Summer!

Hello there and happy summer!

I am sorry for being so infrequent lately, but I have been really really REALLY busy.

The stuff that I promised to post last time is still on hold, but rather replaced with a little summer celebration (most of it coming to the shop later today).

I hope you enjoy it and that you are having a smashing summer!

 Cheeep! Pendant

Summer in the City Pendant

Summer in the City Earrings

 Marine Burdies Earrings (private collection)

Simple Beach Life Earrings

 Ice-Cream Peacock Ring

Ice-Cream Garden Earrings (sold already)

The multiplying flock of burdies

Loads of burdies followed this one. Only a few will make it to the shop later today, since most are already chirruping away, and some I kept for myself. I think summer sun when I look at them. What do you think?

brooch

brooch (available)

brooch

brooch (available)

brooch

ring

pendant (available)

brooch

necklace

Sunny critters

Life has been quite hectic over here this past week and it looks like it will continue to be so. But! I have decided to try and keep the sort of relaxed regularity of posting new things in the shoppe, probably on weekends.

So, on that note, I give you two new critters:

Both are brooches/pins and this one is mine...

...but this one is for sale, so go grab it while it's buzzing! 

(someone told me that people who do puns should be shot - when I re-read myself now, I tend to agree)

Have a sunny weekend all!

Images on polymer - and heeeeeeeeelp!

Hey there! I hope you are enjoying your spring. It's Koninginnedag here in the Netherlands, and the weather turned rainy last night and will apparently stay so next week, which spoils my plans a little, but oh well.

So, images in polymer - there are obviously a lot of ways that you can achieve them (caning, painting, transferring, carving, backfilling, etching) and I was experimenting a bit this past week with some of the techniques, mostly  carving and backfilling and transferring.

First, let me show you the carved pendants (they will be in the shop later today).

I love the flower one so much I almost kept it. The birdie one looks better in person than in the pic and was hard to photograph because of the varnish applied to it, but is not as pretty and vintagey looking to me as the first one. They are both carved and then antiqued with acrylic paints. But they were carved before baking though - I find it much easier (and obviously much more forgiving).

And now to transfers...

The only transfers I did before were on baking parchment with inkjet printer and those were good enough for what I wanted to achieve, but this time I wanted a proper clear transfer so I tried the toner one. I read up on it galore and then set forth to do what I thought would be a straightforward and quick process. Oh how mistaken I was! Seriously, I have no idea what I'm doing wrong and have been reading up on it afterwards as well to no avail. Let me show you my troubles:

1) Snakeskin ring

This transfer turned out the best of them all, but that is due to the fact that it's a busy pattern, so you can't really make out if there are mistakes. However, when I applied a layer of liquid FIMO and re-baked it, it bubbled up in tiny specks. In stuff that I wear I really don't mind little imperfections, but it is definitely a mistake and I can't figure out where I'm going wrong.

(I adore huge rings btw.)

  2) Fly ring

In this one you can clearly see two problems - first, there are still little hairs of paper that I couldn't get off for love nor money, and second, due to trying to @#Y^%% get rid of them I rubbed off a part of the fly's left wing. How do you get rid of all the paper!? I mean, if you leave it there, as soon as it dries it creates a milky film over the image, and if you rub more it smudges the image. Which leads me to

3) Japanese print ring

No picture since I screwed it up completely (and it was my favourite image!). Same thing as with the fly, I was trying to get rid of the paper from the black hair of the girl in the picture and at some point the black just smudged all over her porcelain face! And there was still a white paper film on the hair!

And finally

4) Liquid clay transfer (decal attempt)

Also no pic, since it was ruined.

I put Liquid Fimo onto a picture, baked it, soaked it in water, started rubbing paper off (it wouldn't peel in one go) and just straight rubbed off the whole image from the clay!

I really don't get it! Please do share your advice, if you have any, I am getting desperate!

In the meantime, I am itching to do some etching (hah!) but want to sort out this transfer rebus first! 

Spring gardens blossoming

Very flowery mood over here. I have even planted some flowers on the balcony! (I have a red thumb, hence my excitement). I am truly enjoying this spring and all the sunshine. The thing I love about Holland is the time the sun sets during the warmer part of the year - we are currently at 9pm! Woohoo!

Therefore, I give you a few gardens (some of which, you can also find in the shoppe)

Here I almost went into summer - think orient, sipping cold tea under a canopy on a fresh warm summer evening...

Hope you are enjoying your spring as well!

Birds of sunshine

Hey there! Sunshine is here and I am so happy. I really thrive in the sunshine. It's been busy over here and there are a few little projects on the way, inspired by various colourful things out there. But more about that in some of the next posts. For now, I give you the sunshine burdie (just because the colour reminds me of the seaside):

It's a polymer clay brooch which I made just for myself because I felt sunny. Hope you like.

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!