Blogs and Goals

I have been meaning to recommend a blog to you all, it is written by a local lady who is a writer.
muddy lobster  I love it.

So New Year Resolutions do you make them and then end up breaking them, I used to so I don't make them any more. What I do instead is set myself goals for the year, most of those I set last year I achieved, there are a couple I didn't complete but I made progress on them. I heard someone mention on the radio yesterday about one resolution to loose weight, you expect to loose that weight straight away and you get fed up and then you've broken that resolution. That is a good example where a goal is more attainable. My children have to make resolutions at school and they we struggling so I made up one for them, "No more resolutions to break, but goals that I can make" I expect they won't use it at school but it did make them think.
I haven't set my goals for the year yet but I will do soon, right of to get some mood / inspiration boards up for well inspiration.

New Year and another new craft

eek I have been so busy I haven't updated the blogs oops. So hello 2012 and from the title you may have guessed I'm enjoying another craft. I do hope this one will actually save me money, well sort of lol. I'm hopelessly addicted to stationery, notebooks in particular, my hubby got me some books on book binding and making your own books for Christmas. I was hoping to find the time over the holidays and have a go, but I was having great fun with my children. They went back to school yesterday so I now have the time.

So I made these books in the past couple of days.

The good thing was they didn't take too long to make. The black book is fabric covered, I chose the fabric because of the paper inside the cover, as you can see in this picture.

I found this paper in the box of all my paper and card from when I made cards, It has a lovely red embossed Chinese style pattern with a gold sheen. I then remembered I had some scrap fabric that would go very well. I really enjoyed making them and I will certainly make more, well I have lots of ideas for them so I will need a notebook to write those ideas down. 

Oct Jewellery Maker Prize Challenge

So here is the second posting today. As I mentioned in the previous blog post, I set Inspiration challenges for the Jewellery Maker Forum. The October one has been set and as it is October it just had to be Halloween. And as usual I had great fun making up the mood board.

So with this challenge there will be a prize, I can't tell you what the prize will be as even I don't know myself yet. But I can guarantee it will be nice. So do you make Jewellery and want to have a go, well you need to go to the Jewellery Maker Forum (the link will take you straight to the October Challenge) and become a member and at least post 5 times, so come on over and join the fun. My entry has already been made I just need to take some photos.

ETSY and Inspiration challenges

I haven't blogged for over a month, so you'll get two posts today sorry.

So where to start, ah yes ETSY. If you are a crafter you will know what ETSY is, and if you don't well its and online marketplace. I'm on Folksy but to be honest the elves need a wider audience, so I thought its worth a try and ETSY is cheaper than Folksy.

You may have noticed the widget for the shop over there on the right with some of my new style elves and a few sets. I have a couple of halloween elves that I must get to photograph and list soon, plus some Yule elves. 

So now on to Inspiration Challenges, for September I set a challenge of ART on the Jewellery  Maker Forum. I made a inspiration / mood board, which to be honest I enjoy making as much as thinking up a piece of jewellery.

I narrowed down my art inspiration to Mackintosh, Erte and Klimt and the medium I was going to use was polymer clay. For some reason I changed my mind as I had some of my lampwork beads that just fitted with Klimt so out came some Rose Quartz, Copper wire and a lovely ribbon. So I was spiraling and wrapping with copper wire and made this necklace inspired by Gustav Klimt's "Tree of Life".

The necklace "Phoenix" is now on my website and I will tell you about the lampwork beads on  the Storm Glass Bead Blog.

The making of a ring

Well yesterday I made two silver rings, and as promised I have taken photos of the process, yes including something that went wrong.

The first thing to do was marking out  the shape on the silver sheet, which I then cut with the piercing saw.

Next I used one of my needle files to smooth the rough edges left by the saw. And as you can see from the picture I made a mark with my centre punch, this is where I want to drill the hole for the silver tube.

I then textured the silver on my block using a hammer.

Using my drill I made a small pilot hole before the next stage.

Time to shape the rings, first I used ring bending pliers, then it was on to the ring mandrel and hammering it a bit more to finish the shape.

Now its time to get the pilot hole made bigger so the tube would fit. I slowly increased the hole size by drilling with a slightly bigger drill bit each time, until I got to the right size.

While the tube was in the hole I added the bead and measured the amount of tube needed and cut it to length.

On the second ring I found it easier to flare the tube first add the bead add the ring and then measure and cut.

I flared out the tube on the back of the ring and threaded on the bead, and tried to flare the front. It was going okay and then ping, one of the points of the star cracked, all was not lost as I had another bead. 

Success with the second bead, this time I took care with flaring out the tube, I used my centre punch to help flare out. Now I had a spare ring base with no bead. I had a quick look in my orphan jar and found a nice bead to use. As I said above this time I flared the tube, added the bead, measured and cut, then added to the ring and flared the tube at the back.

So to the final stage polishing, I like polishing, even if it can be a bit messy at times.

The beads were still a bit wobbly at this stage so I added a Jump ring to the top rivet, which stopped the wobble.

So there we are all finished, I learnt a lot from the process and have some tips for the tube riveting. Make sure the tube is fully annealed, and use dapping / doming punches to flare out the tube.

The rings look lovely on my hand and the beads spin on the base too, I am very tempted to keep them. If I do decided to sell them I will get them Hallmarked first, but thats my next blog post.

The Start of Something New

Well this month has brought new things for my lamp working it has been some new buttons & beads. For the Cornish Dragon it has brought a new Forum, I do like my Jewellery forums with Craft Pimp being a favorite, but there's a newcomer on the block, populated by a lot of lovely people I know and some new ones as well. Its called Jewellery Maker and I will put the link on the side along with the Craft Pimp link.

So to the other thing, If you read my Storm Glass blog you will see I have made a star bead I want to make into a ring. Well I thought I would photograph and share with you all the stages that will go into making this ring, yes even the bad. So far I have the bead and yesterday the silver arrived, before I ordered the silver I drew a quick design (not in my usual design book) I cut out one on the design in paper to see if it would go round my finger and if the bead would look right on the top.

I made sure I ordered enough silver sheet and tube to turn the other star into a ring as well. Hopefully I will be able to get some time in the shed and make a start, I had better remember to take my camera with me.

Forums

The internet has really been a good thing for me, with easy access to buying my supplies for my jewellery and forums. It took me a while to join one now I'm on two, I joined Making Jewellery magazine forum a few years ago. It has been a good place to visit with the odd competition, general fun, asking / answering questions and opinions on jewellery making and of course posting pictures and drooling over the beautiful creations of the other members.

Well as much as I love that forum I have other craft interests as well and I can't remember how I found this other Forum, but I'm glad I did.

There is lots of different crafts on this lovely forum and of course the most important thing is they are a very friendly bunch. I still haven't been on all the different craft sections of the 

forum but I will do soon.

Well on this Forum a couple of the members started a swap and the theme was Stars and Ithought why not I'll join in. So what to make, I got out the wee folk and made an Elf called 
Star of course. She's been posted now off to her new home and I have some lovely polymer buttons coming.
If you've never been on the Craft Pimp Forum just click on the Boss link on the right hand 
side and have a look.