Black and Grey Flowers

A good friend of mine was making a new dress to wear to a wedding - so I offered to make her some new jewellery to match. It turned out just beautiful! Here it is

If you are familiar with the polymer clay work of Ayelet you will notice my inspiration! I made the grey beads and textured them with salt, they match the colour of the dress.

I'm busy working on some Christmas gift and ornament designs, I hope to be able to share some soon. I hope you are having fun whatever you are doing.

St Werburghs Arts Trail this weekend (discount for readers!)

I will be exhibiting at the St Werburghs Arts trail this weekend. You will find me in the Jack Brimble Centre on the corner of Lynmouth Road and St Werburghs Road from 11am - 5pm on Saturday and Sunday.

It's a lovely little hall and there are a couple of other artists exhibiting there too but there is still plenty of space so hopefully I will be able to do some demonstrations of how I make some of my polymer clay jewellery.

Do come and say hello and if you mention my 'blog reader discount' you can have a 10% discount on sales over £10 as a thank you for taking the time to read my blog!

Polydays 2012 - can we do it all again?

Wow what a weekend! I had the best time! I learnt some new skills, I bought some new tools, I met some new friends,I had a great time with some of my favourite polymer people. I really didn't want to come home!

I was a bit worried before I went as I have been having pain in my arm and wrist. Amazingly it got better whilst I was away so I need to do more clay at home too! It turns out it's tennis elbow and using the computer makes it worse, as does writing and driving. Thankfully most polymer clay things are ok! So if I am a bit quiet online for a while please excuse me.

Anyway you will want to see what I made I am sure! We had three workshops - each one lasting a day.

One with Bettina Welker where we made her clever hinged bangles. They take a while to make but are worth the effort - giving a snug fit around the wrist. I went for a purple and teal bangle. I was also able to buy a copy of her new bracelet book - oh I can't wait to try some more bracelets and bangles - thank you Bettina!!

Hinged Bangle from Bettina's workshop

Then we had a metallic mokume gane workshop with Carol Simmons. Her work is amazing, it has so much depth to it. I am pleased to say she taught us the secret of that! We also got to use her amazing slicing machine. We made imprinted blocks of mokume gane using Carols handmade texture sheets then sliced lovely even thin layers using the slicing machine. If you want to see the machine go check out Carols blog. The colours of clay and the wonderful patterns turned into some beautiful lentil beads. Carol also had a clever mould for making these.

One side of the metallic mokume gane lentils

The other side of the lentils.

On the last day we did an overlapping lentil workshop with Alison Gallant. She showed us many other techniques including silk screening. The necklaces are reversible which is pretty cool. One side is black with silk screen printed white dots. The other is made by cutting a bullseye cane with a ripple blade (thanks to Irene for the inspiration on that one). Notice I made a co-ordinating little dangle as well.

I also made a new pendant in between doing other bits - to match my new hinged bangle.

It was a truly blissful weekend. Thank you to Alison for organising it, to the wonderful tutors for sharing their amazing skills with us and all the other participants for making it so much fun! Oh and a big thank you to Penny - www.clayaround.com and Valerie and Craig - www.polymerclay.co.uk for bringing all your wonderful supplies for us to buy! Can't wait til the next one!!!

Workshops in September and October 2012

I am pleased to announce my workshop dates for September and October 2012. All these workshops will take place in Bristol, UK. If you want more information please do get in touch - carajaneuk(at)gmail.com

There will be more workshops in November and December which will have a festive theme - we will be making Christmas decorations and presents. More details will follow. If you want to be one of the first to know you can sign up to my email list here

Workshops Dates September/October 2012

Workshops take place in a small group in a comfortable home environment in Fishponds, Bristol unless stated otherwise. All  materials, use of tools and workshop handouts are included. To book your place please contact Cara - carajaneuk(at)gmail.com. A £10 deposit is required to reserve your place. Payment may be made by cheque, bank transfer or PayPal.

An introduction to polymer clay.

You will learn how to work with polymer clay and to make some simple canes. You will be shown how to use your canes to decorate items such as pendants and how to make beads from them. £30 per person, ideal for beginners

• Thursday  20^th September  7.30pm-10.30pm
• Friday 5^th October  10am-1pm

Cute Creatures

I will show you how to make a tortoise, cat and owl from polymer clay. There will be some of my flower canes available for you to decorate your little creatures. They can be little ornaments or we can turn them into charms or beads. Cost £20 per person, suitable for all.

• Tuesday 25^th September 8pm-10pm
• Saturday 6^th October 10am-12pm at Hobbycraft, Cribbs Causeway,  Bristol

Charming Starflower bracelet

Learn how to make my starflower cane and then turn it into these beautiful 3 dimensional beads. We will assemble the bracelet in the workshop. Cost £55 per person, beads and findings included. Some polymer clay experience required, if you have made simple canes already yourself or been on one of my previous workshops you should get on ok.

• Friday 19th October - 10am - 3 pm

Frome Market This Sunday

I am excitedly preparing for taking part in the Frome' Super Markets' this Sunday 2nd September. I have a posh new gazebo just in case it's wet but the forecast isn't too bad just now.

I went to visit the 'super markets' in August - it was pouring with rain but it was amazing. There were so many market stalls - over 150! - selling everything from wonderful food to vintage goods. There was plenty of handmade inspiration too. The market meanders through half of the town it seems starting at one end on the car park at Market Yard and up through Market Place and then along Catherine Hill, Palmer Street and Stony Street. And there's a craft market in the Cheese and Grain too! So much to see and so many free food samples - hopefully I will get  a chance to have a look around too!

I am going along as part of Magpies & I, local Bristol based Vintage, Flea and handmade market organisers, who are having a guest slot in the Frome Flea Market. You will find me on the Market Yard car park between 9.30am and 2pm and my lovely sister is coming to keep me company!

The market is on part of the large car park and there will still be plenty of free car parking available.



Just a few future sale dates for your diary - you can find them all on my diary page (link up top under header too):

• Sat 29th and Sun 30th September I will be exhibiting my jewellery and gifts at the Jack Brimble Centre in St Werbughs Bristol as part of the St Werburghs Arts Trail.

•  16th-18th November I will be taking part in the Totterdown Arts Trail, Bristol - you can find me in Hawthorne Street with the brilliant Emily Ketteringham 

• 24th November I will taking part in Fishpond, Bristol  arts trail - in my own house! I am helping to organise this event. We ran Bristol's shortest arts trail last year in 2 houses a couple of door apart. This time we are hoping to spread further down the street!

Workshop dates will be announced very soon (I know I have been saying that for a while - kids go back to school on Tuesday so finally I can get some proper work time!)

Peacock Cane

I started this peacock cane ages ago. I looked at several images of peacock feathers to get the colours and the shapes. It has to be simplified a little as I didn't want to replicate a feather exactly - too delicate. I did the centre fairly easily but was then uncertain how to deal with the outer green and gold layers. I wanted to hint at the feathers structure but didn't want to get too complicated.

Finally I tackled it and I'm pleased with how it worked out. Here's the cane

I then decided I had better make a pair of earrings from it (as I am now rather behind with the earrings a week challenge on flickr). I made then from a simple slice but decided they needed a little something to make them more interesting so I added some score lines to indicate the feathers structure and then scored a line down the centre and used that to folded them slightly (as you see I couldn't resist a little peacock too ;)

 I then remembered some brilliant design advice I got from Inga - Kni.Kni about changing the little silver balls on the ear wires with tiny beads - boy did that change the look of the earrings for the better! It lifted them from being ordinary earwires to being special. I could of chosen any of the colours in the feather but decided to pick a nice bright blue to match with the centre as I had pretty seed beads in the colour. Thank you for the tip Inga!

 My kids are still home for the summer for a couple more weeks then I hope to get a little more clay time and update you more regularly again! I hope you are all having fun.

Cara

Green Mokume Gane Set

I made this set of jewellery in Mokume Gane from several custom mixed green shades of Kato clay for a friend's birthday. I was delighted with the result and was dying to show you but couldn't post them just in case!! She's had them now so I can show you too. Couldn't resist a little owl with the mokume gane shavings! As you can see I am making good use of what I learnt from Melanie Muir in her workshops.