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

Bettina Welker's Pixelated Retro Blend Cane

I was so excited when I saw Bettina Welkers Pixelated Retro Blend Cane Tutorial - it looked so cool! Loads of people have been trying it and it's great to see all the variations popping up on flickr and facebook.

Finally I found some time to try it. Here's my first cane

I then decided to use it to catch up with the earrings a week challenge on Flickr and made these earrings

 Which ones do you like best?

They are all available to purchase direct from me. Please email me if you would like more details.
It is the school summer holidays so I have my children home. We are having great fun and enjoying some lovely weather! Hope you are all having fun!

Earrings Challenge and Easton Arts Trail

The Easton Arts Trail is fast approaching so I have finally got round to finishing some of the things on my half finished pile including some earrings for the earrings a week challenge!

Next weekend I will be in Easton Community Centre with my jewellery from 11am -6pm on Saturday 30th June and Sunday 1st July. I have plenty of new jewellery including quite a lot I haven't posted here - I can't share everything with you or I would have no time to make anything and you would  get fed up of seeing it!

This has also meant that I am starting to get back up to date with the earrings a week challenge. I know you are supposed to actually make a pair of earrings each week - the beads were all made but I just didn't find time to make them up into earrings and photograph them.

Here are some of my latest earrings

Jubilee flower earrings in patriotic red, white and blue

Black and white kaleidoscope cane earrings

Curled petal earrings from the Dark red with a yell palette - made with a some left over cane bits

I'll also have leaflets with some details of my latest polymer clay workshops in Bristol. I have plenty suitable for complete beginners and some for more experienced clayers too. You can also find details on my diary page (link up the top under heading) or on my latest newsletter (link on top left)

It's still raining here - it's supposed to be summer :( Oh well it doesn't matter much when you are making jewellery I guess. Hope the weather is good where ever you are!

Cara

Rainbow Artichokes

As you have probably read I was lucky enough to take a workshop with Eva Ehmeier recently and learnt how to make her fabulous artichoke pendants.  For my earrings for this week, week 12 for me,  in the 52 pairs of earrings a year challenge I decided to have a go at making rainbow artichoke earrings.

Rainbow Artichoke Earrings Week 12/52

Off course I had to make a pendant to match!

Rainbow Artichoke pendant bottom view

Rainbow Artichoke pendant side view

They take quite a while to make, there are over 60 'leaves' in the pendant, choosing to make the 'leaves' in 8 colours was quite ambitious!

We have been having some lovely sunny weather recently which has been glorious, I hope you have had some too!

Inspiration from 'Black and White'

As you know I recently had a tutorial published in   'From Polymer to Art' Black and White, well the magazine is crammed full of interesting tutorials and even though I should be packing for going away to Polymer Pamper Play tomorrow I thought I would have a sneaky go at one, to make my earrings for this week (for the 52 earrings a year challenge).

I thought I could use the beads from this stunning necklace tutorial by Anja Overdijk

  

I decided to use blue instead of white and here are the earrings I made

I was really enjoying using the decoration technique so played about some more and came up with these (which will be my earrings for my week 10 out of 52)

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The result was a little scruffier than I wanted but I quite like the effect.  I will play about with it some more when I get a quiet moment!

Right off to pack my clay things now - so excited, really looking forward to 3 days of polymer clay and good company!

Love is in the air....

Well people are starting to think about Valentines Day and I am seeing many other people creating hearts so I decided I would play with hearts too. I have a fair bit of work in progress but here are some finished earrings. They will be my earrings for my week 2 of the 52 pairs of earrings a year challenge I am taking part in on Flickr.  The middle ones are studs, I finally got round to ordering some earring posts!

I often see people put little collages of their jewellery and think how great they look so I gave it a go. I ended up using  desktop publishing software - if anyone has any photo collage software/tips I'd be grateful if you let me know.

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