The Craft Room
It started with just a few containers of beads. Then it was a bead corner in the living room of our old apartment, then a bead wall, then a bead ROOM! Now I have a fully functional and well organized (sometimes) craft room! I had been wanting a peg board organizing system for awhile, as I had seen several really cool ones on Pinterest. With a little bit of inspiration, and whole lot of determination, I built my own pegboard display! I spray painted the board white and the trim an ocean blue, glued on the backing wood support (also to keep the board away from the wall to keep space for the pegs to insert), screwed it to the wall (straight and on my own, mind you), then used mounting tape to secure the frame to the board. That way, if I want to repaint the frame or board all I have to do is pull the frame off and unscrew the board from the wall. It was quite the project and I'm very proud of how it turned out! I also purchased pizza racks from an online kitchen store and used them as racks for my bead containers. Works perfectly!
Putting a Patina on Copper Wire
Metals come in all sorts of colors, and it's natural for them to be shiny, dull, dark, or light, depending on the metal and the elements it's been exposed to. There's quite a bit more work that goes into a piece of jewelry if the wire or metal piece is not the color I want it to be. That is where "patina" comes in. It's the ability to change or "age" metal to a darker color. I prefer copper to be a dark chocolate color and these photos were taken by my wonderful hubby on my very first "patina" attempt!
Clay Art Sheets
I learned this technique from Cindy Lietz, a polymer clay artist and teacher whom I learn from on a daily basis. I won't spill any secrets, but I will say that it's a multi-step process! Here is a picture of what it looks like in process - the neat thing about this is that in both the before and after photos, there were no new colors or anything added to the clay! How did I do that? It's our secret!
Making Resin Pendants & Bracelets
Using resin to create pendants is something that I was into quite a bit during 2012. It's very versatile because I can use pre-made molds, make my own, and use images from online to include in the pendants. It's been very fun as I have been able to create music themed pendants using images found online. There's very much a "correct" technique to using resin, and I'm learning quite a lot along the way (i.e. wear gloves - I learned that during the photos taken below)! I have moved away from using the two-part epoxy resin for now, and will soon be using a UV resin. UV resins cure with sunlight or a UV light, and are much harder and shinier than some two-part epoxy resins. I will mostly be using the UV resin to create a glass-like finish on polymer clay pieces. To see larger images, please click on the photos below.
Photo Editing
When I first started making jewelry, I just took simple photos of my pieces. Once I learned how you have to photograph them to sell them on a place like Etsy (and then soon my own website, which is not active at the moment), I was a little overwhelmed. Props, setup, lighting, focus, editing - I had no idea. So I started from scratch and worked my way up. I built a light box out of cardboard and old white "flour sack" dish towels. I got lamps to position in place for lighting, and a tripod to keep the camera still. The photos starting looking better, but there was one major thing missing. They didn't "pop". Then I learned of a free downloadable software called GIMP, and made my way through the big learning curve. Below are examples of raw and edited photos to show how much change takes place after I've spent some time with it in GIMP. The goal is always to get them as true-to-life as possible. In the near future, however, I hopefully will be getting a better and more versatile photographing system (portable and durable light box), which will aide quite a bit in getting great photos right from the start. I have also found that I use less props now-a-days. I like the props, but I also like using my time efficiently. Sometimes it takes longer to get a prop figured out so I've been leaving them out altogether lately. Click on the photos to see a larger size.
The Original Sign & Ever-Changing Displays
My display changes at almost every show. Sometimes I'm allowed a larger space, sometimes a smaller one. Adapting to that can be a challenge but like everything else, I keep learning what works and what doesn't! Click on photos for enlargement.
The New Display: 20.0
I've mentioned the name Cindy Lietz before, in regards to clay techniques, and I have to credit her one more time as being the inspiration behind what I believe will be the display style that sticks around. In one of her tutorial videos, she was explaining that she had to switch up one of her plans and said "you just have to learn how to improvise with what you have". I was immediately struck by that, as I'm someone who wants all the latest tools and fun gadgets. I took her advice and decided to make a display using as much as possible of what I already had on hand. Using my McGyver-like skills, I got to work! Click on the photos below to see how I started the process, what I upcycled, and what I found for free (I love things that are free!).