I’ve been playing around with some Sculpey recently, and decided to make almost all my chocolates in miniature form and make a necklace for craft fairs. It’s not the most excellent polymer clay work you will have ever seen but I think it fits the bill 🙂
I have all sorts of WIPs on the go at the minute but it’s great because I’m enjoying it! I have a couple of resin things, some polymer clay work for the first time in almost 10 years (above), I have a dress I’m adding a panel to, another dress I’m supposed to have started by now sewing from scratch and of course the patchwork quilt.
I don’t want to bore you with another photo of a block every day for the next week, so I’ve decided to update my progress over on Crafteroo, so if you want to keep an eye on the quilt as it grows (quickly!) then please check in HERE 🙂
Here’s day 3Â – Rocky Road – anyway. Day 4 is nearly finished but I will be putting on Crafteroo (and Flickr) only.
I’m also writing an article for Speciality Food and I’m just over 700 words in, so just over halfway to 1200 words. The aim is to finish it complete with quotes from other companies and images by Monday. Here’s a pic of me styling some chocs for that taken yesterday- I think I probably should have washed my hair first, but hey ho…
Last week I received a little parcel from Canada, and I eagerly opened it… Look what I got!
The colours and textures are gorgeous- just look at the detail!
They are made by None of the Above on Etsy and I envy her patience and polymer clay skill! She’s got quite a successful shop (and rightfully so), and I’m now worried that the items I sent her in a swap won’t be up to her expectations…
Here’s some more of my favourites from her shop- check them out!
In other news, I am working on making my collection of Christmas cards this week and also I had a brainwave. I decided to make resin friendship heart pendants. I make the resin fabric hearts as normal, then each one is individually cut before findings will be added. I haven’t sanded this one yet as I was eager to get the saw out first, plus I plan to sand then cut in the future, but you get the idea 🙂
I hope to have some in my shops soon for potential Christmas pressies!
I was flicking through the new sellers section on Folksy and found lots of lovely polymer clay items, and then discovered they were by the same person! Carol’s shop (http://carolscrafts.folksy.com) features polymer clay buttons, brooches and jewellery, as well as some lovely bracelets that use glass beads in their construction too. Here are some of my favourites:
These are awesome! I love unusual jewellery as many readers will have noticed by now, especially in mediums that start of as a sheet of glass or a ball of clay, or a bottle of resin, rather than just a nice selection of pre-bought supplies. This is another of those shops, with all kinds of modern designs in polymer clay from CreaShines (http://CreaShines.etsy.com)
 
Pippa’s work is really amazing. She uses polymer clay and can imitate other materials and create intricate designs, all with one simple ingredient and her imagination and skill. I want to have a custom order made, but there’s so much to choose from, I haven’t yet decided what I want!
 
Who are you and where do you come from?
My name is Pippa and I live in a beautiful little village not far from Bath in Wiltshire. I am a Mum to my two Children, Katie who is 12 and Logan who is 6.
What do you do in your spare time other than craft?
I don’t have any spare time! Every spare minute is taken up with making beads and jewellery! It makes for a busy life, but I love it! I do set aside time for the Children though, Sundays are our Family Days when we go out for walks or to the park or just stay in and play endless games of Frustration! I am very lucky to have a near perfect Husband who supports me so much and will do the washing or ironing and cooking when I am at Craft Fairs or working. I couldn’t do what I am doing without him, he is truely one in a million.
Please tell us a little bit about what you make.
I make Polymer Clay Beads which I then use in my own Jewellery Designs. I only use my own beads, which gives me great scope for design. I use seed beads and crystal for accent, but that is all.
What do you enjoy making most?
There are so many techniques you can use with polymer clay from Kaleidoscope Caning, to Mokume Gane to Mica Shift, that it is hard to chose a favourite. I do love Mica Shift because it gives such lovely results – it looks 3D but is actually only 2D – almost like a hologram!
Kaleidoscope Caning is also a great favourite. Polymer Clay Artists all over the world are pushing the limits of this fantastic medium and are creating the most wonderful things with it. It seems to me that there is no limit to what you can do with it. I also love doing Swirl beads – they are really addictive!
What part of jewellery making do you dislike the most?
I really hate sanding! I sand every bead with 4 different grits of sandpaper – it can take forever, but it is well worth it for the results!
What are your main inspirations for making a piece?
I find inspiration all over the place. Nature, of course, especially leaves – I love leaves! My daughter is great at coming up with unusual ideas, probably because she never thinks “oh you can’t put that with that, or that colour with that colour”, she just says what comes into her head like ” I think you should make something in Purple with some orange and green highlights” I would never come up with that, but often she is right and the results are fantastic!
Do you plan out your designs or do you get stuck in straight away when inspiration strikes?
Sometimes I plan, but not often! I find when I plan something to much it will not turn out the way I want it to. The clay has it’s own ideas about what it wants to do and sometimes you just have to let it! Often I will just sit at my desk and look at the colours of the clay and just start playing – some of my best pieces have come about that way!
What are you currently making?
I am making lots and lots of stock for all the craft fairs I have coming up before Christmas as well as several commissions. I have also got involved with some Secret Santas and Ornament Swaps online.
Do you make custom orders?
Yes I love making custom orders. That is the joy of making your own beads. I can match colours for outfits such as Mother of the Bride or Bridesmaids, or for a special dress. It is wonderful for the customer to be able to design their own piece too. I can advise on what will work technically speaking, but they can design the colour, pattern, shape and size of the beads we use in their necklace. That is a really empowering thing! I get great ideas from these collaborations too, things I might never have thought of.
Where can we buy your work?
I am a Member of the Craftsmans Market in Cirencester. This is a Craft Market that has been running for nearly 30 years and has some amazing Artists who show their work there, everything from Mosiacs, glass, pottery, textiles, ceramics, furniture to jewellery. It was nerve racking applying to become a member, because I was not sure my work would be good enough, but was thrilled to be accepted. I am also a member of the Cotswold Craft Market, also in Cirencester, which is another fantastic Craft Market. These two markets are open on consequtive Saturdays each month. So I do every Saturday! It is quite a challenge having to make enough stock, but it does keep me on my toes! I also have a shop on Etsy (http://pipsjewellery.etsy.com), although there is very little in it because of time constraints – I just don’t have enough time!!
See more of Pippa’s work on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pipsjewellery/
I am taking part in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month), so I will be blogging every day in November. Today is post 29: http://www.nablopomo.com/
People who can use polymer clay and actually come out with a sellable product astound me. I have tried and tried, and clay is just not for me. I loved Fimo as a kid and have only been able to create childish blobs with the stuff. These sellers really inspire me, they take clay and make it into art. I really wish I had the talent that they have!
I am taking part in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month), so I will be blogging every day in November. Today is post 17: http://www.nablopomo.com/
 
Boo’s work is exceptionally well crafted and combines various different skills from start to finish to produce work that is distinctive, classic as well as novel. The care and time taken over every process from making the jewellery down to the minute detail, to taking the photographs and describing her work is amazing.
 
Who are you?
Boo. Just Boo. That’s not the name my parents gave me of course and my mother heartily disapproves of me using it, but my profession makes it necessary. I’m a woman of a certain age, married for 26 years, with a 21 year old hairy beast of a son away at university.
What do you do in your spare time other than craft?
Spare time . . . spare time . . . nope, don’t know what that is. If I had any, I’d spend it looking at trees in the Lake District, or mooching about with my camera trying to locate the treecreeper or wren I could hear. Photography has been my other passion for most of my life and combining that with being out in the fresh air, preferably near water and trees, would be my ideal way to spend time. I love photographing wildlife, but wish I were both better at it and could afford the equipment to do it justice.
Please tell us a little bit about what you make.
I hand craft jewellery – not fine precious pieces, but modestly priced everyday jewellery. I don’t have a particular style or niche – I have way too many ideas circulating in my head waiting to be given life, to pin my work down to one genre. But I like working with glass, crystal and semi-precious beads – wire wrapped predominantly, I rarely string beads. I like working with polymer clay too – you can soon lose several days absorbed in that work, once it takes hold. I love taking raw metal and bashing it into something too.
What do you enjoy making most?
I like forming things from scratch in copper and silver especially. Once you start applying pressure and heat to raw materials – rather like in my son’s field of geology, that’s when it gets really interesting.
I love the whole process of taking a length of heavy gauge wire and making it into something to wear – giving it a shape, then texture, maybe some adornment with stones, then finally choosing the colour – I love oxidising, then polishing it back to bring out texture – I call that antiquing – it takes raw materials and makes them look more finished.
What part of jewellery making do you dislike the most?
Without any hesitation; photographing items, measuring them, writing descriptive text and putting them on my various on-line selling outlets. It’s tedious beyond words. Considering how much I love photography, I actually hate photographing items and working on the photos. It seems to take a disproportionately long time and never feels like a very good use of my time. But it’s a necessary evil.
What are your main inspirations for making a piece?
Just things around me. A shape will catch my eye, colour combinations. Two bottles of shower gel in the bathroom yesterday were catching the light and the colours were gorgeous together – one was purple and I’d had some lovely dark amethyst beads arrive this week, so I searched out something in the other colour to put them together.
The natural world is always an inspiration – it should be to everyone – and being outdoors is very important to me. Mother nature is the ultimate designer – nothing we can do can improve on her work, so I let her lead by example. Doing some gardening a few days ago and clearing leaves, I loved the colours and textures, so I mixed some gold and copper metallic polymer clay, rolled it into thin sheets and took imprints of some of the leaves.
Do you plan out your designs or do you get stuck in straight away when inspiration strikes?
I rarely plan things – the ideas just come out and I work them immediately – or if I can’t, I keep a little notebook with me and sketch them down to work later.
Sometimes I have an idea that needs some thought to make it work physically – I might start with a doodle – every sheet of paper around my computer is covered in squiggled shapes as I try and hone a wrap shape – or work out how to form a particular shape from one piece of wire etc. Sometimes I pick up scrap materials and work it out physically – and sometimes just making a piece shows up the flaw in my design and that ‘prototype’ makes way for an improved version.
What are you currently making?
I always have many pieces in various stages of completion in progress. Some work needs appropriate light in a place, being able to work outdoors (oxidising), or hammering sounds, which may not be good later in the day. So I have a multitude of things on the go – some of which are easy to pick up for a few minutes waiting for a pan to boil and others don’t need much space and I can work at the table with my after dinner coffee. So I always have many assorted pieces in progress.
I almost always have some chainmaille in progress – I need very little space to work and only 2 pairs of pliers, so that’s what I turn to when I have a few minutes to kill or even when on the move. I often take a case with some materials and my tools with me.
Do you make custom orders?
Yes, indeed. At present, it accounts for about half of my sales. Certainly last year, before I got my web site better organised and settled on a cart format, I only really had photos of completed work on-line, so most sales were private commissions and even now, many pieces sell with some modification.
People might like one design, but the colour/stone of another, so ask for their own variant. With pieces that are easily repeatable, I note it in the product description – I’d hate to lose a sale because people didn’t realise how easily something could be made for them. Some customers really like the idea that they can have just what they want made. It’s an important marketing approach for me.
Even at craft fairs, where it is possible and I have stock to hand, I can make pieces to order. There hasn’t been a fair yet where I didn’t make something new for a customer.
Where can we buy your work?
My own web site is http://www.boo-jewellery.co.uk/ and I also have shops on Etsy and Folksy; http://www.boojewels.etsy.com/ and http://www.boojewels.folksy.com/ I also attend craft fairs and markets periodically.
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