Display your love!

Valentine's is not really big where I come from, but love is always a good topic of creation, so here are a few Valentine's specials fresh in my shop:

Love Birdies Magnet

Love Bug Magnet

Love Birdies on the Wire - magnet

Love is in the air - magnet

Love Connection Magnet

All are polymer clay and acrylics, and some wire. Love bug is my personal favourite, even though I am currently heavily into birdies of all shapes and sizes. Will show you soon ;)

Be good and enjoy!

New things sprouting in the secret garden

Or, in other words, there are some new thingies in my DaWanda shoppe -

Art Nouveau Garden earrings

and the Secret Auburn Garden set.

Aaaaaand,  the good news as well, I have discovered the new post editor (d'oh!). Seriously, I am such an idiot - this is sooooooo much better than having to think in reverse and calculate with complex formulas which picture will end up where :)) (I am using all the kinkiness of it now just for fun).

The bad news, and major irritation for weeks, is the fact that exactly 5 pieces of commissioned jewelry ended up either stolen or lost in the Serbian post office. I am mightily pissed off, and so is the friend I made it for. Especially as one set was supposed to be her New Year's ensemble and the other a present for her friend. The communication between the Dutch post office and the Serbian one is so complicated that we both just gave up and I am making her new sets (which unfortunately cannot be the same as I used the only vintage findings I had of the kind for them). Uuuuurgh and double uuuuurgh!

Buuuuuuurdies!

While dealing with the real life, I have neglected to post the burdies! How could I!

All of them are papier mache and painted with acrylics.

Btw., I would like to offer some of them for sale, but I really have no idea how I would pack them for shipment safely enough (I mean, it's paper). Does anyone have an idea?

Who doesn't love technical glitches!

Aaaaaah, I finally have a browser again!

It was completely uncooperative for two days, and now it's operational again! Woohoo!

However, I was unable to post new jewelry in the shoppe, and also unable to download a huge pile of work that's gonna occupy me this week (of course it arrived when my browser was down!).

In the meantime I finished almost all the burdies, but, naturally, the camera is off with my boyfriend (1,2,3....), so what you get is a crappy picture from my phone camera of some of them and I'll provide better pictures when I get hold of the camera.

Now I have to go and deal with the mundane stuff (urgh) and leave you with the burdies who live on sneakers too, don't you know ;)

Life, ah, life

I have been meaning to post, but life has caught up with me. I've been busy with uncrafty and unarty stuff and so slightly distracted.

Hoever, I have not been unbusy, so here it goes:

1) My Mail Me Art entry

I haven't been drawing in ages (sketches don't count) and this was a nice break. If you're interested, follow the link above. The deadline is 31 January, but it's a fun little project, or at least it was for me, maybe because I am going postal myself?

2) A felt necklace for myself.

I am in love with this one. It was hard work, as I did every single part of it - the felting, the embroidery, the crochet, the assembly...it took me three days, but it was so much fun.

It is inspired by beautiful beads of Sonya Yong James (she makes other lovely stuff. too).

Anyhoo, I wanted to make the necklace versatile (maybe because it took me ages, maybe because I was indecisive about the length), so I came up with an assembly that allows me to wear it in 3 different ways:

a) long

b) medium (with a help of a ribbon)

c) short

d) or even as a bracelet

Well, me very pleased.

Other than that, I am working on the burdies, and if I get a chance, I'll post some new jewellry in the shop tomorrow. Till then - be good and see you soon!

As promised...

I was thinking of earrings actually, but, yes, I know, I don't really know what I was thinking...

So, I got a hold of the camera and here are some pics of the other stuff i mentioned in the previous blog post (I know, I know, you are mesmerized by those floaties above, but bear with me):

- packaging and my new DIY stamp! It's a crude one, since I was very impatient to make it (as I mostly am when I want to make something), so it's made from materials I had on hand: a stolen eraser (from my boyfriend. He was nice enough not to kill me afterwards), a piece of wood i cut from something, and a squishy, foamy, double-sidedly sticky something in between that I also nicked from my boyfriend's supplies. My way of making it was very simplified, and I didn't have a carving tool small enough for the lettering, but it was very quick, and I actually followed the rules of sorts. But since this explanation of mine makes no sense whatsoever, I give you a very helpful link (you can skip all the rubber supply stuff in the beginning and just nick an eraser) - there you go.

- Next, I made a lot of burdies! And there are more on the way. I am completely hooked. This is just a sneak peak and I'll show you individual photos when I'm all done.

- And here, my pride and joy (indulge me, this is like a mother loving a complete brat of a child). It is nothing special, but if you read my previous post, you'll know why I am so thrilled with it.

Anyhoo, before I go to ponder on half a dozen sewing, gluing, claying and cooking projects (not all together) that I am itching to do, I leave you with the Threadbanger episode that helped me with this. In case you are of the same crocheting intelligence as I am, I'll add my translation to the "idiot language" below.

So, all you have to know is what a chain stitch and single crochet are (btw. single crochet is the US term, the UK term is double crochet, aaaand, my favourite needlework reference book is a Croatian translation and hence has a term niski stapic bez navoja for it; besides why is it called "single" when you do two loops....and so on and so forth - how could I not cry in despair here!). Ok , so now that you know that, you proceed like this:

- make 8 chain stitches

- connect them in a circle

- 1st (numbers are the numbers of rows) - do single crochet in each stitch twice, so you end up with 16 stitches (double) (count them so you would be sure where you are; I found the "tail" trick mentioned in the episode not very precise)

- 2nd - do single crochet in every fourth stitch twice (now you have 20 stitches)

- 3rd - do plain single crochet all the way

- 4th - do single crochet in each stitch twice

- 5th - do single crochet in every fifth stitch twice

- 6th - do plain single crochet all the way

- 7th - do single crochet in every sixth stitch twice

- 8th - do plain single crochet all the way

- 9th - do single crochet in every seventh stitch twice

- 10th - do single crochet in every eighth stitch twice

- 11th - do single crochet in every ninth stitch twice

- 12th - do single crochet in every tenth stitch twice

- 13th - do single crochet in every eleventh stitch twice

- 14th - do single crochet in every twelfth stitch twice

- 15th - do single crochet in every thirteenth stitch twice

- 16th - now, if the size is good you do plain single crochet all the way here, if it's too small (like mine was) because your hook is smaller than in the episode, or yarn thinner - proceed to do single crochet twice in every fourteenth stitch here, every fifteenth in the next row and so on, until you have the desired size

- do as many rows of single crochets all around as needed for the desired depth

- when you reach the desired depth - skip every 4th stitch

- final row - skip 2 stitches every 4th stitch and when you reach the end of the row, you are done (for me, at this point the opening was a little too big, so i proceeded to skip 3 stitches every 4th stitch, and so on until I had it right).

I hope this helps a little, and hopefully no one who CAN actually crochet is reading this and dying a little with every line, but rather laughing their heart out (I mean, come on! Just look at those sperms up there!) :-D

See you soon and be well in the meantime!

Let there be colour! (and animal kingdom)...and stuff

I have so many ideas running amock in my head, but I find that a very good start of the new year! I have also been on a let-me-make-whatever-there-is-out-there spree. So, let's see:

- I made gift boxes and bags for my jewelry

- I made my very first stamp (wahey!) - and stamped around like a mad woman

- I made a new jewelry batch that I'll show you next time

- I crocheted my first thing ever!

I find crocheting sooo confusing (especially with all those abbreviations in patterns), and I have attempted to crochet stuff numerous times before - to no success whatsoever. But yesterday I crocheted a hat! Woohoo! Yaay! And yipee! Seriosly, even though it's not much (just a plain red beret) I am so happy because I figured it out and don't feel like an idiot when faced with a crochet hook. However, being in that "I am so smart, I am so smart" rush I followed on to crochet loads of little yarn sperms (?!). Yes, I know...I have no idea either...I'm sure I'll find some use for them sometime...Ahem....Aaaaaanyway...

- I made some really cute home decor birdies as well. They were actually supposed to be for sale, but I kind of fell in love and now have to decide which ones to give for adoption :((

All of this would be followed by photos, except my boyfriend took the camera with him, so I can't make any /:{. Next blog, I promise, and I'll add some crafty links as well that really helped me (like for the hat, and the stamp).

Until then, new arrivals in my shoppe are bellow. I am getting off on colour, but that is hardly new. And the fishies and peacocks are back again! ;)

Have a great week!

Aaaand the winner of the New Yaer's giveaway is.....

(drumroll)

...

....

......

........

...........

.

.

JOVANA!

Have a great 2010 everyone!