Art Jewelry Elements Raven Reveal

Hello and welcome to the Art Jewelry Elements Raven Reveal!

I have to say I love the idea of this seasonal challenge - it's a great opportunity to give your creativity a bit of a workout!  I totally fell in love with Autumn's inspiration, the raven, a bird steeped in mystery and mythology the world over.

For my raven design I decided to tackle one of by biggest beading fears head on - knotting!  I've had terrible trouble with it in the past and everything I tried turned out a bit lumpy and wrong.  But I purchased a 100 meter spool of black Irish waxed linen and practiced practiced practiced!

I made the raven pendant from copper sheet, heavily patina-ed with liver of sulphur.  I didn't realise when I was tracing, cutting the template and sawing that the raven I was basing this on had a missing feather!  I only realised when I was looking at it in my hand wondering why it looked slightly wonky - I think it adds charm though.  I also mussed up the protective spray lacquer a bit - I brought some new stuff and I am not particularly impressed with it!  Anyone have any suggestions for a good sealant that can easily be found in the UK?  Any way long story short the chap will be staying with me.  What. A. Shame :P

He's joined by a fabulous ammonite bead I purchased recently, a lampwork bead by The Fyre Faerie, a white ceramic round from Grubbi and plenty of Czech glass is autumnal reds and yellows.

I think this knotting thing might catch on :)

I hope you have enjoyed visiting me here and that you will hop on over to see what the other participants have created for this wonderful challenge!

Art Jewelry Elements Team:

Lesley Watt

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Phantasm Creations

Caroline Dewison

Linda Landig

Niky Sayers

Guest Bloggers:

An Ordinary Miracle Day

Linda Newnham

Michelle McEnroe

Sarajo Wentling

The Copper Cat

The Paisley Lizard

The Heidi Challenge

Heidi Kingman

Art Bead Scene October Challenge

You want to know something sad?  I've previously produced two piece of jewellery inspired by the Art Bead Scenes monthly challenges, but I wigged out on posting them both times!  It was a combination of nerves an laziness I think - probably heavily weighted towards the latter.

But this month I've actually managed to complete a piece and post it!  Probably because the inspirational image was one close to my heart, this beautiful depiction of the ancient Egyptian goddess Ma'at from the tomb of queen Nefertari.

Now I luuuuurve me some Egypt!  I instantly go to thinking of the wonderful gemstones often uncovered in undisturbed tombs.  Some of the pieces of jewellery are just stunning.

I combined lapis lazuli - a stone famously prized by the Egyptians - with carnelian and turquoise to give a rich jewel-toned pallet.  To these were added some fabulous ceramic drops by the much loved Petra of Scorched Earth and some smashing lampwork beads by Pebble Dreams.  Together they form this long, luscious lariat - a real statement piece that would look fab with a long black party gown.

Gotta love those colours!

And just in case your curious, here is one of the other pieces I have created based on an Art Bead Scene Monthly Challenge.  Can you guess which month its's from?

Both of these pieces can be found in my Etsy shop.

Happy creating people and bring on the next challenge!

Well Darn It!

You now, when I wrote my blog post in June announcing my arrival back on to the bead blog scene I was sincere in my intentions to try and keep this up.  I opened my Esty shop, I stocked it up, did a bit of promo, even sold a couple of items!  And then it all just kinda petered off....

A lot of that had to do with work and friends and distracting men, but some of it also has to do with a lack of confidence and get-up-and-GO!  It's hard to put yourself out there when you're constantly being bedazzled by the work of others and somewhat baffled by new techniques (damn you riveting!).  I'm not the kind of person who's naturally in to self-promotion, and I'm often daunted by trying something new (yeah Irish waxed linen, you SCARE me).

These niggling problems can make your muse pack up and head off far, far away for a long, long ole vacation!

Well, She came strolling back recently, nonchalantly swaggering through the door of my mind like a cat back from a week long, panic laden (for me) week of wandering.  She sauntered in, plonked Herself in a comfortable corner and gave me a look as if to say 'Well I'm ready, what are you waiting for?'

So recently I have produced this:

And this:

And also this:

Thank you Muse!

My photos are slowly improving - I have a very limited amount of time on the weekend when I can photograph stuff at the moment, what with the dang sun going down before I get home from work!  How did that happen?  How is it the depths of autumn already??

These pictures were taken on the patio in my garden.  It's been a pretty good makeshift set up - the flagstones create an alrightish neutral background and there's plenty of natural light - but it's not ideal.  I really need to get some equipment together so I can photograph inside.  And I need to get better at taking photos that make good Etsy thumbnails - somehow I can never get images that quite fit right!

But anyway, I digress (I always digress - I have wandering brain syndrome as well as wandering muse syndrome).  The long dark nights of winter are indeed drawing in and I am becoming more and more of a hermit, which is good for jewellery related productivity! I have a goal to have thirty items in my shop by the end of October.  I'm at twenty four items at the moment, with another three awaiting for a photography session and several sawn up bits of copper waiting for the Muse to dump some inspiration on my, so I'm very much on track to beat this goal!

Keep an eye on my Etsy shop - there will be new shinys up very soon!