Nestle down for the night

I just came across this unusual bed! It's designed to look like a bird's nest and comes in three different sizes - up to 15 feet diameter!  I think the mother bird might be a bit scary if she ever finds you sleeping in it, however!

 Can't find a price.... but it looks a fun place to nestle down and chat with friends.

What do you think?

Dawanda Lovebook Winter 2011/2012

I am delighted to be featured in the 2011/2012 Dawanda Lovebook.  Mine arrived in the mail just today! 

If you don't know who Dawanda are - you should! They are the group that I sell my jewelry through in Europe. They are based in Germany and have a German, French and English platform. 

I was approached by them a couple of months ago and asked to complete an interview for inclusion.  Dawanda are always sooooooo good to me.  I have been selling with them for quite a few years now - and they really do look after me well. They pass on my info to other media - for example, I appeared in the Sunday New York Times last year because I was found on Dawanda....., they include me in their own promotions....I just can't say enough good things about them!  Here is the inclusion they put in their new Lovebook:

Thanks Dawanda, for spreading the love.  You can see the Lovebook here - and check out all the great sellers and products that they feature. Just in time to get ordering for Xmas!

Glen Ellen Farmers' Market

I've signed up to sell my wares at the new Glen Ellen Farmers market.  It is on Sundays from 10 am - 2pm.  I'm not doing every week - just occasional weeks from this Sunday through August.

It'll be nice to get my aluminum out there in front of people and get some feedback. Of course, I'll be selling some of my silver pieces too.

The Glen Ellen Farmer's market has only just started - this may be it's 4th week?  Anyhow - it's sweet and local and if you are in the area, I hope you'll pop in and say "hi"!

See you there!

8 years at Birdland

Today is our 8th anniversary of moving to Glen Ellen, Northern California. We moved here 03/03/03. 

We love it! And we love sharing it with all the birds.  Here are a few photos of the birds at Birdland:

The price of silver

I was going to buy some silver metal clay this past week to top up my supply. I haven't bought any in about 6 months. At that time, the price of silver was $19 per oz.   When I went onto the usual website where I buy metal clay, the price was just so off-putting. Silver metal clay prices are directly influenced by the silver price and today the price of silver has increased to $34 per oz.  So in 6 months, the price of silver has nearly doubled.  When I started working in metal clay in 2005, the silver price was $7 per oz.

Data from http://silverprice.org/silver-price-history.html

I actually left the website open on my laptop for a week, trying to adjust to the change in price before I pressed the "buy" button.  In the end, I checked what I already had in my studio and decided not to buy any more.

It has really made me stop and think about what I am doing.  While I was away in Mexico over December and January, I got to try lots of other different media.... and loved it - so with these silver prices, I think I'm going to focus more time on things other than silver for a while. 

I've been wanting to have some time to work more on my aluminum techniques...and also other types of clay, so this seems like the perfect time for this.  I'll obviously continue with silver clay and have a few commission to do...but I'll make sure that I make time for other materials too.

How is this silver price increase affecting you and your work or your buying of jewelry?

Happy New Studio

Well I'm all moved in  (apart from my books and magazines but I'm waiting to get some shelves first)!  However, I bought two new work stations yesterday so we assembled those today. They didn't have the same "platinum" color ones I had before so I went for white.

Remember these photos - as I can assure you, my studio will never look this tidy and clean again!!! Or maybe I will be lucky enough to have studio elves who come and clean up after me every night??? What do you think? Wouldn't that be great?

And it's a good job I'm all moved in, as I have lots of stuff to make.

Oh yes - and two little birdies took up home on the new white work stations! They can watch me do my aluminum and wax modelling.

Just a shame I am out all tomorrow morning so will have to wait until the afternoon to have my first play in there.  Wanna come and visit?  Yes, the work is done - now you can just come and play ;=D  Come soon before I mess it all up!!!

New Studio!!!

Yippee-yi-ya!!  Today I started moving into my new studio!!!!

While we were in San Miguel and I was trying all these different media, we decided that we just had to get me some more space for my studio! It's well over time...and we've been trying to figure out how best to do it for ages now, as I've been expanding from my little attic room into other rooms and generally taking over lots of places. 

So we've jiggled some rooms around and now I have a much bigger space! And much more light.

Today was the tough day of moving things.  My "old" studio is accessed only by a little attic ladder. Just climbing up and down it is quite precarious but when you are trying to carry loads of things - it's is even more dodgy! Luckily, John, my hubby was around all day to help!!!  Let's hope he is tomorrow too :=D

I have more to move in tomorrow and need to buy another couple of work surfaces like you see in the above photo.  My goal is to have 4 work surfaces in total. One for metal clay and one for finishing jewelry (those are the ones shown above).  Then one for aluminum and one for wax sculpture and anything else I might try! Then there is a soldering space and a space for my photography. 

And my birdies began to move in too. They took a liking to a spot, just their size, by the window seat!

 

If you are in the neighbourhood tomorrow and feeling strong...do stop in! 

3/52 Bird a week - Love bird

I did an encaustics class with my mum this week.  You'll see the first painting I did in an earlier blog post but just before the end of the class, I asked the teacher about adding metal leaf to the paintings.  She had some aluminum leaf and so I quickly use the last few minutes we had to make my bird for this week.

Love Bird

The lime green is the beeswax with pigment and resin which I applied in a few layers.  I fused each layer and then scraped it flat with a razor blade.

I asked the teacher if I could cut up the metal leaf - which was actually aluminum.  She said she had only ever applied it whole - as a square on the backing material.  I had nothing to lose, so decided to cut out shapes of aluminum leaf and apply it to the solid green wax.

To do this, I had to warm the wax a little, apply the leaf and press/brayer. Then you add water and gently rub off the backing sheet. It worked just fine with the shapes of metal leaf - no problem at all. I then fused the leaf to the wax and over-fused the birdie to try and get a crackle effect in the metal to indicate a feathery feel. The result is:  Love bird or I love birds or ???

If you are part of the bird a week challenge, please add you link below to this week's photo or blog post.  If you want to join in our challenge, please visit the flickr group for more info. You can join at any time.

2/52 Bird a week - the girl with a bird nest in her hair

For the second week of the "bird a week" challenge, I sculpted a bird using clay.  He sits happily in a nest made of hair on the lady I sculpted.  This is my first clay sculpture ever.

For those of you who have followed my creation this past week, the lady now has her neck hollowed out (!) and I also gave some more attention to her eyes and hair, and added some eyebrows. 

I thought I would finish this sculpture off on Wednesday but I tried to "dress" the lady a little and didn't like the result.  So today is the end of the wet clay phase - hopefully -  and then the little lady and her bird get to dry out for a few weeks before firing. Fingers crossed they fire well....

If you are joining in the "bird a week" challenge - please add your link to your blog post or flickr photo below and then add the link list to your blog too.  If you haven't joined and would like to - please go to the flickr group. 

Birdland Creations New York Times article

Eventually I flew home yesterday after 3 hours delay in the flight......  It was a long day......

And today I was happy to receive a copy of the Sunday New York Times Article to see for myself what they had included.

Here are the three photos of me and my birds:

Happily they didn't use the real close-up one they had on the slideshow!  I struggle having my photo taken at the best of times, but that close-up was....well, close up!!!!

And here is what the full page in the Business section looked like:

It felt so good to be included and get all that free publicity!

The New York Times this week....who knows what comes next??  :-D

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!!

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!

Dawanda Interview

I was interviewed for the Dawanda blog this week.  I was really pleased with it...so if you are curious, here's the link to find out more about me and my work: Dawanda blog interview

Thanks Azra!  I really appreciate it.

Spring Cleaning Day

I'm busy sorting and cleaning my studio today.

At the moment, I'm trying out quite a few different media and with my limited studio space, I need to be a little bit more organized so that things can go away in drawers (and have room in the drawers) to leave space for new things!  As my husband will tell you, I'm not the tidiest of people.... I love starting things and then get distracted by something else and so the putting away part doesn't happen very well!  I'm also getting some new lights a and new stool for my studio too...so it deserves a little sprucing up.

Luckily I do have one little helper:

Anyone can do the dusting!

Anyone else want to come and help?? 

Birdcage necklace

I've redesigned my birdcage necklace!


A sweetie little hand sculpted bird hangs freely in his cage.

This is a definitely an eye-catching necklace! And the happy part is that the bars on his cage are wide enough that the little birdie could leave his cage if he wanted to!

And I hate to disappoint you, but I'm afraid I'm just going to call it "birdcage necklace" as that phrase is one of most popular phrases that people use to find my website! Seems like I have quite a reputation from my original birdcages. So if the term works, I'm going use it! In fact, if you search "birdcage necklace" on Google, my Etsy store comes up number 1! Which is why I've been meaning to make another one for a while now!

So all you bird-cage necklace lovers - here it is!!! I'll put it up on my websites soon!

Gift Guide

I added a new page to my website this past week. It's a gift guide - to help people make choices appropriate for different occasions.


At the moment there are 21 different "gift" occasions ranging from the usual birthday and anniversary, to illness, life change, support, winter....etc etc. Hopefully it will provide a little help for those finding it difficult...


For each occasion I have selected three different items from my collection. I'd love some feedback if you fancy taking a look...here's the gift guide or click on one of the photos. Let me know what you think of the idea and any other categories you think it would be useful to add.

Interviewed on Scoutie Girl

The lovely Tara interviewed me for her blog Scoutie Girl (www.scoutiegirl.com) this week on her regular post "Finding Passion"


Scoutie Girl is a great blog with features, along with finding passion, such as "one to watch", "totally digging", "in a word", " then and now"....... She also writes a newsletter "the fetching news". Lots to see and read!

And good interview questions too - so go read about my passion at Birdland!

Week 4 Caption Competition

This is the last week for the caption competition. All the quails have to leave home this week but they did get together for one last photo.

Hope you'll think of a caption for the photo and enter the competition. You can write the caption here in the comments section or else enter on facebook (Click on the NOTES tab).

The winner will be announced next Thursday and they win their very own Quentin Quail as a bookmark or necklace or....

Looking forward to your clever captions.

Here's the piccie:

Caption Competition - Week 1

I've just started a caption competition on Facebook! I recently finished making quite a large number of Quentin Quail charms for a charm swap but once all those Quails got together, they sort of got a life of their own! So I caught them in action during some of their quieter and more exuberant times and so, for the next couple of weeks, see if you can come up with a caption for the different photos and win one of the charms. The winner can have the charm as a bookmark or necklace.

Here's a taste - this one I captioned "Bedtime at Birdland"



Here's the link to enter the caption for the next photo at www.fbook.me/birdlandcreations

If you are on Facebook, please become a fan and then click on the "notes" page to enter your caption. A prize each week!

If you aren't on facebook (or can't be bothered to link there!), enter your guess here in the comments section and I'll transfer it to the facebook so they are all together.

This week's "action" shot was also a little inactive............. see what you think: