Maybe-wearable art :)

I showed once my chainmail experiment here, but never showed how I finished it. Well, here it is. This is not an every-day piece of jewellery by no means. I am not even sure that it is wearable! :) Nevertheless, it is finished and it is for sale at my etsy shop :)

 

Canadian maple leaf that reminds me of Russia

 

 

I have stayed in Russia for a few month with my mother a few years ago (those months will always be in my heart). My life was quiet and rather lazy, I should admit. I really did not have much to do. Lots of time to think of jewellery and come up with some new designs. Lots of sketching and drawing... Visiting my old University friend, who stayed at home with her new baby at that time... This maple leaf design was her idea. I liked it... and created it when I went back to Canada (did not have any tools in Russia). This maple leaf will always remind me of Russia, my happy months I spent there with my mom and my friend Lena.

 

The leaf is not OOAK, I made a mould and can cast it. So, I do not mind selling as many as there are people there who would like to have it :) In fact, this one is for sale at my etsy shop right now :)

 



Mystery of the Night Forest

I have found this in my drafts! I guess, I have not published it yet... I made it more than a year ago... Wow, I really forgot about this necklace!

Sunday started as a nice day today!

 

In addition to our regular Sunday breakfast my husband made these 8 croissants! (Yes, I know it is only 5 in the picture :)

Sentimental value of my creations

Some time ago I wondered if I would ever make jewellery with sentimental value... a story behind it... Now I can tell a story about almost any piece of jewellery that I make. These earrings, for example, have those little faceted green chalcedony beads. I am looking at them and recalling the day I bought them in Russia... They told me it was apatite :) I did not believe them and estimated the price for the enhanced chalcedony. The price was right, the colour was gorgeous... I bought them :)

 

The crystal glass in the picture has a sentimental value too. I remember how we bought them with my mother. Many years after I brought them to Canada with me in a purse... all six of them... I was very careful :)

 

The glass does not come with the earrings, by the way :)

DIY - Glass Bead

I was looking for these artists from the Twin Vision studio to put their work into my Virtual Wish List (they made fantastic glass installations as well as interesting face beads)... but I've come across this tutorial for beadmaking and moldmaking on their web-site.

This is not a usual tutorial to find in Internet! Once I participated in a process of making something like this. It would not be hard for me to do this again, if I needed... except for the equipment, of course. I would need to find an actual glass artist's studio for glass melting. Honestly, I do not see that happening any time soon :)

I've met the sisters artists at one local bead-show. Maybe next show (or next after the next one:) I will buy one of their glass face beads. They are very unique and very beautifully done! 

My butterfly pendant has been on the front page of Etsy today!

The picture is courtesy  of its curator Irina Shevchenko.

 

Queen of the Day

 

I am happy that this necklace has found a customer. Many liked it... As always, when many people say compliments, I am not sure if they are true, until somebody buys a piece of jewellery that was getting all those compliments... This is a nature of any designer :) We all are like that! :)

 

This is my last project in cooperation with Irina Astratenko. Well... the last that I have, anyway. For now I won't be making anymore, unless there is a custom order... The necklaces were experimental. The experiment was successful. However, they are very unique... all handmade... they need to be appreciated by the cost that comes with high quality handmade work...

 

For now I feel that I need to move on and come up with new ideas! :)

Etsy Finds. Paintings on the stones

I would like to introduce you to an art that is getting very popular in Russia right now. I see more and more talented artist starting doing the paintings on the stones for the jewellery. It is not something too new, but relatively new in Internet.

 

The author of this work is Elena Mitrofanova, who is... to think about it... the first artist I've met in an international online market.

 

This kind of work is usually in a high demand in Russia. I can only wish Elena good luck on Etsy too!

Queen of the Night

The collar for this necklace has been in my possession for a long time... I really could not decide what to do with it! I am still not sure if this design was the best I could do for it. For my luck the crystals (Swarovski crystals) had just perfect size to fit into the open spaces of the squares.

The collar is made by Irina Astratenko, the tatting and ANKARS artist. When she showed the collar to me, I knew it could be a base for something absolutely fabulous. Now I just needed to make it happen. I felt a great deal of responsibility!  

The first idea was to get Russian synthetic diamonds. It would be a lot more work to set the stones in silver. The necklace could become even more fantastic than right now, but... it would be against my idea to make something affordable, something that would be good for a fancy and fun night out, and not just fancy one.

The big Swarovski is set into a black Japanese glass seed beads bezel with more Swarovski crystals around it. The seed beads allowed me to transfer the lacy look from the collar onto the big drop and "marry" them together.

The black Swarovski crystal on the back is set into sterling silver. It can be white (if a buyer wishes so), but I personally felt that it needed to be black.

The necklace is available at the Just Jewellery gallery at the moment.