Every time I pull out the antiqued wire or dig through my box of random metal bits or make another trip to the thrift store jewellery section, I end up moving in a totally new direction than I thought I was going to be going in. I’m certainly not complaining! It’s wild and exciting to …
I’ve been sculpting in polymer clay for a long, long time – before there was much online to help folks out. Recently I’ve been digging into it again and loving it! I even signed up for the Metal Clay class at Craftsy.com just today… can’t wait to find some time for it. But meanwhile, here’s …
I haven’t figured out a name for these yet… I just imagined them yesterday. They’re sort of inspired by these windchimes made by the Inverness Beach Gal. These are made of driftwood, coal, beach glass and limestone, all from Cape Breton beaches!
A bunch of super-talented local artisans and I are working on a gallery exhibition that opens in about a month. It’s all about birds and there are a LOT of great ideas flying around our intermittent meetings. Working with such creative minds is exhilarating… staring down a deadline, a little less so ;) Here’s a …
In the midst of unbelievable chaos, I managed to complete a last-minute batch of steampunk flower pendants before the CBCCD show in 4 days! I especially love the one with the red/orange leather, below: I had to make some more because I nearly sold out at my last show! These things go very fast. I was …
Yesterday was SO productive! I worked 8 full hours in the studio, with hardly any lollygagging or shenanigans. It was all about preparation for the four shows I have in the next 5 weeks, to make setup as painless (literally) as possible. I: Covered one of the presentation boards I got on the cheap with …
Been making crazy amounts of jewellery these days… Check out how awesome that labradorite is! Finished up a bunch of rings lately, some even with gears and such! Managed to get a few gemstones going as well, although I’m not quite able to identify this one. This rainbow one is totally fun. And a huge …
The new materials I’ve got on the bench are blowing my mind. Unfortunately, my vacation totally interrupted my creativity time and I can’t show you anything finished yet! I can, however, totally tease you :) And ok, you can see some of the half-finished bits in the background. Maybe I jumbled them together on purpose …
This is the most fun I’ve had in the studio in a while! Mostly I’ve had to focus on production pieces – making a million earrings in a row and spending weeks building rings; they’re satisfying to make but it can get monotonous. I finally decided to spend today doing something completely unique! I didn’t …
An unexpected burst of energy after supper resulted in 3 new pieces for today! The buttons have been laid out in these colour combinations on the workbench for at least a couple of weeks but I just couldn’t make it work in my head. I added the inverted washers, which was better, but it still …
A dozen or so heart pendants in blood red, sunset orange, and sweetheart pink, plus one special hammered pendant in extra-large. These will be available at the Cape Breton Centre for Craft & Design later this week!
A book of art nouveau designs caught my eye as I was passing the bookshelf in my downstairs hallway on the way to the studio so I grabbed it and brought it down with me. Flipping through was pretty inspiring so I grabbed a heavy-gauge wire and my hammer! There’s minimal bling on this one …
After I made the hair clips last week, I had more time in my day so I looked around for something else to do that was different and new, and my eyes lit upon a package of fancy fibre-y yarn/ribbon thingums. I thought the little feathery bits would be a fun accent into a wire …
I teased you with 3 new products last week and only just now have managed to get photos taken. And actually I only got photos of 2 of the 3 so you’ll still have to wait for the third one. That’s not me teasing you on purpose, that’s just me being stupidly busy. I was …
This isn’t strictly jewellery-related but I’ve been dying to take photos of our backyard for about 18 months now, and I could never properly capture the forest-like proportions until the new camera got here. And this morning, the gorgeous fog and sunrise I see out my bathroom window nearly every day didn’t fail me. I …
I had an excellently productive 4-day weekend! More steampunk-vintage-whatsits (more on those later) as well as a big pile of firepolished glass pendants and earrings. I didn’t take individual photos of the pendants, but here’s a pretty good shot of most of them: They’re pretty fun to make, lots of organic swirls and such. What …
It’s been a LONG time since I’ve made any rings. They’re quite difficult in terms of finicky-ness and painful-ness; unfortunately for my hands they’re also one of my very best sellers. Luckily I had a LOT of stock left over from last year so I hadn’t needed to make any for a while, but they’re …
I went just a *little* dangle-crazy with the last batch of steamfunkery pieces. I couldn’t help it! I dug out all the metal bits and bobs I could find and in there were these chandelier-earring-type findings that just begged to be incorporated and to have things hanging off them. And so a bunch of the …
I’ve been doing a version of these for a while, but this is the first time I’ve had access to real watch parts (mostly I’ve been using scrapbooking embellishments). I had a great time putting together complex elements to then wire-wrap. I also had some success with photography! I believe the secret is to add …
I came across the idea of combining various colours of beach glass online the other day, and became somewhat obsessed with it. Not sure why I didn’t think of it before, because combining colours is my favourite thing to do… Possibly because wrapping one bit of glass takes long enough; in any case, here are …