Etsy up and Running

As you can see my Etsy shop is up and running so please drop by and take a look. Thanks to my li'l sis I even managed to get the etsy mini window onto my blog, so thanks li'l sis your instructions were easy to follow.
Don't know what happened to the etsy mini window it's no longer there.

I'm on Etsy

My sister has been telling me I should list on Etsy for a while and I finally did it. Hopefully I'll get a few more items on in the next few days, but for now I've only got a pendant and a set of buttons.

Mam and Me Enamelled

Had a great day in Shrewsbury today at the Enamel Guild. Pat Johnson was doing a riso screen workshop. We saw several of the screen print enamels Pat had made and she showed us how she achieved some of the results. We were then taken through how to make the screens and as we had been asked to bring some pictures that we would like as a screen it was up to us to make our enamelled piece. I had a lovely pic of mam and me when I was up visiting her a couple of years ago so I thought I would give it a try. Unfortunately the photo was quite dark but this is what I achieved and I love it.
I fired a black to the back of the copper and then fired two layers of dove grey to the front. The background was then enamelled with shades of dove grey, lavender and mid blue and then a spring green was added to give a constrast. This was fired again and when cool I sifted a black through the screen to capture our image. The result was better than I expected and I'll certainly be trying out more screens to see what I come up with.

Enamelled buttons

I don't know how many times I say 'doesn't time fly' because I just seem to go months without writing anything for my blog; but here I am again several months down the line and I've finally managed to get on to write something.

I've been quite busy lately with workshops and have been enamelling some buttons with different designs. I listed some of them on Folksy and my sheep ones sold at the beginning of the week so I was really thrilled. I do enjoy making them and I guess the weekend might just see me doing some more. I hand paint them so they are never identical.

This second set that I did had a scragfitto design and I wrote the word button on one of them.

The photos of the buttons are not the best but I do like these blue ones that I did. Infact they were some of the first buttons I made.

And here's just some pics of other buttons I've made. As I said, the photographs are not very good but it gives you an idea of what you can do with a piece of copper and enamel powders.

Well isn't it amazing how time flies by and whilst I've been checking other peoples blogs I haven't really spent much time on my own, just updating my everyday one now and again but not really looked at my Honeycomb Crafts one so here I am just to give you a little update.

Linda and I went off to Shrewsbury last week and spent the day with other like minded enamellers enjoying a workshop by Bonnie Macintosh. We were doing 'grisaille' which means 'grey' in French and it turned out to be a really good day.

Bonnie showed us some of the work she had done and explained the different techniques to us. We tried them all but the only piece I managed to take a pic of is the one below. It's meant to be viewed at a slight angle but I didn't quite get the pic right.

Bonnie had set up stations which held 4 different meshes of enamel powder and the idea was to sift the first coat then fire it and then add the second and fire and so on. I decided to do something simple and cut a stencil out of sun rays coming down onto a field. I was pleased with the result and will give it a try at the studio when I get some free time.

I could spend all day enamelling, I just love the way the colours emerge when I add small pieces of crushed enamel to a design and then swirl it while it's in the kiln. I made this pendant and liked it so much that I was going to keep it to go with an outfit I had.
I sifted transparent shades of copper brown and light brown onto the copper shape then added and swirled glass pieces while it was still in the kiln and added a small millefiori (means millions of flowers in Italian). The different tones of brown gave a warmth and depth to the pendant and I had no sooner finished it than someone bought it so I didn't get to keep it to go with my outfit after all. This pendant, was created using shades of blue and mauve with small chips of glass being swirled into the design.

These next 3 pieces were made after someone gave me the inspiration of taking a small window of Gustav Klimts artwork then transferring it to my designs. This one had square pieces of copper wire put onto the pendant and I then inlaid them with mauve and white enamel. The background was a dove grey and the rest of the design was painted with gold before firing.

This piece was sifted with orange enamel powder and then I painted a flower and leaf design before firing. I didn't like this one as much as I thought I would as I really enjoyed painting it but the design didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped.

I loved this design with the ivory background and touches of blue, a sort of reddish brown and then gold highlights.

I loved the simple design of this next piece. I had used shades of blue opaque and transparent enamels and the colours had started to burst through giving a lovely depth to the background. A simple blue millefiori just finished it off.

Conference

Easter saw Linda and I going to the Guild of enamellers annual conference. This year held in Nottingham so not so far to travel. We were on the University Campus which was very nice but I have to say there was a lot of walking uphill and down and my feet were aching by the end of our stay but it was great fun and fabulous to see everyone's work.
The theme this year was 'Pearl'. My efforts were not brilliant but I did manage to make a type of book out of silver art clay which I then enamelled in an ivory colour and painted a verse on about the pearl of great price.

Linda and I both put some work on display. Mine was an enamel box that I hade made out of copper foil. I made a small flower to put on the side and was quite pleased with the result - I also displayed a brooch I had made from foil too.

Linda put some of the jewellery she had made on display. I especially like the one top right but can't for the life of me remember how she said she got the pattern on but it looked fab. We did a workshop with Dorothy Cockerill on cloisonne. It was a fabulous day. Dorothy had to work with people who ranged from beginners to the more experienced but no one felt left out or not able to achieve something. My attempt is pictured below and I was pleasantly surprised that it turned out so well. Dorothy does some amazing work and if I can get some more pictures uploaded I will show you the cloisonne work she had on display.

Linda and I were surprised to see our workshop pieces pictured in the Guild's magazine along with several others. My little flower box was also pictured which was a huge surprise.