Homemade Jewelry 2014 part 1

The last few days I have dived into my pearl and bead storage. Many I have bought myself and many are sent to me from LS. A few are picked up on my travels, in Bologna, Italy, in NY, USA and on local markets in Sweden and other countries. (I have some black Icelandic lava from the past summer trip, but it has not revealed itself yet, I don't know what I will make out of it.)

So, beads are made of clay/ceramics, shell, plastic, acrylic, wood, minerals and glass. These shown in the pictures are mostly glass, colored jade and colored magnesit (often called synthetic turquoise) and metal alloys.

 Turquoise-colored magnesite

 Citrine (?) earrings and painted (plastic) seashell

 Owls from NJ, US and Russian dolls from Stockholm

 Rose quartz and hematite

Sometimes my handmade jewelry have names. This one is called Blue China. Another one is called Gone fishing.....I´ll show it some other day.

American Craft Council Show in Baltimore, the good stuff

It all started with that I went to the Philadelphia Craft Show about two years ago and met the quilting artist Erin Wilson, whose work I love.  PP bought a little piece of her work for me (thanks) and from there it went down hill (which is a good thing!).  We saw her work again in May in Morven in Princeton, with several new pieces, including a quilt in green, browns, and reds that I am now the happy owner of!  I look at it every day. Here is a piece of it as a taste for you all.

And now Erin was exhibiting her new work again in Baltimore, at the American Craft Council Show.  I really have been pulled into the craft world through that first visit in Philadelphia. (Well, we also went to Baltimore to feed AREA who is in art school there :)

So, the American Craft Council Show is a giant thing, with maybe a thousand selected exhibitors. Everybody that is someone in the craft's world in the US is apparently there.   Everything is small-scale, handmade, and based on craft techniques.  Not everything has to be utilitarian, but I think the idea is that it has to be built on the idea of crafts in the past.  I am not sure, and I think the Craft Council isn't really sure either, because some things that I expected to see at this show are totally lacking.  More on that later some other time.  Now on to the good stuff.

Two new amazing quilts by Erin Wilson.  The white one reminds me of winter and fog...  What do you see?

I love the felt art by Danielle Gori-Montanelli. She cuts and glues felt together as legos, licorice pieces, flowers, rocks, and all kinds of other fantastic things.  Chocolate too!

Gayla Lee's glass pieces were fascinating. 

And this photo is for EH, look a bowl with painted geraniums! The bowls are made by Sherwood Forest Design. I think this was the only painted wooden bowls I saw there.  There was plenty of turned bowls in plain wood, but not much in this 'old-country' style.

This I like!  Michael Michaud takes nature's designs, mostly botanical, and cast jewelry pieces out of them.  I own several and love them!  Actually, right now when I write this I am wearing his lilac flower ear rings.

And here is my new find!  Andrea Haffner's designs, jewelry with natural twists and turns.  She collects natural objects, mostly plants, dries them them embeddes them in resin inside small metal boxes.  It is all handmade, unique, fantastic and gorgeous.I bought one of her small pendants, a darkblue box with a tiny mussel and three pearls inside, like a piece of a moonlit beach. [images from Andrea Haffner, used with permission]

There were many more interesting things to see, but I was running out of battery in my camera.  If you want to explore some more things we liked, check out: 

 Bryan Hopkins, Functional and Dysfunctional Porcelain

Robert Woldow, glass

Deborah and Richard Bloom, obsidian windchimes

Holly Tornheim, wood carvings

Liz Alpert Fay, hooked rugs and much more

Wendy Stevens, metal handbags

Laura Baring-Gould Studios, bronze sculptures

JAK designs and their tulip scarves

The not so great stuff gets a separate blog post at some other time, maybe, maybe not.  We will see.

Bits and pieces of winter, maybe

If you want to see a bird go sledding in the winter, check this out: LINK

One of the few things that stay bright green in winter are mosses.  Now you can grow them on your hands! LINK

The European tadpole shrimp, Triops, might have survived 300 million winters...  LINK

Sparkles

diamonds, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

I never knew it was so hard to photograph diamonds. This brooch is from the Field Museum in Chicago, and it was a lot more sparkling in real life.

The world is upside down

ugly earrrings, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Now when you want something that looks old, unique, handmade, and special, you can just buy it at Michaels and it is Industrial Chic made in China. Fake creativity....

Very crafty things...

... can be found on Etsy, an online shop for handmade things.  People are so creative!  Some examples from among the over 5 million things on sale (click on the links to see photos and other information):

Ctrl+Alt+Del pillows (for the sleepy geeks)  Cufflinks made from old maps (I love old maps).   If yuo don't know where you are, you need this. A cool bracelet of unusual design, like a straggly underwater seaweed...  A tie for my brother? Industrial cocktail rings (serious steampunk stuff). Statements for the really hot ones.And Swedish Lapland bracelets made with tin wire - gorgeous things.


You can also learn how mother-of-pearl buttons were made in the past in Mississippi, and there is even a museum about these wonderful things. I also remember our grandmother's box with miscellaneous buttons, just like EH does.

Handmade jewelry

Some things I´ve made. For cellphones/bags and a necklace for myself. Necklace design is graciously stolen from Snö of Sweden, very fancy and popular in Sweden right now.

Made in Maine

Sustainable jewelry a la AREA and LS. Pine needles and maple leaves for free!

Jewelry transformation

How do you take something like this


and make something like this?



or this?



or this?



or this?



Plastic Girl on Flickr knows, and here is her blog and website too. These are so inspiring, fun and recyclable!

Rings and things

There is some bizarre, but cool jewelry here, inspired by Greek architecture, nuts and bolts, bike tires, etc.

How about some clothes pins in your ears, or some screws?

Funky bracelets

We saw these funky bracelets in Maine, made from sequins and tiny beads sown onto strips of plastic, and I thought they were cool. AREA, maybe something for us to try to make at home? I don't know what plastic they used, but good cotton ribbons would be even better. Maybe as dog and cat collars too? Can't you just see a little pillow dog with one of these? Of course they weren't locally made, they were probably imported from China, the place for everything, especially plastic, but I think this can be developed into something even better and funkier.