Ornament Swap 2011

Hi everybody,

I hope you had wonderful holidays. 

My family and I stayed at home and enjoyed some very quiet and pieceful days together. 

Oh, look!

 This is an incredible bell, isn't it? Renate made it for our this year's ornament swap. It blew me away.  Do you see the rock crystal? It makes a lovely sound. Oh, you should see this bell in real. 

And this totally cute little snowman was made by Steffi. To look at him always puts a smile on my face. He is perfect!! I love him!!

 Renate's bell was packaged in this beautiful cone which is an ornament itself. 

Thank you ever so much, Renate and Steffi. Not only for these incredible ornaments but for being friends and inspire me in so many ways. Just... thank you for being you. 

I am looking forward to our next German Ornament Swap in 2012!

If you want to read their posts about our little swap (and see what I made), please go to Renate's and Steffi's blog.

I wish you all a Happy New Year!!! 

Greetings from the shabby side

Ahem.
Obviously it's almost impossible to describe these earrings without using ths S-word.
 No, the other one.
"Shabby" I mean.
 These are so shabby chic - I wouldn't believe that I made them if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes ;) I made them (in a slightly different version) for myself to wear with a special dress on a special occasion. I wore them with great pride and got lots of compliments on them, but don't worry, there won't be a lot more shabby chic here in the future :)

Aren't the miniature pocket knives cute?!
The German words say "aus Treue Rache wurde". It means something like "of loyalty revenge became".

Recently my computer has commited suicide.
I don't want to tell the kids that Santa won't bring them anything because Mommy needs a new PC. So this will have to wait.
And I don't have a lot of time anyway, so I doubt if I would write a lot more if my computer was still among us.

Y'Akoto's video below inspired me to these earrings. I absolutely love these vintage Mah-Jongg counting sticks and have to pay attention so that I won't use them in every further piece of mine ;) Soooo many ideas for these incredible thingies!

Nothing from me. Just music.

This is Y'Akoto. She is from Hamburg. I thought I'd share this with you.

Work in progress

Hi to you all, sorry for having been so quiet lately. For some reasons I haven't created anything in a long while. Finally, here is some work in progress I started yesterday. Not much, I know. But it's a beginning. At least I hope so. I made these pendants from epoxy clay. The flat one (not finished yet) has an image transfer on it, then I painted over the transfer, glued the German words "Donner und Blitz" (thunder and lightning) from an old book on it and distressed the whole thing. It was just to try out if an image transfer of an inkjet picture would work on uncured fixit sculpt, and let me tell you: it works great!! Just press an inkjet print upside down onto the uncured clay, allow to cure, wet the paper and rubb it off. The hand has a kuchi charm as a bail. Have a great sunday!

Ancient Spirit - reworked

Remember the Ancient Spirit necklace? Someone has purchased it. A man. "Is it a present for your girlfriend?" I asked. "No", he said, "I want it for myself."

Okay. I truly loved the idea. But. I asked my husband to be my model, put it round his neck... and thought: "Wow, looks great, only the lipstick is missing!" It really didn't work for a men's neck and shoulder area. No way. Believe me.

So I asked my dear customer if he would allow me to rework it for him. "Okay", he answered, "but please keep it playful, keep it asymmetrical (but balance out the weight on both sides) , keep the ribbon part and the three strand part with beads and wirework, the scarab and the sea urchin spine. And make it a bit longer. Is that a problem for you?"

YES. It definitely was. Even more regarding the fact that I have next to no time these days.

But a challenge is a challenge is a challenge, right, Jo?!

So the first thing I changed was the color. I kept the pyrite but chose a thicker wire for it. Instead of the shiny czech glass beads in orange, red and lilac, I chose matt indonesian glass beads in black and grey tones with some stripes of red and other colors in them.

What followed was a long process of trial and error. What I liked was not what he wanted, and what he wanted wouldn't work for a man's neck, I was sure. Too fine, too filigree, too everything.

But then, in an e-mail, he asked: "What about a piece of a chain armor?" I was electrified. Immediately I knew that this was the missing link, the thing I had searched for all the time without knowing.

Here is what I came up with. Still not really the classical men's necklace ;) It looks great round my husband's neck. I love it, even my husband loves it... and my customer loves it too.

Just imagine it round a men's neck instead of the skinny model's neck.

I must admit that I would never have thought of a beaded three strand part for a men's necklace, and if I would have taken ribbon, it would have looked different from what you see here. It's his work more than mine. But still I'm proud.

And working on this necklace gave me so many ideas for more necklaces with Dorcas' incredible raku scarabs, that I have already purchased another three from her.

Something for your ears (and eyes)

Just because...