A Perfect Spring Day

What a fantastic start to the weekend, especially after such a huge work week!  Heath and I started off the day running a few errands and having a wander around our local market, finishing off with a yummy lunch.  As it was so beautiful today, it was also perfect weather to seal some polymer clay pendants I had finished painting about two weeks prior to the market prep, which I had hoped (time permitting) to have available also for sale.  I had another batch of what I call my "nude" (ie just baked polymer clay blanks) beads so I combined a couple from my newest batch and finally gave them a lick of colour.

Here's an example of some nude beads (excuse the lint ;) : 

Polymer clay is such a versatile medium and I love experimenting with different applications to achieve different textures and depths of colour.  I seem to naturally lean towards the old, ancient and organic vibe with chocolate brown, bronze, ecru, terracotta and olive green being my go-to colours.  Despite my love for this colour palette that I could repeat over and over, I really try to push myself to try out different colour combinations.  I love using www.design-seeds.com for inspiration as the many available palettes are fabulous.  I highly recommend this site if you struggle with colour combos like me!

Here are the ones now finished:

Here, my inspiration source for these beads was nature and ancient things.  I always like to depict nature in a different way whether it be abstract styled flowers or imitations of seeds, nuts, pods, wood textures etc.  Also, with ancient things, my muse pulls me to try and imitate items that may have been unearthed from times of Druids, Vikings and Celts.  Perhaps it's my English heritage :)

I've used a combination of mediums (alcohol ink, acrylic paint, chalk ink and embossing powder) and techniques (using my hand-carved stamps to create the impressions and carving directly into both the unbaked and baked clay) to achieve the above.  Most of the beads are pendant sized with a couple made for dangles.  They've all been sealed using PYMII for longevity of the mediums.

Have a great rest of your weekend and enjoy the week ahead ☺️

My First Market

I can't believe it's been a week since the market - this week has completely flown by!  My day job has been quite hectic thankfully since our last bout of rain (we've been experiencing another local area drought), so I decided to spend Saturday finishing some projects that were dropped in the pre- and post-market dash.

First was to upload some pics of my stall.  I shared a table with my very talented Mum of Inspire Create Embellish.  My display was quite small but as it was my first market, I didn't want to overdo it.  The base of my display was made from recycled wood kindly gifted by my sister and uncle.  Knowing I was strapped for time, Dad very generously put it together for me.  I wanted to keep an organic, rustic vibe going, so the base was covered in hessian and fastened it to the display with some handmade coils.  I hand-painted some signs for my craft supplies but ran out of time to finish my sign for my stall.

This is me 

And a close up of my display

As part of being a stall holder, we get to donate a gift to be raffled off, which in turn raises money for my nephew's school.  I had grand plans to especially design something for the raffle winner as I love making jewellery with someone or something in particular in mind . However, I was a tad overzealous and ran out of time.  I ended up donating an already made piece which I hope the person loved!  As I had already made the pendant portion, I decided to finish it adding a gorgeous carnelian and kyanite shard together with a macrame and bead combo necklace.  It's an amulet styled necklace which goes over the head, soon to be added to my "Sling-On" series.

Necklace in full

And a close up of the pendant:

Have much more to share ... but as being Sunday night, (and to be honest, it's taken awhile for me to get this blogging business hahaha), it's time to get dinner ready.  

Hope you have a great week ahead :)

N