Imaginary Creature and Other Stuff

Last October I was fortunate enough to take a course with Carla Sonheim. My daughter and I travelled together to Oregon and took some art courses together in celebration of her 16th birthday. We had a wonderful time, and took an Imaginary Creatures course together. Carla has recently written a book that has many workshops in it, and one of them is imaginary creatures. I was looking at this book the last couple of days, and it reminded me of what fun I had creating these creatures. I do have to find some time this winter to do some more imaginary creature making - hopefully with some friends!

But lately my creative time has been spend with torch and solder in hand making jewellery components - now I need to get busy and make jewellery out of this pile of things.... I have done a wee bit of soldering before, but never this much. I also have never done resin work before, but I have ordered some resin, and am waiting for it to arrive to give it a try. If it works out I will post it here for anyone to see.... if it doesn't work out - well I guess I will try and try again!

P.S. The on line jewellery making class was amazing - I learned so much, and will continue to learn. It was with the multi talented Stephanie Lee

Soldering is Relaxing!

I have been so busy with soldering lately..... I have a pile of soldered pieces made that are ready to be used in jewellery - I find it so relaxing sitting with my torch on and soldering little bits and pieces.... who knew I could be so relaxed with a hot torch being held in my almost useless left hand while the right hand is busy with bits of wire and metal. I wish I was better at patting my head while rubbing my tummy - which is a bit of what this soldering metal bits is like - different motions with each hand at the same time. I will continue to practice. Above is a piece I added some beads too - but I couldn't find a good place to take a picture of it, so it ended up on my piano!

From the Past

I have been hunting through some items I have created to use in the jewelry bezels I have made. I am not sure what I am looking for. I love the look of the textured paper I made in the above piece - it was made of layers of old drawings, dyed paper towels, old text, painted tissue paper etc. which was then layered with paint and stamped on. I eventually mounted some of these pieces onto cards. This is the only bit I have left of it - it reminded me of how much fun I had when I created it, and perhaps how I should do it again. I may use a small piece of it to mount in a bezel......

This image I painted some time ago - I may use part of the bird inside a bezel.....

and perhaps part of these buds with a word or two beside it .... we will see.

Handmade Stamps

Earlier this year, I decided I should try to carve some basic stamps that I could use in my makings. I much prefer to use whatever I can make then buying items, and decided carving stamps was next on my list. These three stamps were what I ended up with. I thought I would try some more in the near future. Well as often happens to me - the near future is farther away then I usually imagine.......

but, finally I got around to doing two small carvings - I drew some simple designs....

and then carved them out and started to stamp. I know they are simple and rustic, but it is a start. I would love to do more - just not sure when the time will arrive again.

More Jewelry Play

I am still enjoying - practicing and learning from the online jewelry course I am taking. The piece above was very tricky to make. It took me some time to figure out how to join all the pieces to make it eventually hold together in what I pictured in my mind's eye.

The reason it is tricky is because I had to heat the metal six times, and every time I heated the metal, the component I had soldered into place on the previous heating of course became loose. The funniest part was adding the top flat metal piece, as when I heated the piece the air and flux inside the middle section expanded, and little puffs of air kept lifting the lid to escape. In the end I was pleased with the piece - I wanted it rustic and not perfectly round shaped - and that is how it turned out.

This piece was much easier - but still fun! I have had to put away the solder play for a few days now, due to busy life happenings, but I hope to get it out to play again soon!

For now the pieces are hanging on tarnished silver chains - but that will probably change.....

Jewelry Play

I am taking an online jewelry course from Stephanie Lee. It started a week and a half ago - but I just started playing with things, as my supplies were slow to arrive. Today I had a day off work, and I spent the whole day learning to solder. I had a torch, and metals, and solder and flux and cutters and pliers etc. all spread out around me.... and with some trepidation I turned on the flame and learned to solder. The above are decorative pieces that I may incorporate into some jewelry.

And here are some bezels I made - to eventually be filled with something nice

and some small pieces that I thought I may make into earrings. We will see what becomes of it down the road, once I have learned some more. I am of course LOVING the course!

Tomorrow though is back to the day job - so the jewellry play time will have to wait.

Cards for Cranberry Fair

I recently found out that I have been accepted to sell my creations at Cranberry Fair. Although the sale isn't until November, I know with my day job, my kids activities, and other bits of life that takes my time, I need to start creating things for sale now. And so yesterday, I managed to spend some time making some teabag cards with colourful fall leaves and bits of material and ink.

Here are some of the teabags with all the bits and pieces laminated together - waiting for them to dry.


Once they were dry, I glued the folded edges down, but left the other edge loose.

The decorated teabag folds around to the back of the card.

The back of the cards are almost as pretty as the front.

I will continue to make some more of these style of cards - some different colours, and package them in groups of 3 or 4. They are quite time consuming - so I am not sure what I will charge for them yet.

Hiking in the Mountains

I was out hiking a few days ago. Although the day started out rainy, it turned out perfect. The rain stopped, the day didn't get too hot, there were no or few bugs, and the rain kept the usual dust that puffs up on this trail to a minimum.

I love looking for the patterns in the landscape

As well as a variety of colours

close ups of the mountains

and beauty in what some people may call a muddy river.

Not Really a Sewer

I am not really a sewer, usually what I sew is on books or cards - not clothes. You can see my old sewing machine that I use in the background of this image. It was my mom's machine that she gave to me a number of years ago when she got a new one. I love it, as it is like the little engine that could - it keeps on sewing, through whatever it is that I have to sew. This machine also sewed a lot of my clothes when I was a child. My mom is a great sewer, something that I did not inherit. But, today, I decided to play with adding some fabric bits to this coat style sweater I bought for a quarter of its original price.

Here is the coat/sweater before I began, with a pile of material I decided to work with.

I added the fabric to the bottom of both sleeves, around the bottom on one side, and over the opposite shoulder. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a great picture of it.... self portraits are definitely not for me. I am not sure if I like it yet - whether it is done, or whether it will get some buttons or rustic embroidery on it. Time will tell.........

Last 2 Treasure Books

The final two treasure books have been put together....

Right now they have no tie or jute around them, so I could take their picture

This one is stamped with a stamp I carved a while ago. I have only carved 3 stamps so far, but I enjoyed it, and will try a few more soon.

and last but not least a different picture of them lined up in the sunshine that I liked so much!