Handmade Hearts for Valentines

It’s Valentine’s Day next Tuesday and there are a whole bunch of earthernware heart pendants on my stock page if anyone is looking for a special gift:

Heart pendants, £6 each

There are two dark red glazed hearts with beads too if you check out my stock page, and I also have some spare beads and leather cord if anyone wants to order a custom necklace. Email me by 5pm tomorrow and your pendant will be in the 1st class post by Saturday morning to arrive with your intended recipient on Tuesday (UK only). I’ll even throw in free P&P (usually £2) if you order a second item!

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Making Monday – porcelain pendants and buttons

I had great fun playing with porcelain before my classes finished – it takes patterns pressed into it really well because it is so fine in texture and the white body makes a great base for colour. These are my two favourite creations: an ivy leaf pendant coloured with a mixture of underglaze paints and copper stain, and some beads with teal spirals carved into them. I’ve been getting plenty of wear out of both of these.

Porcelain ivy leaf pendant and carved spiral beads

They weren’t all I made though. I have a pile of other pendants and buttons just waiting for good homes, which will be going up on my stock page this week. Here’s a sneak preview for you:

Porcelain pendants and buttons

Some are decorated with underglazes, while the small leaf buttons and pendants are made using coloured porcelain. The textured rectangular buttons and pendants were all made by pressing different designs of lace into the clay. You can click on the photo to look at them in more detail.

If you’re interested in what other people have been making, check out the comments on Natalie’s latest Making Monday post.

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Spreading the pretty

Handmade bead necklace

This necklace arrived with its new owner today. It’s a mixture of plum beautiful, raspberry ice and sparkly burgundy glazed handmade beads, threaded on beading nylon with a silver lobster clasp. It’s been much admired already and I seem to have a waiting list of people who want something similar, which might take a while to get through given how labour intensive hand crafting and painting beads is! Still, the end product is worth it I think.

I may be short on beads but I have plenty of pendants left if anyone wants one. I’m going to be updating my stock page soon (although everything pictured is available, I just have more stuff that isn’t up) and I’m offering free postage for all jewellery orders of £10 or more so why not treat yourself or a loved one.

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Sneaky peek at new photos

I’m a tad busy with flat improvements and work, and am heading off for a weekend away tomorrow, but my very talented friend Birdwoman came over earlier in the week and took some photos of completed necklaces for me. For those of you who can’t wait for me to upload them here, you can view them on Flickr. Enjoy!

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Heart of the Galaxy necklace

Crystal glazed heart pendant and bead necklace

This is the best picture I’ve been able to get of my latest creation (I need to invest in a better camera for close-up work or bribe a friendly photographer to assist me!).  The title just seemed obvious, particularly as the space connection is two-fold; the crystal glaze I used is called ‘Milky Way’, and I was watching old episodes of Babylon 5 as I was doing the wire-work to put it all together. I’m really pleased with this, the glaze is beautiful (unfortunately, the photo really doesn’t capture the depth of colour) and my wire-work has really improved with practice!

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Long-awaited stoneware pendants

Handpainted stoneware pendants

These are the long-waited pendants that I painted and glazed months ago and then couldn’t get fired because the kiln broke. As you can see, I’ve made some up with matching earthenware beads, and left others with just a jump ring bail to attach them to a cord or chain.

Stoneware pendants with beads

Also coming, when I can get a craftgawker-worthy photo of it, is my new masterpiece – The Heart of the Galaxy necklace – and my pendants and necklaces should also start appearing on my stock catalogue page soon. So you might just find that perfect piece of unique jewellery to accessorize a summer wedding outfit right here.

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New and shiny

I’ve been busy making some wire-work and bead jewellery recently; shown here are the green & sliver bead set (necklace and bracelet) I’ve made for my Mum, a little heart and bead pendant, and a collar inspired by Native American jewellery which I made by pairing some wood-effect beads someone from my pottery class donated as she had no use for them, and some of my ‘harvest time’ crystal glazed beads. As promised, I’ve also got around to photographing my new smaller goblet design. This first one is glazed in transparent and albany stoneware. I love the albany glaze; it comes out almost irridescent, dark, dark shiny brown on its own, or a rich toffee colour over transparent, and I made use of both effects here.

Also new around here is a self-portrait of yours truly on the ‘About’ page, sporting my lovely ‘Emerald Clouds’ bead choker, which is probably my favorite of the jewellery pieces I’ve made so far.

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Hearts of many colours

Heart pendants

It’s a dreary grey day up in Dundee today so here are some colourful heart pendants to brighten up your day! I have these in a range of colours now, all crystal glazes except a few dark red ones. Some are destined to be paired with beads like the purple ones in my last post, but I think I shall leave the others as is – the holes are big enough for a thin cord or thong to be threaded through, or they would make a lovely addition to a bead necklace or some other project.

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My heart’s desire

After a slight delay due to illness, I got my latest batch of heart pendants back this week and spent yesterday evening making the purple ones up into pendants with matching beads.  I thought I’d try something new with my photography so here they are on a leaf from my rubber plant, taken with flash because the sun kept bleaching the colours out and I don’t have a sufficiently advanced photo-editing programme to correct it.  I still have dark red and ‘raspberry ice’ glazed hearts to make up into jewellery but I don’t have any glazed beads to match them as yet so that’s my next job.

Unfortunately, progress on non-jewellery projects has somewhat ground to a halt because the stoneware kiln at the college is still broken. Which also means my last batch of painted tile pendants are still waiting to be fired. I’m wishing I had a kiln of my own but I don’t have anywhere to put one. If my partner wins the Euromillions tonight, you know what is top of my wishlist!

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Hurray for matching beads

Crystal glazed beads and pendants

College went much better this week – my teacher was back, the kiln was fixed and my beads had been fired – hurray! I spent part of the evening finishing making up some more pendants and handily got a lesson in wirework from one of my class mates, who runs a craft shop, so now I have more crystal glazed pendants with beads attached and this time they are also handmade ceramic ones rather than glass, and I’ve also added ceramic beads to two more of the stoneware hand painted pendants.

Painted tile pendants with matching beads

So I’m almost set for the event at the weekend – I need to pop out and buy some more leather thongs and then I’m meeting up with Amy this evening for her to pick out the items she wants for her stall. I even have a set of rather nifty colour flyers for her to hand out to promote this site. It’s rather exciting really!

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