I Made a Bee!

So, I’ve been meaning to have a go at wax carving for ages, but have instead been doing that procrastination thing that I do, as my one experience of wax carving at college forever ago did not go terribly well. I made a squiggle. It wasn’t even a very good squiggle.

Anyway, the UKJC forum that I belong to were having another charm swap so I figured that was the perfect excuse to try out a new technique. The theme of the swap was summer, which always makes me think of hanging out in my grandmother’s garden by the sea as a child, the smell of lavender and big fluffy bumble bees buzzing around. I figured a bee is a lot like a little fluffy ball and therefore a fairly simple shape to carve for my first project. Also, bees are awesome.

See?

And is this not the cutest bee ever? It looks all asleep, bless (original photograph here).

I wanted my little bee to be obviously bee-like, but also kind of cartoony and cute rather than anatomically correct. Not entirely sure anatomically is the right word to use for bugs... Whatever.

Anyway, one of my favourite fabrics, Chloe's Imagination by Tina Givens, has lovely bees on it, so I wanted my bee to look kind of like this:

I actually made a little hat out of this fabric ages ago:


I also like the bee that lives on Patron Tequilla bottles, so wanted to make a silver version inspired by these:

So, I got me a block of wax and excavated the set of wax carving tools that I optimistically purchased a year or so ago from the depths of my toolbox. Then drew a bee. Then stared at the little wax block for a while. Unfortunately, my brain does not work well in 3D. I see the picture of the bee, I see the bee in my head as a little fluffy ball, but I have no idea how to make one become the other.

Eventually I gave myself a good talking to and just got on with it.

I started off by hacking off bits of wax until it was vaguely bee shaped:

I left the bee drawing on the wax and started removing wax from the underside. When deciding that the bee was simply a fluffy ball and therefore easy to carve, I somehow neglected to take into account the wings. Oops.

I got a bit absorbed in the carving (and developed several blisters on my fingers from the carving tools) so forgot to take any pictures of the inbetween stages, but here I've started work on the top of the bee, shaping the body more and trying to make my poor little brain deal with the wing element.

Starting to add the stripes and wing detail here:

Then adding texture to the body to try and make it appear a bit fluffy:

The wings were the last thing to finish, as they were the most delicate bit - was so scared I was going to snap them and ruin a whole weekend's work...

And we're done!

Off to the caster to have the wax turned into silver, and here's my little bee:

I love her little face and big googly eyes :)

Didn't have time to take many pictures, as it was late and I failed to notice I had my ISO level set to, like, 6400 or something ridiculous, so the pictures weren't coming out well. I'll take some more when I get more little bees cast from my mould.

Lovely Customers

I find it very difficult to let my shiny things go once I’ve made them. I spend hours cutting, carving, sanding, polishing, only to package up my glittery little creations and send them out into the big wide world, to be owned by other people.

So, it’s brilliant when you get an email from a customer saying that they’ve received a shiny thing from you and telling you how much they love it :)

I came into work on a dark and rainy Friday morning to find a lovely email from a customer in America telling me how happy he was with the little silver moustache charm he had ordered from me. It brightened by day rather a lot. He even sent me a picture of himself wearing it and kindly gave me permission to use it here.

Meet Scott:

Awesome moustache, I think you’ll agree.

Scott makes some rather nice pictures, also occasionally featuring moustaches, which can be seen here:

http://www.scottwrightart.com

In other news, I sold a silver cloud necklace and have a commission for a new name necklace, which I really like doing, so all is currently good in the world of shiny things. Which is nice.

Models!

One of the questions I am most commonly asked by visitors to my website is "...but do you have any pictures of it being worn..?" This is definitely something I need to work on for my site.

A few weeks ago, a friend I skate with at rec league asked if anyone was interested in helping out at a photoshoot for a very cool book she's doing on roller derby fashion. I offered my services as photography assistant in the hope that I could (a) learn some stuff about photography and (b) sneak my jewellery into some shots.

And here are the results:

I think they turned out really well. The jewellery isn't super-clear, as necklaces have a tendancy to move around a bit, but you definitely get the idea of what the jewellery looks like on, right?

Many thanks to Ellen for letting me hijack her shoot, to http://www.dannybournephotography.co.uk/ for the pictures and the patience, and to my gorgeous rollergirl models, Anna, Danelle and Erin.

A Week of Cats and Cake

I have, as ever, been just a little bit rushed off my feet recently. People are buying my jewellery, which is lovely, and I very much wish I had more time to make new shiny things.

Rather excitingly, I sold some non-roller derby things too.

A little cloud necklace:

And a tiny moustache charm, to a lovely artist.

Helpfully, it turns out that I am no longer invisible to Google, hurrah! When I built my website, I used a flash based program, which looks very pretty and all, but is picture based and has no text for Google’s little spiders to crawl. Aha, I thought! I shall be clever and put titles in white text against my white background so Google has something to find, but so they don’t show up and ruin my pretty pages. Have since discovered, however, that Google frowns upon such things, considering them sneaky and suspicious, and therefore ignores the websites.

So, I spent ages going through my website, removing all my secret headings and using something called Alt-tags to create a text version of my title pictures and everything else. And, it worked! I’m now getting a regular stream of hits on my website with a whole range of search terms. Oddly, my most popular is “Essex necklace”, closely followed by “moustache jewellery”.

I’ve had loads of requests recently to sell the silver AFI necklaces I’ve blogged about previously, but have turned them all down, as the artwork belongs to the band, and not to me.

I’ve also had a few requests for commissions, but nothing that’s been finalised as yet. Fingers crossed for something fun...

Anyway, back to the title of this post, I’ve been away at home for a few days. It was really nice to see my family and have a bit of a rest. And cake. I did eat an awful lot of cake. Also got to visit my godmother, June, whom I’ve not seen in forever, and her beautiful Birman cat – check her out:

And here’s my mum’s gorgeous but grumpy little kitty, Pudding:

I was a little bit naughty when I was at home and bought a new camera. “Another one?!” I hear you cry... Yes, I know I only bought one last year, but that one was purchased on rather a whim and didn’t really do what I wanted it to for the jewellery photography, so I’ve now bought a lovely SLR, which is what I should have got in the first place! Went for a Canon EOS 550d. Had a bit of a play with it just in point and shoot mode and here’s some of the results. Nice, no?

Now, I just need to learn how to use it properly. Have ordered a book, which was recommended by a proper photographer and everything.

Right, enough of my wittering. Off to poke bits of metal with sharp things now.

Oooh, A Feature...

So, the lovely Jayne from Guilded Gems has done a little feature on my shiny weather. Exciting, no?

Check it out here: http://www.guildedgems.co.uk/index.php/news/25-jewellery-trends/64-april-showers

In other news, I completely failed to attend the Liberty Open Call, as I hadn't finished any of the new shiny things I wanted to, hadn't gotten my hallmarking sorted, and hadn't even thought about my presentation. Which was rubbish. But... they are doing another one in August, hurrah! Which I absolutely WILL be ready for.

Commissions, Cupcakes and Cuba

I've not had a chance to post for a while, due to being crazy busy in the couple of weeks leading up to my lovely holiday in the sun (more of which later).

Had a nice commission from the husband of a rollergirl for one of my winged skate necklaces, customised with her skate number. I've not had much of a chance to saw things from silver sheet with tiny blades for a while, so creating the little 9 made me happy.

Didn't have time to take proper pictures, but took a couple of (slighly blurry) snaps.

Also, I've not made any cupcakes for ages, so created some vaguely royal wedding themed ones in red, white and blue and took them into work. The boy came home as I was merrily pottering around the kitchen with icing and glitter and commented that I'm always so happy when I'm creating things. Usually a mess!

Anyway, here they are:

Had a bit of a horrid last day at work trying to get everything finished before going on holiday and ended up in the office until gone 8pm! Boooooo. But a lovely time in the glorious Cuban sunshine perked me up no end. We spent a few days in Havana, which was beautiful, fascinating and chaotic in equal measures, then on to Varadero for a few more days on the most gorgeous beach. Think I finally relaxed and slept properly for the first time in about two years!

I took a ton of photographs, but I don't want to bore you all rigid with my holiday snaps, so here's just a couple of my favourites:


Now, back to reality and back to the workbench. Many shiny things need finishing before the Liberty open call in August.

I Has a Website...

I have FINALLY finished my website, hurrah!!! Well, when I say finished, it's as complete as it's going to get till I finish the shiny things currently skulking grumpily on my workbench.

And here it is:

Pretty, isn't it? Although, knowing nothing about web design, I did make it full of lovely pictures, and consequently it is a little slow to load, so please be patient with it.

You can find it at http://www.laurengrace.co.uk/

Oooh, and I also made a facebook page - see?

I have fans and everything. Come and like my page at http://www.facebook.com/laurengracejewellery and then I can have more :)