Southbank Bristol Arts Trail coming soon

I am busy making some new jewellery for the Southbank Bristol Arts Trail on the 18/19th May. I will be in the Southville Centre along with plenty of other talented artists including Emily Ketteringham who designed the brilliant posters. If you are local to Bristol do come along and say 'Hi!' I am going to be doing a little market research over the weekend and will draw one of the participants at random to win a Cara Jane prize to say thank you!

I have recently finished a couple of the pieces I started in pre/post Synergy workshops whilst in Atlanta.

Here's a five star bead I made in an amazing 2 day workshop with Dan Cormier (if ever you get the chance to work with Dan do I learnt so much from him!). Dan has taught me to slow down and to pay more attention to what I am doing - it has changed my whole polymer experience for the better!

 

 

Here's one of the 11 Bauhaus style lentil beads from Angela Garrod's 'Secession' necklace workshop. They are quite involved beads but an amazing result! Thank you Angela for showing us how to create such neat looking work.

 I will have some new workshop dates to share with you soon and hopefully plenty of new work too!

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

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

Latest newsletter

I send out a newsletter several times a year, when I have enough news, to people on my mailing list. They are mainly people local to Bristol, UK as that is where I tend to exhibit and run workshops. If you are interested to know what I am doing do feel free to get in touch to be added to have it sent to your inbox. You can also now look at it here - Latest Newsletter - you will find a link up there on the left in the Pages Menu. I'll try and remember to let you know when it changes, September is my next predicted newsletter date.

I have a whole heap of jewellery waiting to be finished so hopefully I will manage to find some time to show you some soon ! Kids are home so we are busy playing and experimenting - kitchen chemistry is the new craze in this house!

Love cats

Well the inevitable happened - the hearts and the cats collided on my workbench and here they are ....

The Love Cats

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Don't forget you can find the free tutorial to make your own little cats here http://www.carajane.co.uk/2012/01/my-sleeping-cat-tutorial.html

I am really happy to email you a PDF, couldn't find an easy way to share the PDF for download - must look into that (feel free to let me know if you know one!!!).

Thanks of those of you who have got in touch by email, comments here or on Facebook it's great to hear from you and I really, really  appreciate your feedback. Would love to see some more photos if you get a chance to make your own cats.

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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52 pairs of earrings a year challenge - week one for me

I was wondering what type of earrings I should make first - then it became obvious - little cats of course!
(You can find my free tutorial to make them yourself here  - I wouldn't recommend starting so small though, they are very fiddly small!)

They  are 2cm across, I had to make 3 cats as I realised after I made the second identical to the first they would look better mirroring each other.

If you like to make things why not join the challenge? They don't have to be made from polymer clay, just be earrings. It was set by Anke Humpert on flickr, to make 52 pairs of earrings a year. I am starting this week so I should play along for 52 weeks and finish this time next year. My intention is to make a pair and list them for sale in my online shop but I haven't got my shop up together yet, nearly there! I am not happy enough with these to sell them anyway. Week 2, next week the earrings will be listed for sale!!!!!

Check out the earrings made already this year in the group photo pool

What challenges have you set yourself for this year?

Cat tutorial

I am so thrilled that you are enjoying my cat tutorial and delighted with the results I am seeing! I have had a few suggestions for further improvement which I shall implement but they are fairly minor changes. I wanted to share some of the results that people have been kind enough to photograph and share, I loved seeing them! Please do let me see a photo if you've had a go.

Beautiful little cat by Pippa - love the colours and the flower she has added petal by petal!Adorable!

 

 

Love this cat by Lupe Meter ! Really love the markings on this cat and the crystal in the centre of the flower looks great!

 And another cute little cat by Lupe Meter, I hadn't thought of using other things to decorate.

 

A collection of cute cats from Kim Mack. Great photo - love the arrangement and beautiful cane on the big ones bottom! That one on the branch looks rather smug ;)

A collection of cute cats from Fiona, love the range of colours she's used. She's not sure she can pick a favourite and neither can I! 

I have a cane tutorial almost ready to share with you too, so watch this space!

My Sleeping Cat Tutorial

Here is the promised cat tutorial, I hope you enjoy it! It is also available as a PDF document which I can send to you if you email me, I am really happy to do so - just couldn't find an easy way to have it as a download online. If you use it I would be really grateful for some pictures of your cats, and as always a comment, or like here or on my facebook page really makes my day. I would also appreciate any feedback you have to help me write even better tutorials in future. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. Have fun making cute cats! Cara

** You are welcome to make cats for your own use, or to sell them. I would consider it polite if you post/sell them online that you link to this tutorial - or at least mention my name! You may share this tutorial with your friends or your group/guild but I ask that you don't teach them when you are being paid to teach without asking me first**

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Some more new jewellery

I have been very busy making things this week. Here's a couple of my newest pendants. I am trying to always add a little extension chain and dangle, it means the length of the necklace is adjustable to some degree and the clasp is more likely to stay at the back.  I wrote a blog post a while ago about keeping necklaces in place - you can find it here

Tiny little owl earrings

I love owls, and it seems they are very fashionable just now. I have been busy making more of my little owls as I sold nearly all of them at the weekend. Whilst I was making them I decided I would see if I could make them tiny, for earrings. The answer is yes and I think they are adorable! What do you think? Do you like the wacky bright colours?

Little owl earrings, they are about 1.2cm tall.

Mummy owl with her earring babies!

I am managing to be very focused and productive so will have plenty of new things to show you, just got to find time to post the pictures!

Hope you are all having a good week.
Cara

First Cara Jane workshop

Some sample bead I made to give people some ideas

A lovely necklace made by a workshop participant!

Another lovely necklace made by a workshop participant!

You too could make your own unique necklace or bracelet in a polymer clay workshop. Contact me for more details - carajaneuk'at'gmail.com (replace the 'at' with @ to email - can't add it direct to the page or I will be overloaded with spam!)