A room of my own

Finally . . .

I have somewhere to work now we have moved.

Only problem is I find myself taking up one little corner just as I was in my brother's kitchen. I guess it will take me a while to make it my own space.

The cats have no problem, what was going to be my photography area near the window has already been designated a cat viewing platform and being that we are in the back bedroom it's a perfect tree height for watching the comings and goings of the neighbours and birds flying by. Not to mention catching a few rays of morning sunlight.


As well as the cats I have to have some of TS's books and a few boxes we still have to get round to unpacking 


All I have to do now is get making :) Now that is the tricky bit

Light and shade

Vintage czech glass drop with fossil jasper beads

Polymer clay beads with "catseye" glass and copper coils

Between the etching . . . . yes more coiling copper. The first necklace, unusually for me, is designed around something I bought, the czech glass drop, I just had to have them they looked so gothy and mysterious. Is it a poison bottle or a scrying crystal? Feminine and a bit on the dark side I think. In another departure this is longer hangs about mid chest.










And the blue well its brighter kind of an Aegean skies and seas feel to bring out the inner Greek goddess.

Tit for tat

etched copper earrings £10

Cos when I post to my other blog it always reminds me of this one.

The etching experiments are going on (still) but starting to produce things I want to use.

These earrings were electro-etched (is that a word?) using nail polish as a resist. I like the way it allows the etching to spread I'm sure there is a word for that too rather than perfect protection and crisp lines.

It gives them the look of something ancient I think

A bit like a coiled spring

polymer clay copper coils and glass cats eyes £35

Yes I know it's been a while I'm still experimenting you see on and off.

In the off I went back to my neverending obsession with the copper coils and combined them with random wool type polymer beads for these versions of my Spring Green necklace without the green.

Then riffed a bit on the coil theme to make some earring dangles than turned into charms for a coil bracelet.

Oh and I got the book the bracelet is sitting on as a freebie from Making Jewellery Magazine which was nice.

The experiments in electroforming have a long way to go yet

I'm melting warts n all

saltwater etch 1

enamel attempt 1

 While I wait for the scrapings from my fridge to melt to give me an approximation of distilled water for this week's round of experiments I thought I'd share last weeks with you.

First of all I need to credit The Steampunk Workshop for the excellent technical info on how to do the etching. So above is the first piece of my bracelet to be after a few hours of etching. I used the press n peel circuit board paper as a resist for the design and on the back some metal laquer that I had lying about. In typical Breezy fashion the etch is not really deep enough for what I had in mind but I was desperate to get on with it. The result being the rather crap bit of enamelling you see here where I wasn't able to build it up to get a nice finish without going over the lines (am I being too technical?). BUT I learnt some useful stuff along the way which is what it's all about (life lessons now get me). The first thing being leave the black stuff on when you've finished it's far easier to see to cut round than copper on copper.

So . . . second verse

I went too far

 A bit of carelessness with the laquer on the back. Combined with a bit of an afternoon nap. And . . .  just a tad on the deep side in places.

Lets hope for third time lucky folks

Electric Dreams

I don't like to do things by halves so the saltwater etching & enamelling has now developed into a saltwater etching, enamelling and electroforming project.

I'm creating marvellous stuff in my head so can't wait till all my supplies arrive and I can set up my kitchen laboratory.

Peapod Earrings

Meanwhile have this picture of something I made earlier that has absolutely nothing to do with any of the above.

Other than the fact that they are enamel on copper (damn! should have picked out a polymer clay picture).

New Skills

Doodly Fishes

Ages ago I got CorelDraw but never really got round to learning how to use it but, inspired by the gallery on Grains of Glass, I've decided to try my hand at etching some pieces and enamelling them.

I went on the browse looking at various techniques and decided on press and peel paper as a resist with saltwater etching (which I've done before but with not very permanent permanent marker as a resist) .

So . . . I needed some images to print and because I like to use my own  stuff I thought I'd better learn to make my own images.

I've done a lot of scribbling so far and tried to familiarise myself with the various tools and got a bit captivated by the calligraphy pen. I don't think my little shoal of fishes will work out well for enamelling but I do like their smiley faces.