Tomato? Or Triffid?

I am a bit rubbish with plants. Tis a fact. Since moving into the flat at the end of January, I've killed three mint plants. Three! Yes, dear readers, I am a mint murderer.

Also, I have watched the depressing demise of two rosemary plants and two basils. To be fair, the second basil was doing really really well, like a smally basily bush, until it was infested by some small and horrid beasties. I really can't be blamed for beasties, can I?

Anyway, it was with some trepidation that I purchased a baby tomato plant, but six inches high. I lovingly repotted it, sat back and waited for it to die. But no! A miracle! It grew! And then grew some more. And kept growing and growing. My mother instructed me to stop it growing by pinching off the top when it got to a certain height, but giddy with excitement that I had finally made a plant happy and could now one day progress to a kitten, I couldn't quite bring myself to squash its ambition.

And now it looks like this...

I have now tried to pinch off the top so it doesn't grow any more, but it is waving rude gestures in my direction and sprouting new bits all over the place.

If you don't hear from me again, the tomato plant has probably eaten us and it shall be known that mum was right...

Flight of the (Marzipan) Bumblebee

Okay, so I haven't quite been chained to my workbench finishing off my shiny weather, as the small matter of the London Rollergirls season championship bout rather got in the way. I miss roller derby terribly, and it was really lovely to see everyone. Such a close and exciting game!

Obviously, being a former rollergirl, it would have been very bad form to show up without cupcakes, so I made some in league colours with my exciting new patterned icing embossy thing.

I have to say, I wasn't expecting it work at all, but I think they look rather good actually.

And look at these:

I found a super-fun icing attachment that makes the icing look like grass! Brilliant! Then I made some bumble bees to go on top of the cupcakes out of marzipan and flower paste. How cute are they?

Sadly, I had some of the little guys left over, bereft of a small cake to perch atop. I couldn't quite bring myself to eat them, due to their smiley little faces, but the boy had no such qualms and I believe has now munched through the lot. Poor little bees.


So, after my small diversion into confectionary , I'm back off to the workshop now.

A Small Pile of Weather

Shiny weather! Well, alright, it's not at all shiny just yet, this is what it comes back from the caster looking like:

Soon, it shall be turned into shiny silver cloud necklaces and earrings and sunshine necklaces too.

I get all excited when I collect castings - the two lovely guys who do my casting think I'm a teeny little bit mental. But I was especially excited to see how the sunshine turned out, as it was an absolute bugger to sprue and mould.

I shall now be chained to my workbench until they're finished.

I Has a Cuckoo Clock...

I love cuckoo clocks. I have been coveting one for quite some time and when I saw this lovely walnut timepiece of awesomeness by Diamantini & Domeniconi I knew it must be mine. It's possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen and therefore perfect!

See? It has antlers and everything! And a swingy pendulum thing at the bottom. And it does match the furniture...

Sadly, I had to admire from afar for a while, as it was very, very expensive, but I finally tracked it down for cheap(er) in a furniture store in Islington. And now it is mine :)

Now the boy usually does a fairly good job of moderating my more bonkers ideas, but in this case all I can say is HA! FAIL!!! He actually quite likes the clock, and has complained that over time I have somewhat skewed his idea of ridiculousness. This can only be a good thing, no...?

I have also sneakily purchased some skull fabric, with which I shall be making a pouffe. Watch out for another of my inexpert experiments in making stuff soon.

New Shiny Project - Gothic/Baroque Initial Pendants

This is one of the new, entirely non-roller derby related projects I have been working on over the past couple of months.

I had been wanting an initial charm for my bracelet, which now makes a lovely jingly noise when I type, but could only find very boring fonts, machine stamped out of really thin sheet (which looks a bit rubbish to be honest, and the edges are all sharp and unfinished). Aha! I thought, I shall make something more chunky. Picked three of my favourite fonts and set about doing A, B, and C out of each. I cut them out of just under 2mm thick sheet, which makes them nice and solid. I think they turned out really well - just need to build a page for them on the website now...

First, a lovely tattoo style Baroque font:

Then, a kind of cute, curvy goth font

And finally, a kind of Tim Burton/Nightmare Before Christmas inspired gothic font. Although the C also looks kind of Olde English style.

I'm also working on something else which I'm very excited about and which makes me smile every time I think about it. More soon...

EDIT 15/5/11: You can now see all of the different letters and purchase initial necklaces here on my website. I also take commissions for Gothic/Olde English style name necklaces, just send me an email to hello@laurengrace.co.uk to have a chat about what you would like.

Spiky Shiny Things

I was having a rummage through my jewellery box before doing a photshoot last weekend and came across some rings I made at college. It appears that my obsession with making things very pointy started a while ago...

I seem to recall having vague notions of making a whole set of claw rings, one for each finger, but never quite got around to it.

Another little obsession I had at college for a while was drilling holes in things:


And a couple of little composite shots of the set:


I still need an image for the front page of my website, but I don't think any of these are it. Maybe my new and exciting project will give me something amazing...

New Roller Derby Charm

It may appear from my last couple of posts that I've not been terribly constructive on the shiny things front. Not so! I've been working really hard, honest I have, I've just been a bit rubbish recently about blogging work in progress.

I've had a few friends ask recently if I'd make them plain roller derby helmet charm, so it can be engraved with skate names and/or numbers, and I've finally made one and had it cast.

I am hoping to take a class on acid etching soon, so that I can sort out the names and numbers myself. Scary chemicals - eek!

Whilst I had the camera out, I figured I'd also do some better pictures of my little pivot helmet, as I was never entirely happy with those.


Also, I had a play with doing a little helmet composition shot - thought it might work on a business card perhaps...?

I also have some super-exciting non-roller derby related jewellery in progress right now - pictures soon...