I am happy to say this zombie pin (which you can buy on my Etsy site) was featured at BuyZombie.com !
I have 37 more brains to sell, but most haven’t been posted yet. Please drop me an e-mail if you are interested!
Mad science pins and more to come, if my maniacal machinations work out… first I have to borrow a respirator, and some eye protection…
And this is what 40 brains look like. They are going to have pin backs and magnet backs, soon, yes very soon… Muahaha.
You can see that the brains on the left have not yet been antiqued and glazed. By far the most common comment upon seeing these is “They look like candy!” which means you eat different candy than I do. But I’m not judging you, not at all…
This was my newest Steam/Mech Dragon commission: two smaller dragons for a wedding cake topper.
It was challenging since they’re comparatively small (3 inches tall) – but it was fun.
I finally put a lot of photos of my more Steampunk-styled pieces into a gallery. There is a tab at the top of this page, but you can also click right here.
I do other styles, but Steampunk is in demand right now. I will expand the gallery later, but I have 18 images so far!
I have decided that I am going to start saving the money I get from commissions, in order to buy a quad-line stunt kite…
Two reasons why I have not blogged lately, one of which is a decent excuse.
First, I have not blogged lately because when I had that swell idea to write an Artisan story to go along with jewelry, well, writing is HARD WORK.
Second, I had a deviated septum (that’s the bone in your nose) and had surgery for it about a week-and-a-couple-of-days-ago. It was “pretty miserable” (but no one wants to hear how gross nose surgery is so I won’t go into details. Suffice to say I survived it, and if you also need this fairly routine surgery, you also will survive it.) but now I am doing better and should continue to see improvement over the next several weeks. Someone told me she would rather give birth to twins than have that packing in her nose. I don’t think it was THAT bad, but it did make me feel so sure that I was unable to breathe, that I went to the ER – where they explained to me that no, I was breathing fine, and I was in fact hyperventilating.
Thirdly – bonus reason – I have been trying to clean out and “destash” a lot of craft supplies (and even, gasp, books) that I will likely never use (check it out – some are up for grabs at http://glimmerville.etsy.com).
I will post more art/craft/jewelry, but I don’t guarantee a story like I wish I could. It still seems like it would be a good writing exercise for me, but it is kind of onerous to say “post an actual story with each piece of art, or else” – I’ll do what I can.
Jenny at CraftTestDummies (and CraftCritique) is a friend I met in a roundabout way through Chris Miller (of The Secret Lair).
And right now on her excellent blog (which you should read)Â she is giving away a Lisa Pavelka pendant! Go check it out and comment, to win!
And for MORE great Craft info, collected into one place,Â
here’s an excellent resource: Top 25 Articles on Craft Critique !
I have been intensely wanting to make jewelry lately, and had a necklace in mind. I had been intentionally collecting copper, green, yellow, pink and amber colored beads. Â So I hauled out my current-favorite-mess-of-beads, and discovered a lone old packet of beads I had been completely avoiding. Note: I just sort of snapped photos as I went, so the lighting isn’t that great on these photos.
I started to open them, then I realized this would make a fun blog – that’s why they are ripped at the top. Fun blog part being: I didn’t really plan or want to use these old beads, my goal is now to use them before the night is over!
These beads are made of tan colored glass, with little lampworked dots of glass with coppery inclusions (much like goldstone). So my first idea was to look for more rustic neutral beads to add to them. I dug up this.
Now effectively armed with a bunch of neutral beads, I put them together on my handy bead board and got this.
It’s rustic, it has wood, painted wood, glass, a ceramic focal, copper…what more could you want? Well.. I don’t know, but I wanted something! It is a nice blending of neutral earthtones, and it just didn’t do it for me. I couldn’t feel anything from this pattern. Not that I don’t love that Celtic focal, but it wasn’t working here, for me. So I took it apart.
My second attempt began with the long black glass bead you can see in the middle of the bead board up there. I decided to go with one of my “standard” color schemes, really. Copper and black. I just like the drama you get when those colors play off against each other – they pop!
So here is what I ended up with next, and kept: black czech glass, goldstone squares, and those tan disks. That long black focal really draws the eye. Feel free to disagree with me, of course, but I like this design much better.
Have you ever started a project over? I have done it on some much more frustrating projects (the time I burned a big clay sculpture comes to mind). But with beads, it’s forgiving: You can string and unstring and see what you get with various combinations!
PS. this necklace is on Etsy now.
Feel free to add things you ought to be doing too!
Feel free to add things I ought to be doing that I forgot to list, while we’re at it.
I finally finished this guy! (Click for a larger view.) Not only that, but he’s sold! I’m excited about both of those things, but he was more work than I expected. He started with a tinfoil and wire base, then I added Sculpey, and Apoxie Sculpt on certain parts (like the horns and the inner wing core supports).
Right now I am working on scuplting two dragons – one is a commissioned piece, and one is just for fun.
This baby is just for fun, but I really like the way he is turning out. I tried a texturing technique (tingue twuster!) that I found on the Dan Perez site.
If you want more “step-by-step” information on how I do this, let me know – but mostly it’s “wad tinfoil and wire in the middle, then cover with clay until it looks right”. I have actually taken many progress shots of the dragon below (the one below the baby). Maybe I’ll do a step-by-step sort of post, but it would be picture intensive and I don’t know that anyone really wants it. Just ask questions if you have questions – I’d be thrilled to find out that anyone is reading the blog, hint. [Edit: Yes I know you are reading the blog, because I received some nice feedback when I asked for ways to keep my milk safe in the fridge! And thank you!]
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This is the one that is “an actual commission that I should be working faster on” whoops. Sunday I started on a wing, then picked it up yesterday and discovered that the Apoxie never set! Perhaps I mixed the batch badly. This is why I would fear for everyone’s safety if I was a mad scientist.
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On an EVEN BETTER note, my dad’s company just got some work in today – praise the Lord!
That was a huge answer to prayer.
I hope your day is going well, too!
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And it’s Game Night. I bought a new card game called “Illusio”, that I haven’t tried yet. I don’t know that I’ll have time tonight, but I loved the “rival magicians” theme.