My dream becomes reality!

This is my second original cast resin figure of the deer's head. This time the resin I used cured quickly and this one has no sticky residue at all. I wrapped it in silver plated wire and used Swarovski crystals to make a collar. Deer have always been first on my list of well loved wildlife and I've been drawing them as far back as I remember. To wear one as jewelry is also one of the things I have wanted to do and the transparent resin makes it delicate enough to be possible. This is only the beginning. With the ability to cast resin in any mold I make from scratch makes the possibilities infinite.

More Resin Work

These are shots of some of my earlier resin work, (the pink rose) and some of my more recent work, the white roses and butterfly all done in polymer clay and then encased in resin. I love the idea of creating my own inclusions from scratch, as well as my own molds. I love the way you can turn the pendant sideways and see the total effect of the three dimensional flowers or other objects, imbedded in resin. I will be continuing to find new ways to play with this fun and facinating medium.

Little Techy experience For Nerds Only

I found out the other day that if you leave an SD card in your computer when you shut down and forget to take it out, the computer when it starts, will try to boot from the SD card.
That happened to me one morning after a late night photo editing, I forgot the card and when I tried to start up I got an interesting text screen. The first time I just exited pulled out the card and waited....nothing but the black screen with the white blinking "verifying midi pool data" message. I did a hard shut down and waited a few minutes and started it again.
Instead of booting normally, I was again directed to enter the set-up and this time I did. Once in the BIOS I was able to reset it to the default boot settings. Luckily my courses on computers and the interaction between the hardware and the software helped me greatly from panicking. I was able to navigate using the arrows as in the BIOS there is no mouse. A red highlighted key in the lower left of the screen prompted me to exit, and old DOS Y/N prompt came up with the Y highlighted. I hit enter and the machine finally booted normally. In trying to boot from the SD card the boot order had been changed, meaning that the hard drive, holding the operating system was no longer the first in the order making the OS unable to load. The moral of the story is to always remove any cards like that before shut down.
I will admit my heart was beating fast at first, but if that had happened in when I first started using a digital camera before I know what I know now I would have been mush brained with panic and on the phone to a tech rep.

My vision becomes reality! Casting in resin and new beadwork technique.

When I discovered resin, one of my goals was to create original objects from polymer clay and make molds of these objects to cast in clear resin. For my first experiment I made a number of shapes, including a deer's head, snake ring, and butterflies, and took an existing figurine, a cute spaniel,( which used to come in packages of Red Rose tea) and made a mold of that too. The polyester resin has a tendency to remain tacky for a very long time, but anyway, my objects are gradually curing and I was able to take some shots.

I also have been learning new beading techniques. I have always loved native or aboriginal beadwork which we see on moccasins, mitts and other traditional items, and now I am learning some of the techniques. I included a shot of a combination of my own resin cabachon surrounded by beads in a butterfly. I glued white leather to the back and was quite happy with the result.

Results of my first experiments with resin, and some current garden shots.

Here are the promised shots of my first experiments with resin and some of my current garden shots.
I am thrilled with the way the resin brings out the translucency in the soapstone, and my experiments with adding resin to my rings have opened up a whole new potential for "art jewelry". My first results are technically poor due to inexperience, first of all I used air dry clay for the flowers (a poor choice) and I have to learn how to deal with bubbles, but I was still excited to be able to make durable transparent objects.

Etsy store to be re-opened under my own name

I am in the process of re-designing my etsy store and plan to open at a future date under my own name.
In the meantime I will be focusing on refining my techniques with silver, in particular, and I am experimenting with soapstone and resin combined. I will post shots of my results when I have some. I'm planning on something that I have never heard of so I'm not even sure it'll work but I love to experiment.
My gardens are doing well with lots of little tomatoes now and little zuccinni fruits waiting to grow. My next post will contain some current shots of my gardens which I will take tomorrow.

Working on wider cuff bracelets, filagree type.

I've always loved the wide open woven cuff bracelets and am now making some prototypes or practice pieces. I have a photo of my latest one which is still not quite finished, but gives the idea where I am headed. I have some refining to do on it, but even at this point, I'm wearing it and it's comfortable.
I also included a shot of my everyday turquoise necklace. I wear that one day and night and a lot of the charms on the pendant have special meaning to me. Just wanted to share another aspect of my style, this time in silver.
I'm trying a new background too. To me the white can get boring after a while.

My sister has Skype now. Planning to get hooked up myself and really looking forward to it. I don't have a webcam yet, but she does. So I'm off now to look into it a little more, download it and try it out. At least I have a headset.