My First Artfire Collection……..

…….and it made the front page!

Just a few days ago I joined a Guild on Artfire called Jewellery Creators Unite in Numbers. One of the requirements is to put a collection together using images from the studios of members from the guild. Well I’d never attempted to create a collection before so it was all a bit new and daunting, but I persevered (it was much easier than I thought) and posted it and then kind of forgot about it. Well lo and behold when I logged into Artfire this morning there was my collection on the front page. Such excitement.

I called the collection Perfect Pendants and tried to showcase a variety of necklaces with beautiful pendants and drops (popped one of mine in as well).

So if you’re quick you can head over there and see it in all it’s glory and have a look through the studios of the very creative artisans whose work is featured.

Russian Dolls and Clay figure ATC's

I've be making a few ATC's over the last couple of days, now I'm sort of retired I have a little bit more time to play.

The first two are some clay figures that I made with air dry clay and some moulds. I painted them with Folk Art Metallic Sequin Black, it's a great colour because it dries shiny, almost as if it's had a gloss varnish applied. I then smudged some gold rub and buff over the raised areas. The backgrounds are crumpled tissue paper with various colours of paint smudged over the raised areas and then edged with german scrap. It's a little hard to see the definition of the faces.

I came across some DCWV cardstock stacks that I forgot I had (lord knows what else I might find that I've forgotten about, tucked away in a cupboad somewhere) one of them called Far East, so I've used these papers to make these little "Russian Dolls"

This one I put several layers of UTEE clear embossing power over the body and then while still warm stamped the butterfly with black staz-on ink and left it until it had cooled then pulled the stamp off.

This one is mainly paper with a photo of me as the face and a metal embelishment that I painted black and glued to the body.

Here I've made another clay face, the wings are chipboard from the Collections range that I've painted and smudged with about ten different colours until I got the colour I liked. If I'd been able to scan these I think the colours would have looked a lot better, but because they have a bit of dimension (and don't scan well) I had to photograph them. Just can't seem get a good photo of them either. Using the macro always seems to leave them looking a bit convex, if that's the right word and I can never get them straight.