Tree of Life Pendant Workshops

Last month saw the start of a new venture for me - I started booking the classroom at Gloucestershire Arts and Crafts Centre to hold workshops.

In February two lovely ladies spent the afternoon with me making their own tree of life pendants. One lady chose to use mother of pearl beads and the other gorgeously earthy mookaite.

Due to popular demand I have arranged another workshop for later this month, so if you couldn't make it last time (or found out too late!) then now's your chance. I will be arranging more in the near future too.

If you'd like to come along and have a go then just drop me a line!

A cold and frosty morning in January......two years ago!

Well, it certainly was a chilly start this morning wasn't it! And what a cold night - I had to de-ice my car before going out to an evening meeting and then again when I came to go home a couple of hours later. Despite the inconvenience of having' on-time mornings' turn into 'late for school mornings' I have to say that I do like a nice frosty morning. Perhaps because it's January (and I always get a bit nostalgic at this time of the year) I suddenly remembered taking a photo across a local field on just such a cold morning a while ago and blogged about it. So I set off to find the post and was sooooo surprised to find that it was two years ago! Almost to the day! It was the photo from my very first blog post ever over on my old blog:

You can't see it in the photo but I remember there being the most brilliant male pheasant in the field showing up against the frost. If you followed my old blog, you might remember that I said there was a housing estate being built next to this field at the time. Well the houses are up and people are moving in - I wonder what this field looks like now? I've made a mental note to take my camera out with me and see next time I'm passing that way.

The Round the World Blog Hop

Recently Mossy from Silver Moss Jewellery contacted me and asked if I'd like to take part in an around the world blog hop. I'd not heard of it before but the idea behind the Blog Hop is for creative bloggers to write a post based around a few questions. Their answers offer an insight into their creative thoughts and processes. The blog 'baton' is then passed on to another creative and so on...

You can read Mossy's post here. I have to admit to a rather tardy publication of this post - Christmas and New Year rather got in the way......but as I'm now back to (almost) full speed here it is!

So here are the questions - and my answers:

1) What am I working on?

All the custom orders on my bench at the moment are for silver fingerprint pieces. My customers have sent me the fingerprints they want to include and I transfer them to their jewellery. The work needs to be done in stages, so I tend to get all pieces to one stage before moving on to the next. 

I'm also busy building up stock in my Folksy shop again after Christmas - I'm working on a lot of tree of life pieces at the moment.

2) How does my work differ from others in its genre?

No two pieces I make are ever the same! I don't really work in bulk designs - if I'm using gemstones they are often unique shapes which means that I can only ever recreate a similar design. With my wirework trees, the nature of the work means that every piece is different - the stone affects the ways the wires lie and as I twist everything by hand the tension varies which produces differences in the branches. And of course, no two fingerprints are ever the same. Nor are leaves for that matter!

This way of working can make things hard work! I list every item separately in my Folksy Shop so that the picture a customer sees is the piece they are buying (except for fingerprint jewellery or course, which is made to order).

3) Why do I write/create what I do?

I started out making only silver fingerprint jewellery - but of course silver clay is very addictive! I began to experiment with new designs and continue to do so all the time. Most of what I make is inspired by the natural world around me - what better inspiration is there?

Oak Twig Rings

4) How does my writing/creating process work?

I start most new pieces with a sketch of how I want the finished piece to look. Sometimes I create a quite detailed plan but sometimes I just experiment as I go. I can't afford to experiment as much as I'd like though as silver clay is quite expensive! I'm always collecting things when I'm out and about that have interesting shapes and textures that I might use later - I embarrass my children by carrying a collection bag with me everywhere! 

And now I'll pass the baton on to John from The World Outside The Window to answer the same questions. He's a writer rather than an artisan so it should be a bit of a change! In the interest of full disclosure, he also happens to be my husband! So you can imagine us sitting opposite each other working if that helps :)

You can find his blog here: The World Outside the Window

What you can do with just 1 leaf

Making my jewellery I use natural, found materials in a variety of ways. These three pendants are all made using the very same oak leaf in three different ways.

This piece was made by rolling out a slab of silver clay and then pressing the leaf into the surface to leave an impression. I then cut carefully around the outline to give the leaf shape. When the clay was dry, I sanded and smoothed the edges until I was happy with them and added a handmade bail to the back for the chain. When it was all ready I fired it in the kiln before giving it only a slight polish which has left it with a fairly matt finish. I've added patina to enhance the leaf texture.

Next came this piece. Again this was made by rolling out a slab of clay and impressing the leaf into its surface. This time, instead of cutting around the outline of the leaf I cut a free-form shape around the leaf. When the clay was dry I refined the edges as before and drilled the hole to take the jump ring. After firing, I polished around the leaf using a fine point on my polishing tool to give a shiny contrast to the texture of the leaf. Again I added patina to enhance the leaf veins.

This leaf was made entirely differently. I used silver clay paste to build up layers on the surface of the leaf itself. When it was thick enough and completely dry I fired it in my kiln which burnt away the leaf and left a 999 fine silver leaf in its place. I then drilled the hole and added the jump ring before tumbling to give a really great shine, again adding patina to enhance the natural texture.

As you can imagine - if you want to use the same leaf more than once, you have to make sure to work in this order! Once you've used a leaf with the paste method, it's all burnt to ash and you have a totally unique silver leaf that can't be re-created.

All these leaves are currently listed in my Folksy Shop.

Who's been to the rock and gem show then?

Well, me! And look what I've bought today:

These are amazonite, picture stone, tigers eye, agate, lapis lazuli, impression jasper, green jasper,chrysocolla and rose jasper.

Now I can't wait to get started! My favourite is the lapis lazuli in the centre (ish) - how about you?

A Walk in the Woods

It won't come as any surprise to those that know me that I do enjoy a nice trip to the woods, so with the weather really rather fine on Sunday (and finding ourselves with a rare window in the diary) we trotted off to reconnect with some trees.

Now, this particular piece of woodland is high on a hill with fantastic views for miles and miles. It's open and airy with mostly deciduous trees like beech, hazel and ash, but sadly not an oak tree to be found (my personal favourite........maybe). The ground slopes VERY steeply down to the one side of the path - glad no one slipped!

It's amazing what you spot in the woods - I wonder who might live in a house like this.......

I love to find little gateways like this one......

I was really taken by the textures of the ivy on this tree......

and the roots on the path......

And finally, if anyone knows what sort of fungi this is then I'd be very grateful not to have to look it up (pretty please).............

Thanks for reading - now that Little Miss is back at school and Small Boy has started in reception (sob) I'm enjoying getting back to the work shop - pics of this week's creations to follow very soon!

Baaaaaa - trials of the sheepdogs

Of course I've seen One Man and his Dog - years ago, is it still on? As far as I recall, it probably isn't quite 'reality tv' enough for today....maybe if they brought in a public phone vote to choose the winning dog and a panel of 'experts' who may or may not have once owned a dog of some kind, perhaps even a sheepdog.

Anyway, I digress......

Today I went to watch the English National Sheepdog Trials and had a great day out with children and grandparents. I've never seen sheepdog trials before and found it quite fascinating!

I won't pretend to have the slightest clue as to how it's scored or what makes a good run - I just spent my time willing the sheep into the pen and marvelling at how the dogs did exactly what the whistle told them to. The children spent the day standing on tiptoes on a hay bale looking through binoculars trying to be the first to spot the sheep coming over the hill.

Note to self: I wonder if whistles work as well on children, perhaps that's my mistake!