You are the cat's whiskers

You don't hear the phrase "the cat's whiskers" much any more, but it means something is outstanding.

I made these little cat earrings and necklace for a new customer a couple of weeks ago.  She only wanted the earrings, but ended up have the necklace too!

They are happy jiggly cats who wiggle their legs as you wear them.

And yes, they have little tails too:

Hand sculpted in silver, designed to make you smile :-D

Flowering

A few years ago, I made a pair of earrings as a gift for a friend of a friend.  Last week, I got a lovely email from the recipient to say how much she still enjoys the earrings and could I make another pair for a friend of hers.

They are not my usual style of earrings, but I did another pair.  Happy spring flowers to recognize a graduation.

Vibrance and Grace

I took some of my 'stained glass' aluminum jewelry down to Grace Cathedral this week for them to sell in their gift shop.  I was delighted that they wanted to stock it.

The jewelry is all based on the stained glass windows in the cathedral (yes, I have permission to use it).  The colors are so vibrant, which is why I chose to call the series "Vibrance and Grace".

It'll be interesting if I see any of the congregation wearing it when I go down to sing on Sunday.

I heard that they went on sale on Tuesday and two pieces sold straight away!  How encouraging is that.

Now I'm working on some new windows - and it looks like I need to get working!

52/52 Bird a week challenge - Given wings, where might you fly?

Gosh, the last week of the year and that means my 52nd bird of the year.  Yes, this year I have made a different bird each week of the year for the "Bird a week challenge" that I started.  To end the year, I wanted my piece to somehow take me into the New Year...and to be an inspiration for what the new year will bring.

And thus, here is: "Given wings, where might you fly?"

They are ear thread earrings of flying silver birds.  Ear threads are my favorite style of earrings and of course, birds are my favorite subject, so it seemed fitting to end the year with favorites.

And the title I find inspiring as it intimates that we all have wings...all we need to do is decide where we want to fly to.  The New Year is bringing lots of new things to my life - new opportunities, new challenges, new experiences - and so I'm going to spread my wings and fly!

It's been wonderful to do this challenge and have other artists join me on the way.  I'll do some summary posts of the the whole challenge over the next couple of days, but in the meantime, click on the links below to see this week's birds.

I hope you'll spread your wings for 2012 too.

Radiant earrings

I made some stained glass window style earrings yesterday with anodised aluminum and love the bright colors.

All those primary colors, and with the black accent.

I think they will be lovely for festive parties over the next few months...can be worn with black and add real brightness and radiance.

And yes. I did a pendant to go with them too - shaped as a gothic arch.

The aluminum means that they are all lightweight too, so don't drag down your neck or ears!  Not a good party look :-D

36/52 Bird a week - Dan and Magnolia

I'd like to introduce you to Dan and Magnolia.  They are two lovely little birds.  And although Magnolia sounds like she is delicate - like Dan, she is pretty tough.

A little known fact about several varieties of birds is that instead of putting their surname (ie last name) after their first name, they put it in front of their first name.  Sounds a little odd, but that's how the birds do it. So yes, you've guessed it, these two little birds are known by their friends as Steely Dan and Steel Magnolia!

They love hanging out together - and also with people.  They never seem to stay still - maybe they even have restless leg syndrome as their legs are always on the move.  But it's a nice little affect- looks like they are dancing all the time.

Here they are with a larger member of their family.  He has an even odder name - Cutoats.  So yes, you've got it, he's Steel Cut Oats.

In their other life, Dan and Magnolia are earrings made from steel clay, with silver dangly legs and feet.

Check out the other birds made this week by following the links below:

32/52 Bird a week - Happiness

For this week's bird, I made two bluebirds of happiness. 

They are made from color anodized aluminum.

They are very friendly and when they get together, they tend to chat quite a lot.  Luckily when you wear them as earrings, there is a little separation so they are quieter! 

We've had two batches of bluebirds nesting in our boxes this summer and both have yielded a few babies.

They don't look very blue yet, but then, I guess they need feathers to look blue!

They are useful birds to have in the vineyard - not just because they bring happiness (!), but also because they eat insects and thus keep the insect population down on the vines.

 

Take a look at the other birds that people have created as part of the bird a week challenge. The links are below:

Flutter by, Butterfly

Sadly, it isn't true that the word "butterfly" came from a metathesis (the changing around of the order of syllables) of flutterby, but it is still a nice idea.

The old English word was "buttorfleoge" - combining butter and fly, but there seems to be no agreement on why there is a butter reference.  Some say that butterflies will go to butter if it is left out and uncovered....but I've never heard of that!  Any ideas? 

Maybe because they are attracted to butter colored flowers?.....but then they seem to like all different colored flowers... One of life's mysteries I guess.

But it doesn't take away from the enjoyment of seeing butterflies flutter by.

More garden seats

Following on from yesterday's "garden seat" earrings in burgundy, I also made a couple of blue pairs. The two dyes were totally different, but the resulting colors were both very  similar turquoise colors! 

The blue!

The turquoise!

All three!  At least in this photo there seems to be a slight difference in the blues!

I'm looking forward to putting these up for sale for the Farmers' market on Sunday. It'll be great to get some feedback on my aluminum work.  Fingers crossed it goes well! Don't forget, if you are in the area, it's in Glen Ellen at the Jack London village from 10 am - 2pm.

25/52 Bird a week challenge - Garden seat

Gosh - we are nearly half of the way through the year and therefore half way through our "bird a week" challenge, where a group of us challenged ourselves to make a different bird each week of 2011.

To me it has seemed that we were nearly half way there for quite a while!!!! 

This week's birds are earrings using a design I first used last year in a "month of earrings" challenge. They were one of the first style of aluminum earrings I made.  Little birdies taking a seat in the garden on different flowers.

Each earring depicts a different bird on his seat. The circles are gently domed too.

I love this rich red color.  The dye calls it "burgundy".  I don't think it's quite that yet....but it's definitely got the richness of wine!

If you'd like to take a look at what other birds have been created here, click on the links below. Unfortunately, linky tools hasn't been working very well lately and it's not been able to add all the links.  If that is the case today, here is the flickr group.

Leaves of green...(and pink, yellow, black......)

I made some new earrings for my upcoming farmers' markets. I wanted a lower price point and an item that was a good intro to color anodized aluminum jewelry.

Aluminum is such a perfect material for jewelry. It is very lightweight - you can barely feel these earrings when you wear them - but it is tough too.

So today's little series is entitled "leaves of green"..... but with a bit of artistic license, I added some other colors too!

My favorite is the pink/purple pair. What about you?

20/52 Bird a week challenge - Songbird

My bird a week challenge this week is my best selling bird - The Songbird necklace.  I made two of them this week.

It's actually not difficult to become my "best seller" as most pieces I make are either one of a kind or small limited edition (up to 5).  There are only four items that I make in quantity - my songbird necklace, my songbird ear threads, my flower ear threads and my "missing piece" bracelet.

The songbird design was the second bird I ever made...quite a few years ago now.  I remember my very first bird had shoes on as I couldn't figure out how to do feet!  Then the songbird was easy as he didn't even have legs!!! It's interesting to see how our "limitations" affect our designs!!!

To check out the other birds that have been made this week as part of the BAW challenge, click the links below:

Rose windows revisited

I've been working a little more with resists and the aluminum dyes and decided to try  a different version of my rose window, using only aluminum and no silver.  Here is it in progress:

It creates quite a different effect to the silver ones - and I'm not sure where I'll go with it, but it's fun experimenting.

What do you think?

Lily earrings

I've been trying some metal forming techniques on the aluminum and  a new design for earrings came about from it. Little hanging flowers that make me think of lilies.

Each has two petals and hanging between the petals are beads for stamens.

 The little bead makes the tiniest sweet sound against the aluminum.

I'm enjoying trying the metal techniques and look forward to seeing where it takes me.... Just playing around for now and being open to where it goes......

Mauvellicious!

I've been having fun with dyeing and coloring my aluminum.  It seems the pinks, mauves and purples are shouting out to me more than the usual lime green...not sure how long that will last, but they are fun colors!

I made a bangle with rivets to hold it closed with my little drawings on it:

Very feminine, don't you think? And then there needed to be a simple pair of earrings to match.

I will be going back to England shortly, so I must make sure I make some for myself to keep up with the purple scene over there!

Hope your weekend is mauvellicious!