Bring on the Sparkle!

Given that it will be the 1st of December on Sunday, I'm surely allowed to mention the C word now?  As I've been making Christmas items for weeks now, I feel that I'm already well-immersed in the festive spirit.

This is not a problem for me - I love this time of year.  From the moment the leaves start to fall and the air begins to taste cold, I'm readying myself for sparkle.  I always make myself wait until the 1st to decorate my trees (yes, plural!) and to start playing my many Christmas cds.  This year, I will have a tiny tree in my workroom (bedroom) and I will as always be decorating hubby's workshop, too.

I have been trying to support handmade artists even more this year - as we all know, sadly not everyone appreciates a handmade gift, but for those who do, there is such a wealth of talent out there.  I, like everyone else, was spoilt for choice!  (Can't show any of them here, though - presents, and all that.) ;)  I still have a few to buy, and then I can enjoy wrapping them on the floor of our living room, with a wee dram of something festive, while the tree sparkles in the corner and a Christmas film plays on the telly.  (And I try to pretend my knees will in fact see 40 again, and aren't going to make me pay for hours of sitting on the floor.)

And we may even have snow this year - having struggled to work several years in a row, the glamour of snow has almost worn off for me; it is a nightmare for travelling, in this country, at least!  But it is pretty - and it brings sparkle to dull days, which surely can't be a bad thing.

How many of you will be trimming your tree (not those of you who have real ones, of course - unless you want a pile of brown needles and a stick come Christmas Day)?  Think of me if you are, unwrapping my precious tissue-wrapped glass baubles and having a little sniffle as it reminds me of loved ones long gone.  I hope you are all able to enjoy the festive season this year.  I'm sure this won't be the last time I mention it, but the countdown is starting - bring on the sparkle! :)

Inspire Me!

Anyone who's been following my work for a while will know that I love to make wearable wire pictures.  Lots of things inspire me, from the changing seasons:

to the changing skies (I love photographing the sky, too!):

And from creatures:

to flowers:

Inspiration is all around me, in this fabulously diverse world of ours - may I never run out.  You probably all know you can commission me (and often do!) to make a picture of your own dreamscape, but I'd like to ask you all to flood me with your ideas just for the joy of it.  It doesn't do to become too blinkered or set in my ways (although I hope I haven't!) and you're all fabulously diverse yourselves, too, so I'd like to know what lurks in the depths of your imagination.  Hit me with your ideas, no matter how wacky - I may not have the capability to actually make what you come up with, but I'd still like to hear them!

And, as it's snowing outside right now (un-forecast, naturally), here's a recent commission to leave you with:

 

The pencils are out again ...

Yes, it's true.  As I blogged some time ago, after many (MANY) years of barely looking at a pencil, something about the newly found creativity caused by my adventures in wire, made me suddenly want to draw again.   I started simple, with the odd hand-drawn card:

Cats are a recurring theme; they do amuse me, with their snooty dignity (until they have an itch  ... ) ;)

I was rusty, as you can see!  But it was fun, and I discovered that I enjoyed using ink for a change.  And when we were away by the sea (which always relaxes me and makes me feel creative) I had a play with my old favourite - the coloured pencil - as well as my fineliners.

I still love coloured pencils best of all - give me a paintbrush, and I'm hopeless.  And none of these are huge; my love of wire miniatures is too ingrained now, I think - I struggle to create on a grand scale!  I've almost finished the latest one, but it's under wraps as it's to be a present, and I've just started a mermaid (I'll talk about my love of mermaids - and that rarest of creations in art, mermen - another time!).  I have no amazing skill with a pencil, but it's been quite good to realise I still enjoy wielding one. What creative endeavours different to your main hobby/business do you enjoy? :)

Sparkle for your Glassware

For the last week I have been mostly making wine glass charms.  I am a huge fan of them - I have them for all different occasions; handmade polymer clay pumpkins for Halloween, lettered ones that allow you to spell individual names and of course several types of Christmas ones ...

I love the idea of decorating your glassware at Christmas with a bit of extra sparkle - okay, let's be honest, they aren't entirely necessary for identifying your own glass, I mean, how often does someone 'mistakenly' run off with your drink?  And if they do, chances are you'll just steal their drink by way of revenge.  But neither are candles necessary (unless you're in the grip of a power cut) - they're pretty, though, and they make everything sparkle.  And as we all know, you can never have too much sparkle. ;)

I have some larger rings that I bought by mistake (not uncommon for me, as many of you may know!) and I'm thinking I could use them to make very pretty wine bottle charms.  I quite fancy weaving a few wire shapes to personalise them, too, in this sort of style - ah, the possibilities are limitless ... :)

So, whether (like me) you're a fan of wine glass charms, or you hate them with a passion, I'm sure you can enjoy your favourite tipple with or without decoration (although if you look too long into my eyes, I may be able to hypnotise persuade you that you NEED that little bit of extra sparkle for your glassware ... ).  Bottoms up! :P

Step with me into another realm ...

For once, this post has nothing to do with wirework, jewellery making, colour, or any of the other things involved with my main obsession - although it does affect it indirectly, in the form of occasional inspiration.

Like many people, my first love has always been books.  Specifically, reading fiction - tales spun from someone else's imagination, and crafted into a story with passion and skill.  From the moment I first learned to read, books have provided a way into a fantastic realm, occasionally a way to escape from every day life, and - often without realising it at the time - a way to learn.

That delicious joy of curling up in the warm on a cold, rainy Sunday, with what is basically a pile of paper and ink, and allowing it to transport you to somewhere you have never been before - or perhaps, somewhere you have been and are keen to revisit - is for me, without equal.  When I find a new author whose writing sucks me in and makes me feel, it's a two-fold pleasure, because not only do I have their current work to savour, there is always the likelihood that there will be more to come.  Or if there is no anticipation of new work, there's often a back-list to search out and devour.

For me, the most important part of a novel is the characters.  The plot is important - after all, you haven't really got a story without one - but if the writer can't make me believe in the characters, laugh when they laugh, cry when they cry, then for me they've failed.  But when they succeed - oh my, they've got me for life!  (At least when it comes to re-reading - I will freely admit I have abandoned authors when they've lost me along the way somehow.)

So what I would really like to know is what is your favourite novel/series?  Don't be shy - I'm no snob when it comes to reading (or music).  If it has value to you, then it's worthy.  My favourite books have been The Wraeththu trilogy by Storm Constantine since I was a teenager - I fell in love with the characters and I've never fallen out of love with them.  The books are fantasies set in a post-apocalyptic world and they are all character-driven, with a central love story running through all three.  The characters get their share of heartbreak and joy, and as a reader, so do I.

So please share with me the book(s) that you'd have to take to that fictional desert island - I am always looking to be sucked into another realm ... :)


Credits for royalty free photos:

Books Isolated by Supertrooper
Without Fear by Jennifer Ellison
Forests in Danger by xedos4

On the Beauty of our Fair Isle ...

As anyone who follows my Facebook page will know, I've just got back from a long weekend in Suffolk.  And the thing that always strikes me during our infrequent trips around the country, is how much outstanding beauty there really is in this fair isle.  And how little of it I've seen so far.  I still haven't made it to Scotland or Ireland (oh, the shame!), although I have seen some of the beauty that is Wales.

You may (!) know that I'm an absolute sea shore addict - if I don't see the sea for many months at a time, I start getting terrible withdrawal symptoms and having dreams that I'm swimming in it ... ;)

But it's not just the paddling and the fresh air of the seaside that make me happy - I love, love, love trees (you'd never guess, right?) and leaves and mushrooms and the sky ... I could go on, but you're probably already yawning!

And it isn't just nature that draws me - I'm a sucker for historical buildings, particularly castles, abbeys and priories, where I can stand in the middle of the ruins, imagining the history happening all around me.

Suffolk in October is beautiful - torrential rain and all.  We saw so much fungi (does anyone else get excited by toadstools?  We have a LOT of pictures ..! ) and the heathland was all colourful and glistening.  There was an abundance of acorns crunching underfoot and the cider smell of the tiny apples that were scattered around the trees.

All of this adds up to the best inspiration for jewellery-making I could possibly ask for.  I love this country, and while there are many places in the world I would love to see (and many that I never will), I am truly grateful for the beauty that is not far from my doorstep.

And I got to paddle (in the pouring rain) on my birthday, then eat an ice cream in a very steamed-up car - does it get any better than that?  No, it most certainly doesn't! :)

I Can See a Rainbow ...

Colour is a funny thing.  Different colours - even different shades of one colour - provoke very different, often passionate responses in people.  Take me for example.  Before I discovered an addiction attraction to a rainbow of jewel tones, it was pretty much all about black for me.  Yes, green was my favourite colour, even back then - it's hard to dislike the colour of grass and trees, after all - but I was very unadventurous with colour.  If I could find an item of black clothing - and accent it with some silver jewellery - that was good enough for me.

Then I discovered beads.  And a whole new appreciation of colour pretty much swamped me.  I still tended to stick to schemes in different shades of the same colour to start with, but suddenly I was a fan of vibrant colour!  Then of course, I discovered coloured wire, and that was it.  With so many shades, and so many, MANY shades of seed beads to pair it with, I was like a kid in a sweet shop.  And I still am.  My bracelets have become far more adventurous, colour-wise, and I actually need the 'fix' of a colourful wire pendant when I've been working on monochrome ones for a while.

The only thing that has endured is that I still love green.  And while I'll never fall out of love with that sludgy olive green that was really the only colour I liked in my teens and twenties, I have a tendency to select something a little zingier these days - like my jewellery gift boxes ... ;)

Has anyone else discovered a passion for colour they never knew they had?  What is your absolute favourite? :)