Productive Few Days

It's been pretty hot and humid here but I did manage to drag myself out into the shed and do some soldering. I finished another one of the cast twigs that I made at my casting class a few weeks back. I made it into another necklace but this time I've laid it out vertically instead of horizontally like my first twig necklace.



Also, played with a heavy gauge wire to make these swirl earrings. No soldering involved - just forming, hammering & polishing.



I have to be a little considerate these days with my hammering. Our house is surrounded on 3 sides by houses that have babies. I shut my self in the spare room and close the doors, hoping it's not too loud for the neighbours! I haven't had any complaints so far! Pin It

Turning a negative into a positive!

First I pierced (hand sawed) a rabbit design from a sterling disc to make this pendant:



Then I soldered the little cut out rabbit onto another Sterling disc to make a second pendant here:



The negative space in the first pendant makes the rabbit look slightly fatter than the actual cut out on the second, that's because I domed the first pendant which enlarged the space. Pin It

Possibilities in Metal

Over the last 2 Sundays I've attended the "Possibilities in Metal Casting" Workshop at The Fremantle Arts Centre
It was lots of fun, I went with my talented friends Lotta & Jane and the teacher was renowned Local Artist Sarah Elson. We enjoyed it so much we have signed up for Sarah's class for Term one to explore some more of the possibilities!
We cast all sorts of things, I tried a wax model of a lego brick, some twigs, a resin mini plane (that Jane made a mould of from a little toy plane I had lying around).

My most succesful casts were the twigs which I cast in Sterling Silver, the other things require quite a bit of clean up so I'll save them for another time. This morning I spent some time polishing up one of the silver twigs and soldering the jumprings on - I had sawn out the little sterling silver bird earlier in the week so he got soldered on too.

It's not really an original idea as I've seen lots of similar sorts of things done with cast twigs, I imagine because the obvious thing to do is to pop a bird on a branch! The beauty is of course, that no two twigs are alike. Anyway, I'm very happy to have a cute necklace to wear as a result of the course.

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2009's looking good.

I'm pretty happy at the moment. I actually have all the family home at one time!

My husband works "fly in-fly out", my daughter has been off living her life away from home doing the back packing thing, and it's just been me & Adam (when he's home) and the two dogs!

Murray's contract finished and the new job doesn't start until the end of January so he's been home for a 6 week stint working out of head office locally. Then Lauren decided she couldn't save up for her next lot of adventures by living in Melbourne and surprised us by turning up at 5 to 12 on New Years eve.

The downside - well, the amount of washing actually. The positives...too numerous and they outweigh the negatives :)

Here's the younger half of the family:

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Post Christmas - pre New Year........

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We did, it was only a small gathering at my sister's but great company and wonderful food. I did miss my daughter though who has flown the nest to live in Melbourne - it was our first Christmas that our little family of four was only three! The phone companies did well out of us though!

Now the left over ham is dwindling and I'm starting to think about the New Year and all the self - improvement that is about to happen.....Ha Ha! ;)

I'm on holidays from work until the 6th so I've spent some of my downtime playing with my chainmaille. This time using the rubber rings with sterling, I've gone oversized - much like I feel after the Christmas feast!
These earrings are pretty huge but the good thing is they are super lightweight.

Just added a couple of photos here, but there's more on my Flicker Photostream.



Happy New Year everyone :) Pin It

Where's the day gone........

Day off today and this morning I felt a sudden urge to get creative. Anything to avoid doing the house work and washing!
I've had it in the back of my mind to make a ring for myself and simply never got around to it so today it happened!

It wasn't all smooth sailing though - the silver got the dreaded fire scale when I soldered it which meant lots of extra filing and sanding - for a pretty simple design I've spent the best part of the day on it! It's not perfect but I'm not going to point out the other faults - can't see 'em when I'm wearing it anyway, so I'm happy with the day's efforts. Pin It

Magpie

We have a lot of magpies around here - most often I notice them when they come up the street in the early morning in a pack - looking over everyone's lawns for some tasty bugs and worms.
I noticed this little one this afternoon from the bedroom window, sitting in the shade on a fallen palm frond in our front garden. He didn't appear to be injured but didn't have very long tail feathers. He let me get about 2 feet away from him and stared right at me when I took this picture.
He flew away a little later when one of our dogs chased him away - luckily he could fly although not very high and we grabbed the dog before he could hurt the Magpie. My husband had let the dogs out with him, not realising the bird was there.
When the dog chased him - we suddenly noticed all the other magpies, they didn't actually swoop us but they all flew in close.
It's been about half an hour and he's now sitting on a neighbours fence in the shade - the adult birds are still milling around him keeping an eye out for him.

I guess they'll have to look after him until he can fly up a little higher than he can now. Pin It

Crossed the first thing off my To Do List!!

I only had one thing on my list and I've crossed it off, so now I can start on a new list. It's taken a day or so and I still have a drawer or two to sort out but at least it's tidy!! YAY!!

Before Shots: (hmmm - I'm ashamed of these - It's pretty messy, but I could shut the door on it and pretend it wasn't there!)



and after shots: I intend to keep it like this ;)



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Time to do the things on the "To Do" List

Had a good day yesterday. My sister and I headed down to the Made On The Left Designer Market followed by lunch later at Tarts,
a great little place hidden in Lake Street. Yum.
The Market was bigger than the first one with more great stalls and a bit more space than before. Lots of fabulous wares on sale but this Fridge Magnet by the very talented Amanda from Polyclarific called out to me.



Now of course I need to write an extensive list and put it on the fridge with my new magnet where I can't ignore it.
My office/work room is a mess and I really have to tidy it. It's gonna be a such big job that at the moment it's the only thing on my list.
I fully intended to start yesterday evening and I started sorting through some of my supplies but got sidetracked with this instead!



More pics on my Flickr photostream.

I shall publish this post, turn the computer off and have another attempt at crossing off the only thing on my "To Do" list! Pin It

Windows on William

Yesterday, my daughter, Lauren and I took off to Northbridge to soak up a bit of Culture!

The Windows On William Street Exhibition is on and local artists install their artwork in the windows of the local shops/businesses. As you go around each place you are encouraged to collect a limited edition print of each artist's work - These are inside the shops, which of course gives exposure (and I guess hopefully some sales!) to the businesses that support the artists.

We visited each venue and collected 13 of the 14 prints. (One place was closed).


We got off to a bad start - first stop when we surfaced from the car park was the Blue Room Theatre & Bar and as we stood in front of the window we couldn't see any Art, but the sliding door opened. We stepped through to the foyer but still couldn't see any art! In our confused state, we felt a little sheepish when a staff person pointed out that we'd walked past the art - it was outside on the top panel above the sliding doors - Duh!!

Lesson learnt, and we made a point of looking above eye level at all the other exhibitions just in case we missed something!

The highlights were the installation by the Made on the Left collaboration featuring the work of my local online Etsy friends. Great job girls!

Another stand out was Subgang at William Topp.
This is a real find of a shop too, interesting and friendly and definitely worth another visit. Bought this for Lauren here - sums her up rather well ;)


And check out their cool cards we were given showing their business hours.



If you're a local it's a great way to lose a couple of hours browsing around Northbridge. I got to see some great artwork, find new shops and go into places I'd not normally venture into, I'm thinking specifically here of the Piercing & Tattoo parlour (I'm not really their target demographic) but none the less they were very welcoming. Also, Red Stripe Clothing, where Lauren bought a dress but my presence in the shop probably diminished their reputation as a "cool arsed clothing store" a little (LOL).
It's on until November 23rd. Pin It