Love birds necklace

I've been finishing off a few more Humphrey and Trisha love bird earrings and used two of them to make a Love Bird necklace including a clutch bar.

With the clutch bar you can hang the birds at whatever length you like - depending on how much in love they are :=D  If they've had a quarrel, they might hang apart from each other...

...but if they are in a romantic mood, they can snuggle up close to each other!

The total chain length is 36 inches so they hang nicely and dance together as you wear them! Are you  love bird?

Birdland Creations In the New York Times today!

I am included in a slideshow in the New York Times online today - entitled "Suddenly the world is their market"! Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/08/15/business/SOAPBOX-5.html

I haven't been able to see a paper yet as I just arrived in the UK but my friend Jennifer said it's printed in the Business section on the Soapbox page! Yeah!!!!!

Here are some screen shots of me and my work from the slideshow!:

Humphrey and Trisha the lovebirds are very excited - as are all us birds at Birdland!  Can't wait to get a copy in my hands!!

Friday night....

Hmmm....it's Friday night what should I do......

Oh goodie - here's Trisha.....

" Fancy going out with some friends sweetie?"

Hmmm. I guess not.  Quiet night in for two instead.....but then we are lovebirds so I guess that is good!

Look who's heading into the kiln!

OK! Get in line....time to get going:

 Good little birdies - all quite orderly - except for one!!!  And off we go:

Don't worry, it'll be nice and cozy:

And when you come out, you'll be so precious!

My New York Times Interview!

I've had an exciting couple of days and have been eager to share it with you.

On Friday I was approached my someone from the New York Times saying that she wanted to include me in a photo essay on selling handmade online.  You can imagine how excited I felt and wanted to tell everyone, but I also wanted to wait a while and see if it was all going to turn out OK and my answers etc fitted in with her article.

But yesterday I had a 2 hour photo shoot at my studio. The photographer - Peter DaSilva was great and I really enjoyed it.  He took photos as I created some of my Humphrey and Trisha Lovebird earrings, photographing all the different stages.  Above is the Humphrey that I made for him.

Then he took lots of shots of me in the studio which was quite a challenge. If you haven't seen my studio, it is a tiny attic space where you can only stand up in the middle of the room!  He had to crunch himself in odd little spaces to try and get shots of the room - looking quite the contortionist!

Then today I had a brief telephone interview -  just answering a few general questions on where I sell online etc - and as it is a photo essay,  that will be captions to photos rather than script. I have no idea how much, how big, how small, how many photos, how many other people etc there will be - but the article is scheduled for this SUNDAY in the Magazine.

Yes, Humphrey - you can take a bow! You did well yesterday.

I hope you'll share in my excitement and get a copy on Sunday.    As luck would have it - I will be getting off a plane in England on Sunday morning  for an expected visit back there so won't even be able to see it until I get back ......... unless I can hunt down a copy over there. However there is also a NY Times  magazine version online but not sure if they include everything.  You know that I'll be looking there anyhow!

Month of Earrings Challenge Finished

Yeah! The month of earrings challenge has finished and I completed it!

The goal was - starting February 1st, to make 30 pairs of earrings by April 1st - that averages out as making one earring a day!

Here are all the earrings - and the link to my Month of Earrings Set on Flickr for a closer look at all 30 pairs and the Month of Earrings Challenge Group on Flickr where you can see everyone who took part.

Here is a breakdown of the earrings:

A. Materials used:

• 19 were made of (at least in part) silver clay

• 2 were made of bronze clay

• 8 were made of hand colored anodized aluminum

• 2 were made of (at least in part) polymer clay

• 1  included resin

 Garden Seat

 B. Subjects created:

• 8 were birds
• 7 were animals
• 8 were flowers/trees
• 4 were patterns/shapes
• 1 was cooking utensils
• 1 was toys
• 1 was "anyone can" figures

C: Types of earrings

• 26 pairs utilized ear wires
• 3 pairs utilized ear threads
• 1 pair utilized ear posts/studs

 Break out of your shell

D: Mirrored pairs

• i5 pairs were roughly mirror images between each earrings
• 15 pairs were not intended to be mirror/matching earrings but each one with it's own character!

 My achievements from the challenge:

1. created 30 pairs of earrings in 2 months
2. created 2 new series of earrings - a) dangly leg animals and b) hand colored anodized earrings
3. initiated another caption competition from my dangly leg birds
4. tried a new media - coloring anodized aluminum
5. tried a new media - polymer clay
6. initiated a poll on my blog which got lots of votes for the next species of choice for a dangly leg animal.  The octopus was selected and they ended up being Nate and Kate, my #30 pair of earrings.
7. Saw lots of other great earrings through other members of the group
8. Got to know the work of some new jewelry artists who were also in the challenge

Flowers feed the soul

My favorite of all the 30 I made are Humphrey and Trisha - and I wear them a lot. Next favorite are Nate and Kate.

Humphrey and Trisha Lovebirds

If I did it again, I think I'd work on trying more styles of earrings, using less ear wires!

The whole challenge idea was Vicki Hallmark's with some encouragement from a few of us.  So thanks Vicki. As you can tell - I got a lot from it and loved it!

So do you have a favorite of the 30 pairs?

I start a new challenge today too....a very different one......but more of that later!

Rupert the bird

You met Humphrey and Trisha on Monday.....well they've been busy (they are love birds!) and here is their son Rupert!

He too hangs around quite a bit....


but while that might sound easy, Rupert says he gets quite tired and has to lie down periodically:


Poor little birdie.....out all day, no little nest to go back to, so he just has to take the weight off his feet sometimes!

Love Birds - Humphrey and Trisha

Thought you'd like to meet my two new birdie friends - Humphrey and Trisha.


They are very much in love as you can tell....

So you know they will be looking forward to Valentine's Day......They are so much in love that you frequently hear them calling each other "my darling" and "my love"...forgoing "Humphrey" and "Trisha". They are just two darlings....

But surely, now and again they must get a little annoyed with each other and fall out and....maybe that's when the "Humphrey" and "Trisha" can be heard:


But I guess they always like to hang out together, regardless....

OK. I confess. These two little birdies are named after some friends of ours! 5 years ago when we were travelling to the Galapagos Island, we met two British couples on the boat. One couple were called Humphrey and Trisha! They are quintessentially British! It's just wonderful......and that's right, Humphrey always refers to Trisha as " darling" or "my love"!!!

We had a wonderful time with them while travelling and I sort of wondered whether these terms of affection would rub off on John...but no! However Humphrey generously extended the terms to include me too - and I did the same for him!!

And we still do! We meet up once a year with the darlings when we go back to England and catch up on what we've all been doing and where we've been travelling!!

Here's to good friends!

Humphrey and Trisha