wire crochet clove earrings

Let's stay with the flowers. I made these quite a while ago, but was looking for different ideas to use the design. There's nothing like an unorganized stash, I'm telling you. I had forgotten there was the back of a barrette in there and I rather like how the flowers look on it. And then one of my favorite songs came to my mind:

"For those who come to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair ..." Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco". Perfect!

And I even had two flowers left which I used for earrings. Now I can go back into hibernation, right? ;-)

Wire crochet flower barrette

Welcome to "The Little Gardener's Show"

Too late to back out now, the door is locked.
This is not a garden show, you know I don't anything about flowers!
Still my topic today are flowers, but not the kind that withers when I come close. I found the cure. Give me flowers that are tough, that can stand up to me and that don't need water!!

One of them you know already from an earlier post. It had been lying around there and I felt sorry for it, so I decided to plant it. I didn't want to use something store-bought, though.
Then my looks fell on the brown polymer clay that I had intended to use for a tree. The design hadn't worked out the way I wanted it to, but .... hmm .... with a little red in it .... organic look .... rough edges .... oh yes, and a tiny snail on there!
When the bowl had left the oven and was cooling down I started thinking about the "soil". Sand? Nah. I would have to glue it down, so the plant wouldn't fall. Glued sand? I don't think so. Rocks? The deco rocks that I like to use as background props for my pictures? I still had enough of it, so I started glueing the flower into the bowl with the rocks (after checking out if my glue was ok for polymer clay).
When I had about half of it done, I glued myself to the rocks. It was bound to happen. Glue doesn't like me. When trying to get my hand off the rocks, I pulled the whole bowl with me and rocks started flying into all directions. Have you seen that they are black with silver?
I stepped on them. With my white socks I stepped on black, silver and glue. Sometimes you have to sacrifice things, I guess. I sacrificed my socks for this project. They were not the youngest anyway, the heel started to get a little threadbare, and I didn't feel like picking off all that stuff before throwing them into the washer.

I needed two sessions to glue everything so that nothing would fall out.
Here is the result.



The other flowers are totally different. They are roses from polymer clay, much smaller, too. I know there are many rose earrings out there, so I wanted to give the design a little twist.


I love to combine wire crochet and smooshing, in my opinion that can compliment each other very well in a design.
And my head is full of ideas! Stay tuned!

Cocoon set - fire and ice

Do you remember the wire teardrop with the lampwork beads from the last post? I think it started this.
I asked myself "Why not using beads with this?" At first I thought about an icycle, inspired by the weather outside, but suddenly blue wire and tiny beads turned into a sparkly cocoon.
Ice led to fire and here comes a sneak preview at a set of two pairs of cocoon earrings that will hopefully be listed in my shop soon!

Loving inanimate objects

Have I mentioned that I love my new crochet hooks? I have? Hm. But have I also mentioned why I love them? Have I mentioned that they go down ALL the way to 0.75 mm?! And have I told you I already bent the smallest one when I had to try it on fine silver wire? I knew that would happen, but as I won't ever use it for yarn, it doesn't really matter. I bent it back and it will be able to enjoy its retirement mostly from now on.
I'm still excited because now I have the right size for everything. Before I didn't even know 0.1 mm could/would make so much difference.
Others get excited about a power tool and I jump up and down for some sticks of steel. Life is funny.

A few weeks ago I had already started making more yarn baskets in different sizes and colors and with different handles. These two are from each end of the spectrum.
For size comparison I photographed them with a good old 2 Pfennig piece. That is about the size of an American 1 cent piece.

This basket is 1.5 cm or 0.6 inch high. There is space for two tiny balls of "yarn". It would make a better earring than a pendant, but in my excitement about this new experiment with a 1 mm hook I forgot to keep counting and I don't know yet if I can make a matching one.



This is the biggest basket. It's not much higher than the tiny one, but about twice as wide, so four balls of "yarn" fit into it. These are from colored copper and from bronze wire.
It's still waiting for its bail.



Here now is a picture of all the baskets together and here you can also see the difference between the "big" and the small one.


I can't wait to experiment more! ;-)

Have you taken your vitamins?

Seems I am on the fruit trip, even if not intentionally in the first place.

I buy my wire online in England, from wires.co.uk and I love their colored copper wire. I could buy the list up and down and back up again and when a parcel arrives, I sit down, hold the spools into a light and giggle like a little girl at the beautiful shine.
So it is easy to match wire and beads tone in tone and you have lots of possibilities to experiment with different color combinations as well.

This is one of my favorite colors, a beautiful metallic orange although I think the seller calls it honey.
It's a bright and happy color and was perfect for these earrings. They remind me of a puddle of orange juice that is trickling down in a spiral. What better to use as accent than a clear glass rounded cube with AB (aurora borealis) finish? I like ice cubes in my orange juice!


Recently I bought some purple and black glass beads.
I have used them with black and purple wire before on this spool knit necklace. Here I put the black beads on the purple and the purple beads on the black wire for the perfect mix.


For this pendant I wanted to go tone in tone, though. After I started I found it began to remind me of a berry, so instead of going for a plane disk I made it domed.


On the pendant I had stopped at a disk because when I decided it was a berry, it was too late to make a ball out of it, it would have been much too big. What about berries for the ears? It still is blackberry season, hmm. Thought, said out loud and done, here is the result. Yummy looking blackberries for your ears.


Let me think, what else do I need for fruit salad? One idea already came from a forum friend (thanks, Cindy!), another one is welling up in my mind just now ...

Being organised

I think this was one of the most unorganised days in the last week. Not that I didn't get to finish anything (except folding the laundry, this exciting chore I kept for tomorrow), but I started here and then there and really I am surprised I got anything done at all. Nice was that while working on protocols and jewelry and laundry and in the kitchen I could leave the windows open (no worry, just the ones with the cat nets in'em) and fresh spring air was coming in, mmmh. I was surprised the cats didn't spend all day sitting on the window sills! Probably too loud outside or not interesting enough.

So what did I get done? I worked on three club meeting protocols, I listed something on Etsy (peace, people! ;-)) ...



... I made some earrings ...



... I crocheted in an agate disk with copper wire, no picture available for that, though, because it is spending its time in a plastic bag together with a squished boiled egg. I wonder what is gonna happen, it's my first try at that, but I am not ready for playing with chemicals yet. Did you know (no, you didn't, why should you, but it's a figure of speech) that my chemistry teacher in 11th grade did not even know my name? I think he knew it after he caught me in the hallway imitating him. Lesson learned, never imitate your chemistry teacher right beside the chem lab door! Ah, I digress.

I ordered new copper wire in different colors (banglemania is still calling me ;-)) and silver wire, I cleaned the kitchen and fed the insatiable crowd about a billion times. I did the laundry and I ate junk food *sigh*

Almost time for me to call it a day, I have to get up early tomorrow morning. That's supposed to be vacation time, pfffffft! :-))

Flea market!

Aaah, spring may be coming after all. At least there were three flea markets in one little town today. There had only been one this year and so we - my sister, the tall guy and I - were pretty excited and in hunting fever. I wasn't expecting too much, maybe a book or two, but although there were many commercial dealers with goods from screwdrivers to sweatshirts, there were also a few private sellers.
I ended up with two books, a nice little old ashtray with a polar bear standing on top (the seller said, as no one in the family smoked, her mother had used it as a bowl for peanuts), a strand of blue goldstone and this:



Seriously, for about six bucks I just couldn't resist. I had been looking at something else on this seller's table and then saw a box full of beads (also some glass pearls that I already sorted out). I took a peek, the seller saw it, looked at my necklace and said "if you are making necklaces, you can have the whole lot cheap, it's my last rest". I know there isn't anything spectacular in there, but for that money I will have some use for them, I'm sure :-)
The tall guy and my sister were also happy enough to find a little something. I can't wait till the season really starts.

By the way, good thoughts for Mr. Prairie Dog are appreciated, I hope he is just too excited at the moment to eat because so far he has spurned all the delicacies we have offered him :-(

P.S. I had to try and make something with the blue goldstone beads. A night picture, so it's not too good, but you'll get the drift ...