Movie Magic

I've been busy with presents and a commission.

I was asked to make a pair of earrings like the ones the lamia witch wears in Stardust. There are some pictures of the whole costume here. I love the film, it's one of my favourites, so I agreed and here's my take on them:


It was quite difficult to find all the different materials for them as everything was slightly unusual and certainly not 'off the peg'.

I ended up with a lot of improvising and I think - although the feel of the earrings is similar - they look lovely and different in their own right. I hope to get some images of the finished costume as the earrings are to go with a whole outfit for a big party.

Alongside this commission I've also finished the purple polka dot wrist warmers and the silk flower (see previous post) and I've been working on a silk scarf with an intricate leaf lace pattern. However, this scarf keeps being put aside as other projects come up.

Currently I am working on a special secret project for my baby sister. She's going to come next week and stay with us for Easter. I CAN'T wait. It'll be lovely to have her here.

Story Time - Snow White and Snow Queen

Blame the weather for the late post! It's been horrible round here and impossible to take decent pictures in the daylight outside.

However, here they finally are, my latest two jewellery designs. They are based on fairy tales and I've mixed all my various craft skills to create them.


Snow White

The centre piece needle felted rose was on here before but this is the finished necklace:

Once in daylight:



Once in daylight with flash:
I've used oxidised copper wire with all sorts of vintage and new glass beads, ebony wood beads and I think there are also a couple of vintage lucite/plastic beads in there and quartz and vintage opalite beads. A lovely mix of black and very dark brown, various shades of red and white, just like in the story:

Once upon a time, as a queen sits sewing at her window, she pricks her finger on her needle and a drop of blood falls on the snow that had fallen on her ebony window frame. As she looks at the blood on the snow, she says to herself, "Oh, how I wish that I had a daughter that had skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony".

The needle felted rose includes some crystal organza and is connected to the necklace by a copper plate, hand cut and stamped with Snow White and my logo. The necklace has a clasp although it will slip over the head as it is, however, I thought it would work perfectly for a wedding or any other special occasion, therefore I added the clasp so coiffured hair will not be tousled when putting on the necklace.


Here's a detailed view of the white beads:




Snow Queen

This necklace is again based on a story, this time by Hans Christian Andersen. Here's a description of the Snow Queen:

'The flake of snow grew larger and larger; and at last it was like a young lady, dressed in the finest white gauze, made of a million little flakes like stars. She was so beautiful and delicate, but she was of ice, of dazzling, sparkling ice; yet she lived; her eyes gazed fixedly, like two stars; but there was neither quiet nor repose in them.'

I wanted to capture the spirit of the snow queen - the deceptive softness of the snow and the sparkling of the ice, as well as the beauty and coldness of the queen herself.


For this reason the necklace has three focal points. The first one is the hand cut and stamped crown, finished with pale grey Swarovski bicones.


The second focal point is the vintage snowflake filigree that has been embellished with vintage diamante and two teeny milky round vintage beads.


The third focal point are three large hand felted beads, one in white and pink, one in lilac and white and the last one in a stormy grey/blue and white.


Each felted bead has been embellished with teeny faceted beads.

For the main part of the necklace I've used vintage and new glass beads, faceted and smooth, vintage lucite and plastic beads, labradorite and rock quartz, vintage opalite and Swarovski beads in various sizes and pale shades (pink, blue, lilac, grey, green) to reflect the light.

All findings are sterling silver.

Both necklaces will be available in my Etsy shop soon or if you can't wait, send me an e-mail. :-)

Coming soon: blue chenille cowl neckwarmer, more pictures of the teal flower scarf and pictures of the wild rose blossom scarf.

Safari Necklace

This is a necklace I made for my mum. I had the beads for a while and wanted to make an all wooden necklace and I think my mum will like it.



The necklace has a simple but clever design as it can be worn very long or double up. It's long enough, even doubled up to be still comfortable.


Here you can see some of the beads in detail: I've included some of the lovely beads I bought recently from ebony and bayong wood, and also textured wooden saucers with a leopard pattern, little cubes with a pattern half leopard half tiger, long coconut tubes, and round flat coconut discs with a spiral pattern carved into it plus lots of wooden spacer beads in varying shades of brown.


Here you can see the brass clasp I made and that all the beads have been wrapped together to make sure the necklace is strong - especially if it gets a lot of handling by being doubled up.


The beautiful teardrop shape looked a bit lonely set against all the beads so I added the little vintage dragonfly. It really is teeny - the wingspan is just over 1cm.


I have some beads left over from the mix I put together to make this necklace so I might make another short necklace similar to this which will go in my Etsy shop.

Nightblooms - Flower Bracelet

I fancied a bracelet to go with my flower garland, so I made one. :-)

Here it is:


It's made from the same materials as the garland necklace, however I did not add the cocoon but replaced it with a flower crocheted from black laceweight cotton. I wanted the flower to lie fairly flat on the bracelet so it wouldn't catch on everything.


I hope you noticed the matching nail varnish. ;-)



The clasp is similar to the one on the garland with an ebony wood bead and a loop that is part of the bracelet.


Here is the flower in detail:

This set and the matching earrings I am currently contemplating will be available as a custom order in my Etsy shop where you will be able to choose the colours and length of the necklace and bracelet. The standard price will be for a longish necklace plus five flowers and one flower for the bracelet. Additional flowers will be charged extra.

For those of you curious to know how long it takes me to make a flower garland:

About 1/2 hour preparing the silk (dampening it and separating layers, cutting the cocoons in half and making scalloped edges.

About 1 - 2 hours for the necklace 'chain' itself depending on length, width and detail.

About 1 hour for making the five flowers in the green/blue garland, twice that for the gothic one because each flower centre has a crocheted flower centre.

About 1/2 hour for putting it all together.



The bracelet takes about:

1 hour for making the bracelet itself (crochet).

1 hour for preparing all the separate parts of the flower.

1/2 hour for putting it all together.

Each design will be different as the silk is shaping differently for each silk rod and I may add bits and pieces (like beads, tendrils etc) to bring out the beauty in each design and make it an individual creation.

Nightblooms - Flower Garland Necklace

Sorry guys, this one's mine. LOL

Just thought I'd get this out of the way before I show you what it is.

My latest fibre art creation. Ta-dah:


It's been made in a similar way to the other flower garland although this time I used black silky cord and deep aubergine coloured paper moire yarn.

The silk rods used are a dark burgundy red (darker than on the picture) and black.

In the centre I've used a crocheted flower made of black lace weight cotton, a lovely slightly frosted red glass bead and a black matte size 6 Miyuki bead.


Each flower is set into a maroon coloured cocoon with a scalloped edge.



Here's the clasp with the beautiful ebony bead.

The Dragon's Heart - Set

There's something about dragons that just seems to fascinate me. I was going to makes something really feminine with those handmade beads with rose gold, but the design would just not come together, however, once I started to think dragon, it was all there. LOL Remember the Dragon's Tale necklace? I bought both sets of beads from the same supplier and I am so pleased I did, they're absolutely wonderful.

Dragon's Heart

Here is the necklace of the set.


I've used: handmade beads in pink and gold, oval garnet, red coral, pale rosy pink chalcedony, white turquoise, deep red mookaite, carved big and smooth small ebony beads, and finally a lovely vintage heart shaped copper wire cage.

I've made my own wire swirls to give the necklace texture, I cut, filed, shaped and sanded copper sheet into a dragon's tail complete with a scaly texture, I made my own clasp and jump rings. Each bead was wire wrapped with different gauges of copper wire.

Finally, the necklace was dipped in liver of sulphur, cleaned, and polished with olive oil.

Here's the dragon's heart in detail: a vintage wire cage attached to the chain with sterling silver wire and the heart made of garnet and coral.


Here's the pretty clasp. One lovely round hook and a round ring wrapped with thinner wire. You can also see one of the lovely handmade beads in detail.


Here is the dragon's tail in detail:


A selection of the wonderful beads. The ebony beads are from my supplier on Etsy e&e Bungalow - the same one I used for the Sea in a Nutshell necklace. The necklace is very long, but can be worn wrapped around the neck, or with a particularly slim neck three times wrapped around. :-)


Here is the matching bracelet although it's more versatile than that as is can either be wrapped three times around a medium sized wrist or worn as a necklace. The materials used are the same as for the necklace above, except, I used a small vintage copper wire cage rather than the large heart cage.


Here's the cool clasp I made - it's meant to look a bit like a curled up dragon.



Here's the bracelet when worn three times around the wrist. It looks all luscious and gorgeous with an abundance of beads.

Both available in my Etsy shop soon... Promise!

The Sea in a Nutshell

My latest creation.

Funny things, names. This one started off with a starfish made from copper. Sea theme. So far so good. I made some pebbles (I thought) from off-cuts and texturised them and played with them using my new toys... Hmmm. After that they looked like little nutshells rather than pebbles. At which point I came up with the idea to call it "The Sea in a Nutshell". :-)


Above is a close-up of the starfish - cut out from copper sheet, textured, filed, torched to give it colour, shaped using my new toys, and finally filed and sanded again to make sure all the rough edges are gone. I've hung it from handmade large and small copper rings and a bayong wood ring I bought recently on Etsy. The bead you can also see on the picture is picture jasper in a lovely very pale blue-green with black and brown flecks.

Above is the "dangle" that goes through the wood ring to close the lariat. The lariat is infinitely adjustable, on a slim neck it will go round twice.

At the front of the picture you can see the lovely ceramic bead I swapped with Toby from Natural Attril and a little handmade (by me) copper fish. You can also see my 'nutshells', some lovely pale blue wooden beads (from my London trip), a star limpet shell, a ring top cowrie shell and some seeds strung in a circle.

Above is shown part of the actual "chain", strung with coconut spiral beads, another cowrie shell, bayong wood bead (disc), a round redwood bead, lovely ebony wood beads and a spotted horn bead, and some seeds that have been turned into beads. To add more texture I've also added bits of chain.

Above is another close up of the wooden ring and some of the beads on the chain.


I am really pleased with how this turned out. It's fluid, it's organic and has lots of texture and it really is 'the sea in a nutshell'. Hope you like it too. Available soon in my Etsy shop.

All the ebony, redwood and bayong wood beads are from this Etsy Shop: e & e bungalow.