Wow...!!! I won my catagory.

The results are in at last of a contest I entered and I won my catagory. The talent was amazing so many wonderful pieces in the different catagories the judges had a really hard time choosing, so I feel very honoured to be a winner.
I have always shied away from contests in the past but got persuaded last year to enter one.
I am not a competative person at all, so it is hard for me to do this, so I just imagined I was showing a new piece here on my journal to all you folks and it was a bit easier. Anyway I thought you might like to see the necklace that won.
It was based on a beautiful semi double scarlet Camellia called Grand Prix. The inspiration came about because I had this circular piece of Citrine crystals, it was quite a large round and I had no clue what to do with it, I got it out of the box several times over the months, stared at it and put it away again, then just before the contest started, I got it out yet again and suddenly, I thought, I know what you are, the centre of a flower, a big colourful flower! It had to be either a Clematis or Camellia, as soon as I saw Camellia Grand Prix I knew that was the right flower for this piece and so to the sketch pad and from there to the clay. I strung with white pearls and coral rounds and added a little female humming bird for fun!
Please leave a comment if you would like to I love to read them all.

I have been showcased!

This is so nice, the web site is Champagne Rose Jewelry, the page is Friends Gallery http://www.champagnerosejewelry.com/ a lovely Japanese lady called Mika Shimatani owns the web site, although Mika was born in Japan she now lives with her husband and two little boys in San Jose, California. Mika makes lovely jewellery herself and is also teaching jewellery workshops.

New Nefertiti Necklace & A Walk in the Woods

Well I am still here for the time being hoping that blogger will fix the glitch that won't let me post to some blogs, so I thought I had better show you some new necklaces I have just put up for sale on our web site Kydo Jewellery with the help of my daughter and web master.

The first necklace I called Nefertiti. It came about this way, I was looking through one of my books on Ancient Egypt for a completely different reason and came across some lovely wall paintings of Nefertiti with flowers, which inspired me to create this necklace. I had recently bought some large and beautiful Lapis Lazuli cabochons in that lovely royal blue colour so out came the sketch book as usual. I decided on a lily shape with the central cab of the Lapis I added three Carnelian cabs and engraved a lily design into the gold clay. I used my only strand of lovely Lapis nuggets with Carnelian rounds and little gold plated rondels it closes with a little vermeil S hook. It is signed on the back as are all my Gold Collection pieces. I think it turned out rather well.

The second picture is of a fresh green and white necklace. I chose a leaf or teardrop shape which compliments the shape of the Agate cab I textured the background of the gold clay and added a round Turquoise cab, which kind of set the whole piece off nicely I think. I used some high quality white pearls and tree Agate rounds to string it with and a few gold vermeil flower spacers, the clasp is a gold plated lobster claw. I think it makes a refreshing change the green and white, I called it A Walk in the Woods, I can almost smell the leaves and ferns lol.

Hope you like them I would love it if you left me a message.

Thinking of changing my Journal

Yes I am really thinking of leaving Blogger, there seems little point me being here if I am unable to post on the blogs I follow and possibly other people can't leave comments on my blog either although I think you can leave comments on my blog as I have comment moderation enabled and I can comment on any blogs that have this enabled, so I presume it is the same, but not on any others.
I do have another Journal at Wordpress but I don't really use it at the moment so I may decide to use that one, I do hope if I go some of you will follow me over there, that would be brilliant!

Of Roses and Moonlight

Just as I thought I had got writing this journal under control life up and gets in the way, maybe I am trying to do too many things online at the moment and then nothing gets done well. So here I am again promising myself I will find something to write about at least once a week.

The garden has been taking up a bit of time and the work really on going, it is bursting with old roses and clematis at the moment; the weather has been wonderful the last few days with lots of sunshine which is why they are doing so well I think, they love the sun and hang their pretty heads in pouring rain and end up looking like wet paper bags hanging on the bushes. But I do love the old roses the scent is stunning; Mme Isaac Perrier has the strongest scent of all my roses and I can sit on the seat in my sunken garden listening to the waterfall and bird song enveloped in her exquisite perfume and the sweet scent of lavender trailing down the wall behind me. How I love the warm June days!

I took up Chen Tai Chi some time ago to help with problems after a bad fall I had years ago now and it is going really well, I love it and it has helped me to recover a lot of the flexibility I had lost, I practice every day and hope to overcome any limitations I may have. We did a demonstration at a fair in our park in aid of the local Childrens Hospice a couple of weeks ago which was well received.

Friday evening my daughter and I went to the theatre to watch the Shaolin Warriors from Beijing, the performance was absolutely spectacular and the theatre filled to capacity. After the show my husband picked us up in the car we drove out to the down which overlooks the sea, the sun had set and a new sickle moon risen but the sky still had a deep peachy coral glow along the horizon with that aqua shade you get sometimes below. The lights along the Welsh coast opposite were strong and bright, mesmerisingly close. As we sat drinking in the beauty of the night the stars shone out, more and more appeared. We got out of the car sharing cans of soft drinks letting the night drift by; the big dipper appeared right above where we stood, my husband pointed it out to our daughter, we found other constellations to wonder at, until the breeze became a little chill and we got back in the car.

We watched as a dog fox came within a few feet of the open car door, I thought perhaps he wants a ride with us, he came so close to me with no fear, wondering what I had in the rustling paper of a chocolate snack bar. Then we drove home.

I hope you will choose to come back and read more of my ramblings and I will try to write more frequently. I leave you with a picture of a new necklace from the Gold Collection inspired by the old roses. The gemstones are Rhodochrosite, pink Peruvian Opal and Chalcedony with white pearls.

Two new pendant necklaces

I have two pretty new pendant necklaces to share with you today, from my Gold Collection. The marquise cabs in both cases are Ocean Jasper the pink and white one also has two round cabs of Chalcedony with Swarovski crystals embellishing the chain. The gold and green Cab has a round vintage Swarovski crystal with crystals and freshwater pearls embellishing the chain.Both these are on the web site right now on The Gold Collection pendants page.

The necklace in my last post Florentine is also on the web site Gold Collection necklaces page. Just click on Kydo Jewellery to the right and visit our web site, we have a special celebration offer for our blog followers, free first class or standard Air Mail shipping anywhere for one week thats till 30th April! 

 

Florentine, New Boulder Opal Necklace

I thought it was about time I posted another of my gold collection necklaces this one has just gone on the web site, sadly I couldn't get a photo of the pin fire in the opal it is red and green. I  also cut the back away as the pin fire goes right through this piece of boulder Opal. The cabs are Carnelian and I strung the necklace with baby Agate nuggets and little peachy gold pearl nuggets!





Spring is here at last!

I just took this picture of a small bed of crocus and Narcissi in the garden they are so bright and pretty I couldn't resist showing you, I only planted this little bed before Christmas and it is doing well the second picture is of one of the Camellias in the garden, there are several as I love them they make such a show this time of year the first Magnolia is blooming away but the batteries ran out on me so I couldn't take more photos!

The Silver Lodge is no More!

We have at last changed the name of our web site from The Silver Lodge to Kydo Jewellery, as the name was no longer appropriate. It is rather sad in a way but we hope the new name and new inspiration will bring its rewards as we start afresh.

Lara chose the name KYDO and it does have a meaning it stands for KEEP YOUR DREAMS ORIGINAL, which seemed just perfect, for the new collection of art jewellery The Gold Collection, created from gold polymer clay and set with Jaspers, Agates, pearls, fossils and coloured gemstones, among other beautiful stones I have sourced over many months which will be appearing on the web site over the next weeks. The collection is themed around nature with leaves playing a large part especially ferns, as they will soon start to unfurl, a little later this year as the weather has been so cold.

Everything is still not quite sorted as we can receive email on our new address but can't reply as our internet provider won't send it through, so we are useing the silverlodge address at present until its sorted; it is really annoying though!

Let me show you one of the new pendants on the web site. The stone is a very large mystic quartz the fine gold vermeil chain is embellished with Swarovski Crystals.

All finished

At last I have finished visiting all the bead soup blogs, this has been a real marathon for me as just prior to this one I did the One World One Heart giveaway and had those blogs to visit too, so no time to write my own blog. Thank you Lori for organising it.
I will be writing to tell you more about our new web site which Lara and I have just finished a little later.

Bead Soup Reveal Day

Today is the day I can show you what I made from my bead soup partner Magda; our brief was we had to use the focal and clasp our partner sent us but could use the beads sent or use some from our own stash. I tried to use as many of the items Magda sent me as I could and just added one bead and some vintage brass chain of my own to finish off.

I made an asymetrical necklace, I loved the hand made beads and clasp she made for me, so the clasp had to be seen, but I had great difficulty deciding how to hang the focal circle of wood, I wanted to use the long wire wrapped bead she had made me in a different way. So this is what I eventually came up with.

Bead Soup!

Magda is my bead soup partner she lives in Poland, her English is good while my Polish is non existent but that has not stopped us communicating and I would like to show you the lovely selection of beads Magda sent me. The beautiful clasp and wire wrapped beads Magda made especially for me, I feel so honoured they are lovely. I have tried to use as many of the components in my necklace as possible, I just can't let you see it yet lol.

White Water Turquoise

I made this necklace for myself with some of my favourite White Water Mine Turquoise, some silver and a handmade pendant from Jean Christen ( Clay Genie ) I love wearing it!

Coping with the high cost of silver and gold

Reading my friend Lori's blog sparked my idea to write some musing on this subject from my perspective. I used to make art jewellery pieces up until a couple of years ago with sterling silver armatures wrapped with very fine silver wire, I developed my own style and things went well, but with the constantly rising cost of silver I began to question where I was going, add the gemstones etc, etc and expenses rose, yes it was fun to create, especially as I enjoy making as many parts of a design as I can apart from the gemstones obviously I leave that to mother nature.

Then a few years back I was introduced to Premo Polymer clay, its a bit like paint in solid form I thought so I was hooked. I took a few tutorials to begin with, then as usual I meandered off on my own. Many years ago I worked with clay but this was different I had colour now and many more colours could be mixed from the basics! So I made many different items from small sculptures to jewellery, which is now my preference.

Polymer clay it would seem has come into its own and is no longer considered the outsider but is sold in prestigious galleries, there are museum collections and displays of jewellery it has finally made it!

Last year I got to thinking how wonderful it would be to work with gold clay that I could shape into my own designs for necklaces and pendants, a lovely setting for beautiful Jaspers, Agates and Gemstones etc so working from my original sketches; I spent the next six months building a collection of art necklaces and pendants based in the gold polymer clay.

The Inspiration; water plays a large part in my life as I live close to the ocean, enjoy lakes and streams, with reeds and swans, the ponds in our garden. Trees are important to me, also mosses and ferns, each piece of jewellery I sketch has an inspiration in nature and the natural world around me. Sometimes it is a shape I want to capture or maybe a beautiful Jasper cab inspires a picture.

So my problem seems to be solved, I no longer need large quantities of silver or gold metal and I am excited with all the new possibilities this new direction has given me.

This collection will be available when we have finished updating the web site.

Bead Soup Blog Party!

I have just joined Lori Andersons Bead Soup Blog Party it sounds like its going to be fun! There is still time to join in just click on the logo on the right hand side of this page to be taken to Lori's blog.

Painting of Glenveagh

This is the watercolour I painted of Glenveagh gardens with the castle in the background. I really enjoyed doing paintings of the different places I visited. It was a long time since I had got out the paints, being involved with other things these days. I do notice some strange shadow lines on the left of the painting, I have no idea what made them as they are not part of the painting, very weird!

I tend to leave the art side of things to my daughter Lara she takes commisions for pet portraits and fantasy art also small clay sculptures she finished a set of cartoon style Dr Who sculptures before Christmas which were very detailed.

There are so many things I would like to do and try but time passes so quickly these days and I will never be able to fit them all in, maybe tomorrow!

Festival of the Trees

I took these photos at Glenveagh National Park in Donegal Ireland, the top picture is the castle and gardens, second the Gardeners Cottage, third Glenveagh Estate. The friends I was staying with at the time suggested I might like to go there, so we took a leisurely drive and arrived around lunchtime. The park itself has a wild beauty all its own, deep in the Derryveagh mountains that rise up from Lough Veagh. The estate runs to around 40,000 acres, the castle which we were able to take a tour of had a very lived in feeling about it, built in the 19th century by John George Adair a man born in County Laois who made his fortune in the USA and later owned by two other Americans. But it was Henry McIlhenny of Philadelphia who bought the estate in 1936 who left a lasting impression on the estate which he made the focus of his life for the 36 years he lived there. Henry McIlhenny developed the castle and gardens into what they are today. Henry also loved entertaining and one can imagine the parties and film stars invited to stay the guest book read like a who's who of actors, artists, musicians and famous names of the times.

The castle gardens are lovely when I came home I did a water colour painting of them from the photos I took, there was a picturesque Gardener's Cottage, in the grounds full of flowers at the time we visited. The contrast between these pretty gardens and the wild mountains and boglands bordered by the deep lough's made a pleasant oasis of culture and gentle beauty in the rugged landscape.

There is so much more I could write about Glenveagh but I will leave you with a picture or two from my pleasant stay.

New shop on Ruby Plaza

We have just opened a shop on Ruby Plaza, I have not put any of The Gold Collection pieces of jewellery in as I would prefer to put them on our own web site at least for now but there are some lovely gemstone necklaces, a bracelet and earrings, I shall be adding more during the weeks to come. The link to the shop is on the right just click it and you will be taken right to it.

The decision to try a shop was not taken lightly and hopefully it will work out, if you have never been to Ruby Plaza it is a sister online shopping mall to Ruby Lane,.I didn't find it very easy to begin with as there are so many do's and dont's lol.

There are such a lot of these places online now days it is a bit difficult to know just what would suit us best. Artfire seems quite good, so does DaWanda UK although nothing seems to be moving very fast in the present climate and I do think you can overstretch yourself and spend so much time putting items up on these places etc there is no time left for creating. Having said that I am hopeless at the selling side of things can't seem to manage it at all well, I think I have lost the art of writing good content over the years, although I used to enjoy writing and even wrote articles for a magazine at one time. I hope maybe someone will take a look at the new shop.

My autumn necklace this year is of course a Gold Collection piece. The strung necklace is peach moonstones with grey moonstone stars. I just couldn't resist these beautiful Jasper stones, they remind me of wild places in the dawn, just as the sun is coming up, streams with reeds, home to swans and birds aahhh what it is to dream!

New Jewellery at last

The London trip was nice but would have been a lot better if Lara and I had not both picked up some old virus there, which really spoilt the week! I have been unwell with it ever since which is a really long time and why I did not feel like writing anything as it was all doom and gloom lol. Now I am feeling much better and I have been moving forward with 'The Gold Collection' if your wondering why gold? Well gold polymer clay simply makes my art necklaces and pendants affordable, most people couldn't afford to buy my art designs in high carat gold, so this was a way of making them affordable.

I am useing many beautiful handcut Jaspers, Agates, Fossil materials and rare stones. Faceted and smooth gemstones in variety and choosing the most beautiful high quality gemstone beads and pearls for stringing. It has also been a time of experimentation, I am trying different things and cut the templates from my sketches, finding ways to set gemstones in the clay and I am loving it!

My ideas are moving forward, I have been especially inspired by ferns of all kinds recently; a number of different ones grow in my garden I am particularly fond of the Hart's Tongue fern. The hedgerows and places around here abound with ferns hiding between rocks and carpeting the moss grown floor under trees. So here is a necklace and pendant from The Gold Collection celebrating the Hart's Tongue and other ferns. The necklace will be for sale but the pendant I made as a gift for a dear friend.

I would love it if you would leave me a comment.

Desert Flower

This will be just a short post as my daughter and I are off tomorrow up to London, we stay with a friend just outside the city and tube in, so get the best of both worlds. We have several things planned to do, lunch with a cousin, visiting favourite shops, galleries and maybe a museum, we may go to the theatre and generally enjoy ourselves. We are both looking forward to this annual break.

We have had guests so I haven't been very creative recently but I have just finished an interesting asymetrical necklace which I named Desert Flower. The circles and tiny round beads are picture Jasper, the beautiful colour of these turquoise coloured stones look great in the centre of each circle with little silver beads the lovely chain is also silver I added just a sprinkling of Swarovski crystals in copper. I found the lovely silver flower toggle which seemed just right and Desert Flower was born! I think it turned out quite well.

Please do leave a comment if you would like to I love to hear from you all.

Summer flowers

Oh dear I have been so busy I have forgotten to post for ages so here I am at last.
The garden is coming along quite well, we desperately needed the rain, well now we have it, I suppose it just won't stop, July seems to always be a fairly wet month down here.

Lara and I are off up to London for a week in August to stay with a friend, meet up with my cousin for lunch, take in a show etc etc, we always have the best time and we are both looking forward to it as a nice break.

I have been adding to my Gold Collection and made several art necklaces two for a challenge which I can't put on the blog yet but I am adding a lovely summer flower pendant from the Gold Collection, which I just finished its in warm summer shades and is embellished with some beautiful vintage Swarovski AB crystals which are not too easy to see as they are tucked between the petals but they add a sparkle and shine the centre of the large flower has a vintage Swarovski and the little salmon pinkflowers have rows of tiny 2mm crystals as well, lots of sunshine in this piece!

I grow orchids so created this necklace of pink and white orchids and blue forget me nots. I made the sketch for this earlier in the year but never got round to making it till last month, once I started it was such a pretty piece to work on, I did enjoy finding just the right pale pink nugget pearls to add to it and the silver hook clasp which you can't see has a little flower too. Both these pieces will be going up for sale on the web site soon but if you are interested in either of them you can just email me now. .

Opal necklaces

It seems ages since I have been able to write anything on the blog, or even go to peek at what everyone is doing at the moment. The web site is still unfinished, but we now have a nice new panelled front door frame and the door has been repainted. Lara and I have been working hard in the garden clearing brambles that have come in from next door, ready for the fencing. This holiday weekend all three of us have been working hard cutting back and clearing, clearing, clearing, getting ready for the new fences to go up hopefully in two to three weeks time


I have completed two necklaces both with opals set in gold polymer clay they are in an antique style. I start with sketches, then make templates, I really enjoyed making these just not quite as much as creating the Pandora's lol.

The double strand necklace has a piece of boulder opal set in the focal which has sculpted ends the fantastic iridescent enameled effect was achieved with mica powders, I love using these! The beads are Amazonite and a beautiful Brazilian Amazonite it is such a wonderful colour very soft teal/aqua, almost the last of my white baroque pearls and glass beads that were just a perfect colour, it drapes well and looks lovely on.


The second necklace is quite unusual as it is in three pieces not quite as I envisaged it in the beginning though! Two lovely pieces of boulder opal grace the side panels and an opal triplet the central panel, you can't really see the colours opal is so difficult to photograph, but they are beautiful. I used the mica powders again on the sculpted pieces to give an iridescent enamel effect. The gemstones for the necklace are Apatite bricks with yellow Fluorite rounds and Apatite chips with glass beads to link the pieces together.


I adore the colours in these two necklaces as I live by the sea it just reflects the wonderful tones and shades of the ocean seen from my window on any day. These are not on the web site as yet I thought I would preview them here first, what do you think I would love to hear from you?

Feeling Creative!

Our overhaul of the web site this year seems to be taking forever, Lara who is also the webmaster has been so busy with her commissions and other work that it is on a go slow and only half finished. We really wanted to showcase not just work for sale but commissions, work in progress artwork, jewellery and sculptures.

There just seems to be so much to do with work progressing in the house, it is a very old house so needs constant attention and it has taken us years to eventually get down to the bottom floor, there are four floors and we finished the kitchen last Christmas but still more to do, when I say finished the kitchen I mean it was gutted completely right up to the joists, my husband did all the work himself so it all takes a lot of time. Right now he is finishing two of the windows we had double glazed last year but never got to finish around them. then there is the front door the frame is all rotted out so needs replacing but of course it isn't that easy or straightforward, never is in this house, so we await the various carpenters who will hopefully submit their prices in the not to distant future. I haven't even mentioned the garden yet! The fences one side are falling down and have to be replaced and the whole garden sorted out and my lovely canal pond filled in as being at the bottom of the garden it has become a lot of work to clean it etc. So I will have to bring my large Koi up to the top pond and somehow enlarge it a little bit as I hand feed them and couldn't bring myself to part with them, they are like old friends.

Not much time for web sites you might say, I have been in a very creative mood recently, but now I feel strangely restive with too many ideas popping up in my thoughts and none of them really settling into something definite I can work with, so I am going to show you some of the things I have finished in my Pandora collection.

The little blue lilies pendant has bronze wire the loop at the bottom I was going to add something but don't know just what yet! The Pandora necklace took a very long time to construct as it was so complicated it was really inspiring to create, have to say I enjoyed it immensely and is so comfortable to wear, I love it!

Pandora

Lara and I went to see the film Avatar in 3D earlier this year, I loved the concept of an unspoiled planet full of natural wonders, we bought the hardback book Avatar to share between us a few weeks later and although not a thick book it was interesting and gave some insight into the design and making of the film. The use of colours intrigued me as did the idea of floating mountains in fact I found it all quite enchanting.

Since then I have been working on my Pandora collection of pendants and necklaces inspired by the strangely beautiful alien world of Pandora. Sculpted in Polymer clay, the photos don't really show them to best effect as they are dusted with interference and mica powders to add that special iridescence the pendants and necklaces were exciting and intricate to design I really enjoyed making them, so I thought I would share some of them with you, I hope you like them to!

Easter Sunday Afternoon

This afternoon I went with my daughter and husband to a graveyard at the top of a hill, the sun was shining and the sweet smell of the glorious white narcissi and yellow daffodils lining the paths between the tall stately ceders wafted on the breeze. Each year for the last three years my daughter has visited the last earthly resting place of her dear friend Anthony, who lost his brave battle just a few days after his 22nd birthday.
Each year Lara has put a sprig of Rosemary for remembrance on the grave, I always cut the stems carefully for her and we bind them with ribbon in his favourite colour royal blue. Lara believes that knowing Anthony has made her a better more careing person, he will always be remembered and his courage in the face of great odds, will perhaps make us grateful for the health we have right now and the love we share as a family.

Lara's Art

Today I wanted to share with you my daughters art, Lara took a diploma course at the London Art College in Pet Portraiture and received a pass with merit at the end of 2008, needless to say her dad and I were very proud of her and she has had many commissions since, though mostly fantasy art, in fact her fantasy work and cartoons are all over the net lol. So I thought it would be rather nice to showcase some of the non fantasy pictures Lara did to win her diploma.

The horses head I really like as I love horses and used to ride a lot when younger, it was also the first horse she had ever drawn. The Borzoi is not one of ours and I have asked her to do portraits of our Borzois all sadly passed away now, I still miss them, both these portraits are in Derwent coloured pencil her medium of choice.

The third portrait is a rather thoughtful forest Gorilla in Acrylic it was the final piece submitted for her exam.

I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed sharing them with you.

Spring Weddings & Inspiration

I am not sure the two always go together but in this case they do, as I have a bridal commision for a May wedding the bride and four bridesmaids, I am halfway through and really enjoying it. How delightful to design something for a big day, no matter whether it be gowns or jewellery. In my case it is jewellery and the colours are silver and purple.

The bride likes a very dainty necklace and happily I had some of the tiniest purple nugget pearls which she fell in love with, so that made a good base to start from. I added purple velvet crystals and some lavendar blue pearl rondels, then she chose a silver filigree flower with clear crystal petals and a centre of lavendar blue, I offset the flower to just below her collarbone, I hope she likes it when she sees it tomorrow.

Well now it is Sunday and my bride loves her necklace! I finished the rest yesterday and have taken a couple of pictures to show the brides and three of the bridesmaids necklaces. The bridesmaids dresses are purple with gold embellishments.

I have also added some of the necklaces we have in our spring sale, you can see them on the right hand side of the page just email if you would like anything!

Spring Inspiration!

At last I am updating the blog after the OWOH, time has just slipped away from me and I so wanted to show you some new spring designs. Having lacked inspiration since Christmas and the two viruses one after the other; suddenly my muse is back and I am so busy creating new art jewellery, especially in Polymer clay. I love working with colour, just like painting, then I can add silver, bronze, glass, gemstones, crystals it is just amazing what a fantastic medium it is, I can't imagine a world without colour!

I love Camellias and grow several in my garden, I especially like this small stripped one with a huge boss of golden stamens, each Camellia I made has a centre of Swarovski crystal, the armature is Sterling Silver and for fun I made it in two parts. I joined them with the silver wire and added round Garnet gemstones and little silver beads, it will have a chain added made to length, the pendant measures just four inches from the top of the longest silver curl to the bottom of the lower flower and I signed it on the back. I think it worked out rather well don't you? It hasn't gone on the web site yet as I thought I would preview it here first, but enquiries are always welcome.

I will have more spring inspirations to share with you later this week.

One World One Heart winners

At last I am able to publish the winners of my giveaways, I had to wait a bit as one person was unable to contact me, I have really enjoyed doing this and hope to join in again next year if it is still going.
The winner of my necklace is Jasmine of Natures Whispers blog, Jasmine makes the most beautiful embellished felt scarves and felt necklaces I am not sure how to put links to sites yet as it won't copy and paste!
The winner of the freeform Forest Heart is Linda of The Briar Rose Gate who does the most delightful animal paintings.
The winner of the second freeform Forest Heart is Sharon of SharDon Exclusives, Sharon makes elegant beaded jewellery.
I will have some new things to write about in the journal later this week but need to take some photos first.

Another Giveaway

Well I am both surprised and delighted to find there were so many comments on my giveaway, thank you all so very much. I am also thrilled that I now have some new followers and what I would love to do is another little giveway ( not sure just what yet though ), for all of my new followers, I will draw this the same day as the other two. I will let the winners of all the giveaways know by the 16th/17th as I will be away tomorrow and unable to complete the draw. I have some more of your blogs to get to this evening before it all closes down so I had better hurry!

One World One Heart

This is the first time I have participated in One World One Heart and I hope it will be a wonderful journey of discovery to meet new people and hopefully make new friends, a ride on the magic carpet no less, I hope that you will join me on the ride!

I have two items from our organic collection. First I have a lovely handmade necklace made by myself. Second is a polymer clay forest heart to give away at the end of the journey February the 15th. To be eligable you must leave a comment and a link or email address so I can contact you if you should be a winner.

The necklace is made from Peruvian pink opal, black onyx with a pi pendant of fossil stone, wire wrapped in silver with a small silver hook to fasten.

Polymer clay heart with forest leaves and flowers, small hole for stringing through the top.

New Year New Ideas?

I am not quite sure this is the right title as I seem to be all out of good ideas and inspiration right now. I think it must be a combination of the old virus thing I got Christmas day and seems to have left me with lethagy and an overwhelming sense of doom and gloom or maybe it is the unacustomed cold in my part of the world. Whatever it is I need to shake it off fast, I have had a look at all my inspirational pictures, done the colour thing, got out wool and beads sorted pearls all to no avail, my muse has deserted me I know it won't be forever and I really need to concentrate on spring making everything new and fresh. It is not that I haven't tried any ideas I have, I just can't seem to make them take shape on paper or in clay. Maybe I am trying too hard perhaps I should sit down with a good book and just wait for it to happen.

Is anyone else feeling like this at this time of year?

A new year, new start is such a wonderful feeling, what will the year bring and what will we bring to it. I shall leave this post with a necklace I made just before Christmas for a dinner I went to with my daughter. Made with amazing silvered lampwork lentils, I had just enough of the gorgeous matching stick pearls, it is like they were just waiting for these lovely lampwork beads made by Connie Poggi, I added some black onyx rondelles and a sprinkling of gold fill spacers and my favourite S clasp. Perhaps just posting will galvanise me into action who knows!

Flower pendant

One of my resolutions for the New Year is to post more in this journal, my daughter was supposed to be posting her things in here and I was writing my Wordpress journal well it hasn't worked as I seem to be left to do both so I am making a start with a little picture of a polymer clay chrysanthemum I made in the autumn.

I decided I would like to make a pendant I started with a sketch and decided to use some heavy gague sterling silver for the form I could then add a silver chain later. I wanted the leaves to climb up the silver with the flower and bud at the base I used a large faceted amethyst for the centre of the flower and tucked pearls in between the petals and at the end of the bud. A leaf is embellished with have some tiny glass beads, Christi Friesens wonderful work was the inspiration for the flower.

Lara gave our web site a bit of a make over before Christmas and we have a huge sale with up to 60% off to make way for some new designs and projects in the New Year

Soft Sculpture Bears

At last the new page is up on the web site for some of my soft sculpture mohair bears, as the site now reflects our multi media art and not just the jewellery I thought it would be nice to have a page with some of my bears. I had to stop making my soft sculpture after an accident, my wrist would no longer take the strain any more it was a great sadness to me as I loved creating my own designs and dying the mohair and alpaca that I used. The bears I put on the web site are all Teddy type bears.

I especially loved making my Kermode bears, they stood between 20" & 24" I hand shaded them. I have added a picture of a Kermode that I considered to be one of the best, I made these to commission only so I no longer have him.

My Dragonslair Bears appeared in many magazines internationally and also a Lark Book. I do still make the occasional bear not the large ones I loved making though. Now I mainly enjoy making needlefelted tiny bears and animals.

At least I never get bored how can one be bored with so many things to design and make, with new things to learn, every day brings a new challenge, renewed interest, so much to look at the leaves turning such wonderful colours as the autumn draws on. A hedgehog appeared at the back door a couple of days ago, they will soon be curled up and hibernating but with the mild weather we will see them around for a bit longer.

Wrong link!

Oh dear somehow the link got put in all wrong it should read http://www.thesilverlodge.co.uk ahh thats better, thanks for pointing it out ChezChani so glad you liked the site though, I think Lara made a really nice job of it and the feedback has been all good.

Grand Sale

Well here I am again, the web site redesign is finally finished all is uploaded and we are starting out with a Grand Sale up to 60% off, at http://www.thesilverlodge@tiscali.co.uk to clear the way for new things we want to showcase. The site has been redesigned with our multi media art in mind so there will be more art jewellery, art, sculptures etc all in their own galleries, we have lots of ideas for the future and lots of new things to go on the web site.

I finished a new watercolour painting yesterday from my July trip to Ireland of Glenveagh Castle and gardens, now I just need to buy a frame and mount sometime, as I only have smaller ones left. I really do find it quite relaxing to be painting again. Soon the evenings will draw in and the light will not be so good, I am enjoying while I can, the lovely sunshine we are getting in this Indian Summer even though the nights can get quite cool now. There have been some gorgeous sunsets though!

An update

It has been ages since I last posted on here I have been leaving it up to Lara to do the posting but I have recently gone back to my roots and have started painting again, after a holiday with friends in Ireland. I came home with loads of photos of places we visited mostly coastal, ruined castles etc but there were several gems among the usual snaps one of them was this sweet little St Gobban's church just big enough to hold the bridal couple and parson with possibly two witnesses, I painted two pictures one I sent as a gift to my friends and this one I kept as a memento of a happy time spent with them.

Tutorial

I made my first tutorial for a clay sculpture, I thought you would be interested in seeing. I wrote it and my friend edited it and put it on her site.

It's to make this little guy here.

You can make Skillet, a cute creature I made up. The tutorial is $10 and can be bought through the site here. I will be making more if they are popular. I hope to make creatures holding things and show how to make fur and blend clay. I'm also thinking of doing a bigger project later in the year and doing an online class for polymer clay sculpture.

~Lara

More commissions

Here are two recent commissions I did. Both are creatures I have never made before and I think both turned out well, especially the second one.

The first is this

He's a professor and belongs to a friend of mine. This was the first time I'd made a human and to be honest, although I was happy with him, his skin darkened too much in the oven while I baked him. One of his hands was way too dark. I was pretty happy with his face and hair though. The character wears a lot of hair gel so I glazed his hair to make it look wet and keep it authentic.

He holds a death ray gun in his hand, which was probably the hardest thing to make. I used wire supports in his legs and the arm holding the gun but stupidly didn't make the wire go through the hand so of course when I put the gun in it, it threatened to break at the wrist and I had to bake him on his side.

I have problems thinking out ideas. Of course it's logical that the wire had to go right down the hand but I never thought of that. How I think bugs me a lot. I try to be logical but it comes out wrong. Anyway, I'm happy with this and I'm glad it didn't turn into a complete failure for a first try at a human.

Human heads are really hard to make though; I'm used to making muzzles and beaks on the front of the head and to make one that has no muzzle was strange for me. I like him though!

Here is the other commission, a ram. I've never made a ram before either but he was fun and fairly simple to make. His horns were the hardest part because I was afraid they would droop while he was baking and they weren't supported with wire since I didn't think they would need it. However I put in card supports to keep them in place in the oven and it worked fine.

I like how I did his legs and hooves, they worked really great for a first try so that's something else I know I can do now.

I glazed his horns to make them look nicer and I think the hardest part with him was the different coloured markings. To make those, I make really thin bits of clay and try to blend them onto the body. I think the blending worked best on the legs. Blending is easiest with softer clay so you can rub it with your fingers and it will just smooth on to the rest of the clay.

I used reference drawings for both of these characters.

If you would like a commission, check out my site here!

~Lara