After a weekend of searching beaches for glass I now have the fun task of turning it all into pretty things. My drill has broken so a lot of my plans will have to wait but I can do other stuff, like wrap them in pretty wire. It’s so nice to have gathered the glass ourselves and sorted through it to find the prettiest pieces. We are off to Devon and Dorset next weekend to look for more (and visit my parents) so this won’t be the last of it you’ll see.

Daz and I went to the beach at Portishead today. I’ve never been looking for sea glass before and wasn’t expecting to find much but we were overwhelmed! Daz gathered 1.6lbs of glass before he went off with his camera and I found 2.8lbs of it! I was probably only looking for about 40 minutes! Now we’ve got to wash it, sort it and turn it into pretty jewellery

The last couple of weeks have been a bit stressful; a funeral, ill health, a few unsuccessful markets (due to lack of people there) and university issues left me feeling uninspired and fed up. Now things are looking up, I’m inspired again and getting back to work. I think it happens to all creative people every now and then, the ideas don’t flow and nothing seems to work. When that happens I think it’s best to take a step back, get on with something else and then when you go back to it, everything is ok again.

This bracelet is based on the first lesson I ever had at Shiney Rocks. I added my own personal touch with lots of swirls and spirals and a different catch. I love learning new things and then taking them a step further with my own personal touch to make it in my own unique style.

I’m really enjoying random, messy and tangled wire at the moment. I do however find it a lot harder than things with precise parts, set together in a certain way. Creating something to look random and unique is a lot harder than it looks. I had a few attempts at this before I was happy with it. I strung this crazy coiled and spiralled pendant on copper spirally links instead of plain chain as I thought it complimented the pendant more.

When I first saw these teeny tiny bottles I knew I had to do something with them!
From the bottom of the bottle to the top of the cork, these mini bottles are only 4cm. So far I’ve just put some crystals in one and some Shakespeare in other. Need to come up with some other cool ideas. I might try a Alice in Wonderland style ‘Drink Me’ labels for them.

I’ve been experimenting today, again!

I have wanted to try working with steel wire for a while and I finally got round to ordering some. It arrived in the post at the end of last week but I’ve been too busy to do anything till now. I want to experiment with mixing different metals and as much as I would like to include silver in that, the costs are just to high. Steel is as affordable as copper so I can make things without sending the prices sky high. I love how the different tones look together. I’m also working on methods to age brass so I can include that in my designs too.

I’ve been super busy making theses over the past couple of days. They are so fun to make and they seem to take on a life of their own as I coil and twist the wire around them.

They’re all listed in my Shop.

I’ve always loved the steampunk style and thought it was about time to have a go at making something in that style. This is the first time I’ve tried making matching items. I’m not sure I’ll have a go at earrings in this style as they would be so heavy they’d probably give you long ears after wearing them for a day!

I thought it was about time that I started making some earrings. I’ve put it off as a, I don’t wear them myself so I don’t really know what works or not, and b, making two things exactly the same is quite a challenge! With some of these I have combined my usual copper with a coated copper wire that is ‘Gun Metal’ colour. I like how they look together!
One thing I realised when photographing these is that I need to get an iron for my backgrounds before I photo them to list them in my shop! I melted my last iron and that was ages ago, I don’t really iron anything I wear, just shake the creases out!

I am so happy with how these have turned out. They’re made from copper wire and resin. There are quite a few stages to the making process but it was totally worth it! I’ve listed a few in my shop http://www.artfire.com/users/starpixie.

After a post all copper pendants I thought I would follow with just a hint of colour. As some of you may already have noticed, turquoise and greeny colours are my favourite to use with copper. They just work so well together and make a great addition to a wire piece.