Recent Favorites

I'm pretty much addicted to checking out the latest Treasuries on Etsy.com (updated every hour!).  This leads to a lot of browsing other peoples' shops.  Lately I've been trying to add shops to my Favorites that really stand out to me so I can add them to my own Treasury when I make one eventually, and of course so I can buy from them in the future.  I wanted to share a few that I've really enjoyed enjoyed browsing.  

IMOTIME

This guy makes clocks out of everything!  I swear my mom had this same pumpkin-colored tupperware when I was a little kid.  I love his Scrabble tile shop banner, too!

3dots

Beautiful, handmade wooden jewelry.  This artist's work is quite unique.  There's even a listing for a surprise necklace for only $12!  That's a great deal, since most of her pieces are $18-$40 (still a great price).  Her photos make me want to use color-coordinated backgrounds for my pieces, rather than plain white.  

Hmm... I must be in the mood for orange.  Here's one more cool shop, and a non-orange object.

BeauAndStella

Beautiful jewelry designed by a preservation architect.  I tend to really love the work of artists whose background is in something other than what they are creating, because their work tends to be a marriage of their training and their passion.  These earrings stood out to me, but her shop is filled with beautiful gold and sterling silver designs that are quite different from these.

So, check out these shops and support handmade!  And if you ever want to get a gift for me... hint hint...

Bookshelf Inspiration

While organizing the 2nd bedroom in my house from a dumping place for the unpacked remnants of our move to a functioning workroom, I came across this old book belonging to my boyfriend.  His parents emigrated from Hungary to the US in the 1950s/60s.  This book was given to him by a Hungarian friend of the family.  The original copyright is 1949.  Some of the pages have the Hungarian names for the birds written in marker.  While I have disassembled books for art projects before, I couldn't possibly tear up this one that does not belong to me, so I am currently photocopying pages to collage into resin jewelry.  I also used the illustrations as inspiration for a few ceramic necklace pendants that I painted.  Birds have been an increasingly popular motif in decor and fashion for the past few years, and I hate to just jump on the bandwagon, but this book was too interesting to pass up.  Stay tuned for more work inspired by this unique treasure!

Featured Seller on Etsy

This week's featured seller on Etsy has some stuff that really appeals to my interests.  Check out Avril Loreti's Scrabble and crossword inspired work! Her other stuff is nice, too. This is the kind of seller I hope to be one day. Her advice to new sellers in her interview with Etsy is to work on your shop every day, even if it's only 15 minutes. That needs to be my new goal!

Retro Stripes Necklace

This is one of my latest creations.  I got my inspiration from a pile of my colored pencils laying on the coffee table.  The colors of the pencils reminded me of the 1950s/60s.  I'm thinking sea green refrigerators and burnt orange carpet.  I drew the stripes onto shrinkable plastic, picking up the pencils almost exactly in the order in which they were randomly laying on the table.  After shrinking the square, I discovered that it fit perfectly inside the square frame I had already.  I finished the piece with square jumprings to attach the pendant to the chain and as the ring for the clasp.

Check out my Flickr page for more photos, and my Etsy shop for the listing.

New Work 3/19/09

Several months ago, while flipping through an old issue of Dwell magazine, I found the photographs of artist Frank Breuer.  His series of telephone phones inspired me to make a necklace with the image of a telephone pole.  My image also has more personal meaning than that, though.  The picture I created is one of the landscape of my home state--Kansas.  One of the things I most vividly remember (and miss) about Kansas is the deep red and orange sunsets.  When I picture "home" in my mind, I picture these sunsets and the things I saw silhouetted against them--including telephone phones.  My mom used to tell me that my great, great grandfather laid some of the first telephone poles across the state.  This bit of family history has probably been a bit romanticized in my mind since I have very little knowledge of my genealogy.  

I still have to think of a name for the necklace, and when I do (any suggestions?  Add comments!), I will be posting it on Etsy.  This may be the start of more telephone pole artwork.

The drawing for the pendant was done in Prismacolor pencils on Shrinky Dink plastic. 

  

Current Projects 3/11/09

Asymmetrical Folds Skirt

I made this skirt for myself in January and received a commission to make one for a friend.  Hers will be navy blue denim with kelly green contrasting fabric and buttons.  The pattern came from Stitch Magazine (a really great magazine--I would have a subscription if they offered them).  Even though it's not my own design, I hope that the experience of creating a difficult piece of clothing from a pattern will help me improve my own designs in the future.

Ceramic Necklaces

At my last job, I dove head first into teaching Clay and Sculpture classes, which is not my area of expertise.  In fact, I've always disliked clay.  Now it's becoming one of my favorite mediums for jewelry design.  Some recent work (for sale on Etsy):

I put this pendant on a ribbon last night, and I'm happy with the color/text

ure combination, but I'm wondering if it needs something more--beads?  Twisting around with beads (I've seen this on a few necklaces in stores lately)?

I also have a few pendants with no necklace yet and I can't decide what they need--a beaded wire, a ribbon, a chain, or a leather cord.  Post your comments and let me know what you think.

Sketchbook/Sketchblog

One of the things I miss about art school is keeping a sketchbook and using it not only as a tool to develop ideas, but to present and discuss them.  My sketchbooks always tend to have more writing and more pasting than sketching.  That's how my ideas get started.  I've been thinking for awhile about putting my writing and pasting into digital form.  This could help me recreate the community of idea presentation and discussion that I so miss from art school.

Like so many other people around the US, I recently lost my job.  While in between jobs, my goal is to try to focus on creating finished products--something I've always struggled with, especially when working full time.  I hope to use this blog to help me develop ideas, present them to others for critique, and hopefully carry them through until I'm actually satisfied with my creations.