In the heat of the night

I wish I was just talking about the movie with Sidney Poitier (and could tell you a funny family story that comes with it), but actually it is  /$%"/$"/$ hot here and I can't sleep.

Instead I went through my UFO baggie that I put together after I organized my beads and found one of my wire knit bracelets that was only missing a clasp.

When I opened the storage drawer with the clasps, the big leafs fell into my hands, not everyone's cup of tea in a bracelet because of their size, but what if ... I could ... there was the chain ... that doesn't look too bad, but maybe the other one ...

So this is what I finally got. Not too bad for a fried brain in the middle of the night, is it?
It's available in my shop now.

The pelican

First of all let me say that this post makes me terribly sad and proud at the same time.

On the 20th of April of last year BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Estimated 205 million gallons were released into the Gulf over the next months because different attempts to control the spill failed. Not before the 19th of September the well was declared "dead".

"Dead" is a good keyword. A disaster that big affects the whole nature, the ocean, beaches, animal wildlife, people's health and their livelihood.

At the moment the world seems to be hit by a different catastrophe every other week, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods. Sometimes it feels we can only deal with one a time. The Haiti earthquake, the oil spill, the floods in Pakistan, now we are all staring towards Japan, thinking of the people over there ... and let's be honest, of ourselves, in fear of how the radiation might affect us.

So why did I pick the oil spill for this post?

A dear friend of mine is an artist. You have heard about her before, in my tribute to Merlin on this blog. Her name is Dawn and she makes the most beautiful miniature paintings for jewelry.

This project is something very special, though. It is supposed to remind of the oil spill and the effect it had and still has on the Gulf area. There will be a raffle and the proceeds will go to the  Audubon Society which is an organization that plays a big role in rescuing sea birds, cleaning them up and releasing them back to the wild.

Raffled off will be this necklace showing a brown pelican, the state bird of Louisiana.

I don't want to say much about the following pictures, but I hope they'll speak to your heart just as much as they did to mine.

 

Thank you,  Dawn, I'm proud to call you my friend.

If you want more information about the raffle, you can reach me at cat@catswire.com.

Mayan sun

I found that when I take enough breaks I can work on new pieces again.

This month's Starving Artists Team challenge was to make something in a gold color, no matter if the gold was in the metal, the beads, the gems.

As I didn't really have an idea and don't want to overdo it yet, I thought I'd put a bezel around a nice glittering peach bebble and add some fancy jasper. I guess it would have resulted in a nice organic look.

However, it was not to happen because at some point during the process the bezel turned into a disk with a hole in the middle. I just had enough jasper cubes left to make it all around the disk, but what to put in the middle? A few things came to mind, but I'll keep them to me, to put them on my list of ideas for the future.

I found the best choice would be a red/brown nugget. It had the right size and the color fit in with the Mayan vision I suddenly had.

Ok, looking at it now it makes me think I should have used some crystal to remind of the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" ;-)

Yet another idea for my list?

Mayan sun

Spring cleaning

It's not spring yet and I'm not cleaning my house as you might think now.

The cleaning I want to do is in my inventory. I feel there are some older pieces which could use a little rejuvenation. I'm not sure at the moment how far that will go, it depends a lot on what Mabel is telling me.

Have I ever told you she likes to hide in drawers, little bags, on wire spools and in boxes? I have to admit it, sometimes I am not very organized.

So today I found a bag containing nothing but a wire spool with some 9 ct. gold that I had gotten myself months ago to see if it would work for wire crochet (it doesn't ....) - with some faceted garnet beads on it! I remember thinking then  how gold and that red would go together perfectly, then I got discouraged by the wire breaking and packed it up, only to forget it. Like my grandmother used to say "the house doesn't lose anything".

One of the patients on my rejuvenation list had been a rope, spool knitted from dark red ribbon. Red garnets ... red ribbon ... hm ..... what about that tiger eye rock still lying around. Red and dark ... dark mood ... a dark pendant on milky white skin (thinking of my second doll head Lilith here) ... no silver ... gunmetal wire! As you can see, Mabel has been hard at work here which was no easy task as my head is not the best tool at the moment.

So here's the result - the "Lady Jean" necklace, now in my ArtFire studio.

Ugly beads - a challenge, Part 3

I'm still not done with the "ugly" beads from our SJA challenge.
There's no idea for the matrioshkas yet, at least none that I really like, but I finished piece #2 for the vase beads today.
The fact that these beads are so heavy made me think they would work well on a lariat or something like it, so this is what I finally came up with.

I crocheted a very slim tube from brown copper wire to keep the all over earthy look. On each end I attached one vase bead. Just like that it looked a little boring, so I added some riverstone beads and for the "drop of water" some clear glass AB (aurora borealis) rounded cube beads.
There is no clasp, you just tie the necklace once or twice or make a knot with both strands. You can keep ends at the same height or wear one end a little higher than the other one.


This is a long necklace. Just the tube is 29 inch long, not counting the vase beads.

I'm determined

I'm determined this time. I won't buy supplies - which means I have to avoid supply sites because they make that strange urge well up in me that I can' resist and then without even wanting to I find I bought another cab or ... oops, digressing, sorry. Again. I won't buy supplies AND I will list the pieces I still have scattered around, either because I haven't gotten around to take pictures yet or because that little something is not right yet.

I started on Saturday evening. Two pieces that have patiently been waiting on my table finally made it into my shops.
One of them changed a little bit since when I first made it. I decided to put the crochet disks and the lampwork beads on a suede cord instead of the silver-plated copper wire I had put them on first. Somehow it felt better around the neck. I left the cord long enough to choose if one wants to wear the necklace in the long or in the short version. I prefer short.


The other piece is a tumbled carnelian in an orange wire crochet bezel. I wasn't sure if it was too bright, but when it landed beside my phoenix (that you might remember), the thought of it being a firebird's egg sprang to mind.


I have no idea myself what will be next, but there are still a few items not listed. I just hope my determination will stay .....

Rummaging through the drawers

There's no telling ever what will hide in my drawers. Little boxes with supplies for example, wire, some hooks, I have to be prepared everywhere and all the time if the creative urge comes over me.
The other day I found a half-finished WIP in a drawer. The wire had broken on the bail while wrapping and I needed to take it off to make a new one. Obviously that had proved too difficult for me at the time. I spent another 20 minutes turning the labradorite in my hand staring at the change from greenish-grey to blue, then tore myself away, unwrapped the bail and made a new one. To make a matching tube necklace with it sounded sensible at that moment, two hours later, still not done, it didn't sound that great anymore, but I absolutely wanted to see the result and I'm happy about it.
It's listed in my Zibbet shop now.


Another drawer WIP was this ring. The green stone was from the little treasure chest my sister gave to me for Christmas. I was intrigued by the different look of the smooth and the rough side. Why this project got stopped, I don't remember, but yesterday I stumbled over it and since there wasn't that much still to be done, I finished it. One down, two million to go ;-)
It's a big and heavy ring, but not uncomfortable. It was the first time I made a ring shank like this.


This is not a WIP. It's a piece I made for the monthly challenge of my Handmade in Europe guild. The subject was "Summer flowers". I have made flowers before, but I wanted to make something different this time. Two attempts pretty much failed before I came up with this flower. I crocheted each petal individually, then I attached them to each other. I better get it listed before my time is running out!

The Rainbow Fairies

The idea was born when I started sorting a small plastic bag of bead soup. I can't call myself a seed beader although I have used beads more than once, and little did I know when I decided to separate the bead soup into his ingredients. I didn't do it all in one day, it took a few days, but finally I had all those neat little plastic bags with one bead color each.
So now what?
I held the bags next to each other, thinking about possible color combinations and the next thing I knew was me throwing together seed beads. I guess I should have thought about that earlier, it would have saved me some time.
The first necklace was the blue and green of the ocean and there it was, the crazy idea of making many in different color combinations - the necklaces for the Rainbow Fairies.

The Rainbow Fairies have their club in a treehouse on the highest tree you can find. When joining each of them got their own special necklace in their own special colors as you can see in this picture. I'm sure they'll attract new members over the time.


And there are those last leftover seed beads in the bag that didn't match any of the other colors. How about a Fairy of Color? ;-)

They are already listed in my Zibbet shop by the way, but are supposed to move into my other shops as well soon.

Do you know ...

.... how difficult it is to stay concentrated and not lose patience when a very loud cat is sitting in front of a closed door?

When I started to work with polymer clay, the upstairs kitchen became off-limits for the furry inhabitants of this house. As the fur tends to creep in under the door, it's hard enough to fight it off without having a wild chase around the table with hair flying in all directions.

The fact that there is a closed door is particularly hard for Ponder and Esme. It starts with a soft sound that changes into a yodel (Pon) or wild squeaking (Es) pretty quickly. Ponder takes it even harder than his sister. Even when he hasn't been around me for an hour or longer, he seems to feel that I'm behind "The Door" suddenly and he just won't have that.

So imagine me trying to roll clay with my hands while nerve-wrecking yodelling comes through the door, so loud that I'm afraid the neighbors will get me for torturing my cat. Imagine me trying to poke holes into about 40 beads while the yodelling starts to be accompanied by scratching on the door, not to mention the attempt to climb the door. Yes, Ponder walks up doors and it's a very distinctive sound.
I'm weak and can't stand that for very long which is the reason why it took me a few days to make all the beads.
I had started with the big focal one. The smaller ones are not as clear in their pattern, but that is why a focal is, well, a focal.


The necklace is not finished yet. I still need to string the beads and add a clasp, but I was curious to see what it might look like.


And now I have a purring black cat in my lap, happy that I came back out of the mysterious room, back to him, to serve him, in good days and in bad days. Doh.

They couldn't be more different

I am talking about the two necklaces I listed on Zibbet today.
It was an impulsive decision to join Zibbet, but now that I am there I try to fill up the shop a little and as I still had a few things around that only needed to be woken up from their hibernation (although it was summer and fall, but that's ok, you know what I mean), I found I like the setup.

Today I listed this "old" piece, from my early days. The colors and the beads are so bright and bold that I thought a simple design would work best.
It's from two twisted strands of crocheted copper wire and the beads are glass that is "filled" with color and glitter (now am I a glass expert or what? *lol*)
Looking at it gives you a summery feeling which is not too bad now that the days are very dark here.


The other necklace is a new one. When I got these frosted Brazilian amethysts, they made me think of frozen berries right away. Only they didn't stick together.
Compared to the other necklace this is a very feminine design. Classic understatement with a twist.


Why don't you check out my Zibbet shop?

Hmmm, those brown tigereyes on my desk .... I must have some brown wire somewhere ....

My muse has struck again!

Really I hadn't expected her yesterday. I worked on a necklace in a style I had used on other necklaces/chokers before, only in fine silver and suddenly she struck me over the head, held on to it and yelled: "Look at the texture!" What I hadn't seen during making three necklaces and two bangles was that it seemed like snake skin. Now I know many people have a hard time with snakes and I also would prefer to not be bitten by one, but still I think they are beautiful animals. Also a friend who happened to be there at the moment when I noticed said the same thing. My muse laid back happily. She thinks it's enough to have an idea and leaves how to realize it to me. The head was not that much of a problem, but as I was already past the part where I could have put a clasp, I needed some idea how to close the necklace. I "filled" the silver tube with a wire that is sturdy enough to hold the shape and still bends, so now you just put the ends together and voilà!
It's not in my shop yet as I didn't take pictures today, but it soon will be.




Not only my patience was on ground level at that time, but also my wrist (we talk about almost 10 hours in two days). So I decided to take it a little easier today. Usually I don't talk about work on this blog and I won't start that now. All I want to say is that last week was my boss' birthday, but she was away on vacation. She said she'd like some flowers, so I told my coworkers I would make a little extra beside the bouquet she will get. I thought some roses in one of my wire crochet baskets might be nice, so I set to work and here is the result.



I so hope she will like them! (And I so hope I found at least most of the cat hairs! Esme just walked by without even touching the clay and everything was covered, ugh.)

Care for a dance with the vampire?

I am still not done with my knitting spool. Not at all. Although so many ideas haunt my poor old brain, sometimes the crochet hook has to go to sleep and give up its place to the spool.
The other day I bought some cheap boxes with beads that were on sale. One of them contained a black mix, the other one a purple mix and both of them contained big seed beads of which the purple ones are silver-lined. Suddenly I just happened to have my black and metallic purple wire in reach (even true, there was no planning whatsoever involved at first).
So the beads went onto the wires and row for row the necklace was growing. Take a closer look to find out what exactly I did ;-)
The result looks really best in the dark, I found, just with a little light on (shhh, I still got one of the old light bulbs in my lamp, but don't tell the EU). I tried to take a picture to show you the effect, but I am not a good enough photographer (yet *lol*) to take good enough night photographs. You'll just have to believe me that the light makes for a dark, mysterious sparkle.
Black and purple makes me think of Victorian times, but also of a kind of classic understatement that seems dark and dull one moment and suddenly gets lightened up to reveal the subtle colors. It doesn't always have to be black and red to get into the right mood ...
Imagine a gorgeous dress swishing across the stone floor when you go to meet the handsome vampire and have a dance with him, this necklace sparkling on your white throat.


P.S.
For your information ;-) No, I haven't read or seen any of the "new" vampire books or movies, but I have to admit I still think I could fall for the vampire Lestat, prince of the darkness - and I'm not talking the guy in the movie I don't even want to mention! And by the way, you'll find this necklace in my DaWanda shop ...