A ghostly giveaway - part 2

It's not often that I do a happy dance while reading someone's blog, but yesterday evening I did. You may remember that I recently took part in the fabulous Mrs B's 31 Days of Halloween, allowing folk the chance to win this beaded ghostie.



There was a great response to the giveaway, and the winner was announced as the wonderful TMCPhoto. She sent me a link yesterday to a very lovely blog post, in which she was very complimentary about my work. How sweet!

You should check out her shop, in which she sells fine art photography of natural phenomena, landscapes, cityscapes and nature. In her words, "My photos are a variety of landscapes, still life and portraiture. My images are taken with a regard to the relationship I have to my subjects, they are full of energy, playful or thoughtful expressions of my view of the world." You can follow her on her blog, on Twitter and also on Facebook.

A bat and a ghostie

This cute little fella arrived at my door on Saturday morning:



He now resides in my living room with the other spooky guys:



He was made by by Half an Acre, purveyor of hand-painted wooden loveliness, and creator of the brilliant Widget the Sock Bunny concept (read about the ideas behind Widget here - very clever.).

In other news, my Small Ghostie (click the image below to go to the listing) has been featured in a couple of places. He was on Cuteable on Friday in their Flickr Friday feature, and today he's in the Autumn issue of UK Handmade magazine (check him out on page 83 in the Trick or Treat feature).



Thanks folks! x

Cutie Pie Pumpkin

I'd been admiring this little cutie for a couple of months, and finally bought her a couple of days ago. She popped through my letterbox this morning, and now resides in my living room.



She was created by a fellow Folksy seller, SeeTheWoods, who makes all manner of gorgeous things. Her plumpkins, pumpkins made from a variety of yummy patterned fabrics, are particularly lovely.


(Photo by SeeTheWoods)

Cutie Pie has now been added to the many Halloween decorations that live in my house. Here are just some of those:

A ghostly giveaway

Did you know about Mrs B's 31 Days of Halloween? If you didn't, check it out now, for spooky giveaways and goodies: http://silvermoonwitch.blogspot.com

As I love Halloween, I am of course taking part. As part of today's Halloween fun, you can win this ghostly decoration:





Find out how by clicking here. Happy haunting!

Happy Autumn!

It's officially autumn now (the TNBC calendar says "Autumn Equinox" so it must be so), and I can therefore stop feeling a bit premature for talking about Halloween :) So, with only five and a half weeks, or 38 days, to go until the big day, I've been adding lots more spooky goodies to the Etsy shop.

After buying some wonderful Halloween-themed supplies, I created a little collection of beaded dangles:

The little bells I bought were used in creating these three pieces:





My favourite is this one, because the large orange bead looks like a big chunk of candy :)



I'd also bought some glow-in-the-dark beads, both round and bat-shaped, which went into the making of these:





Pop into the Halloween section of my shop for all of the above and more!

I've also been working on a commission for four silver pieces:



You can't tell from this picture, but the bat on the bottom right is huge! 16 inches wide in fact, double the size of my usual bats. Was awkward but fun to make :)

Halloween in July part 2 - a beaded skull

Production of the Halloween range has begun, and one of the first pieces I've created is this beaded skull:



This piece is the result of a series of sketches, in which I was working out how to make the skull look right. In my designs, I often draw something out as a line drawing first to see whether it would work in wire, as the construction of my wire pieces is basically made up of a series of curved lines. I always drew skulls face-on, and, as a line drawing, that always made them look too monkey-like.





However, while watching Buffy (series 7, which has a hand walking up a skull in the title sequence),



I hit on the (now obvious-sounding) idea that the skull did not have to be symmetrical face-on image, but could be a side-on image instead.





Thus, this design was born - a simple line drawing in copper wire, adorned with glass beads. Click the image below to go to the listing:

Halloween in July

We've been having some typically British weather here lately, otherwise known as rain. The sky is rather dull, grey and leaky. So, despite the fact that it's the middle of July, it feels like autumn. Autumnal feelings always lead me to start thinking about Halloween though, so it's not all bad.

I've been starting to think of some Halloween-related ideas, the first of which has the working title of Bat Bunting. I also think I've finally worked out how to make a skull from wire. Plus, I have many more ideas besides, so watch this space for lots of spooky goodies coming soon! Until then, click the bat to see what I currently have on offer:



I also have some greetings cards that would be great for Halloween. Click the image below to see those:



And remember kids, a bat is for life, not just for Halloween!

Burtonesque

Dear reader, it may not come as a huge surprise to you that I love Tim Burton. The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice and others of his are among my favourite films, and a book called Burton on Burton has been one of the most interesting things I have read. My paintings have often been called Burtonesque, even though, in all but the piece below, there hasn't been a direct influence. It must just have filtered through from my subconscious ;)



So I'm very excited about Burton's re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland, to be released next year. Alice has long been one of my favourite stories, and I love seeing various artists' interpretations of scenes and themes from the book. I can't wait to see what he's done with it. With a cast that includes Johnny Depp, Stephen Fry, Matt Lucas and Alan Rickman, it surely can't fail to be awesome.

In celebration of this, an Etsy friend of mine, the fabulous jewellery-maker Gugaw, is having a merry unbirthday giveaway! You can win anything from her shop - just comment about your favourite piece on her blog.

A craft fair

This Saturday, 6th June, I will be at a craft fair at the Trinity Centre in Sutton Coldfield. It's on from 12pm to 3pm, and there's sure to be some gorgeous things there! Including my work of course ;)



The Trinity Centre is part of Holy Trinity Church, and is just up the road from this beautiful landmark (click here for a map of the area). I grew up just down the road from Holy Trinity, searching for conkers in its grounds in the autumn, looking at the light shining through its stained-glass windows as I walked past in the evening, and watching people having their wedding photos taken in its garden. It's a really lovely location. So, if you live nearby, or you happen to be in the Birmingham/ South Staffs area, why not come along? :)

Bat Swaps

I've recently taken part in a couple of swaps - the first was with the fabulous Maya of Static White's Stitchery, in which I got a cute little batling, complete with detachable party hat:





You should so check out her shop, which is full of awesomeness. She has other batling brooches, plus Scrap Bats and more. Do eeet.

In the other swap, the UK Handmade Secret Swap*, I received two adorable sock bats by Dreamknight:



So cute! You should absolutely check out her shop too - dreamknight.etsy.com, for doll clothing and curios :)

I felt the need to journal about these bat swaps (Is journal a verb? It is now.), including the bat sprinkles that came with the batling and a little foam bat sticker that came with the sock bats:





*The UK Secret Swap was organized by UK people on Etsy, and is similar to a secret Santa idea. Basically, all that want to take part tell the organizer, then (s)he finds out from them what type of item they would like to receive. Then, from this information, (s)he works out who should get something from which seller. Each person makes something to send to the person they're allocated, and each person also receives a handmade item for themselves. Yayness ensues.

New things and featurings

After months of a kind of creative block, the past few weeks has seen me creating in wire again. Suncatchers featuring some of my favourite themes - hearts, skulls, the rainbow, stars and bats - have been popping up all over the shop.

















In addition to this, I have also had my work featured in two places - the 'Gift of Art' Gift Guide campaign on Etsy's front page, in which they've used my 'Turquoise Star' piece:



And also on ACEO Showcase, the new blog from the creator of Cuteable, who has featured my 'Midnight Moon' ACEO:

Wordle

I made a Wordle. Looky:



Basically, it's a word cloud made from, in this instance, this blog. Go to http://www.wordle.net to get your own :D

Red Shoes and Resolutions - part 2

In a previous post, I mentioned this year's New Year's resolution - to buy something handmade at least once a month. See that post for the inspiration behind this resolution, and for the first of January's purchases - a print from Champignons which I had been coveting for a while. To continue the red shoes theme from that print, I wanted two more prints, the first of which was this beautiful Ruby Slippers piece from Quite Contrary, which I also bought in January:



This month, I was also able to afford to buy this gorgeous print from Linda Boucher:



The two shoe prints above continue the symbolism that was there in the Champignons print. Although her print is called 'Alice in Wonderland', and is about when Alice grew tall from eating cake marked 'Eat Me', the fact that she is wearing red shoes makes me think of The Wizard of Oz, and Dorothy's ruby slippers. Also, the fact that Dorothy and Alice's clothing are very similar means that this figure could be either of these characters. Plus, there needed to be three prints not only because things look better in threes, but also because Dorothy says "There's no place like home" three times while clicking her ruby-slippered heels. Therefore, the hanging of the Alice/Dorothy print with ruby slippers either side seemed quite natural to me. I searched for red-shoe themed prints from UK Etsy sellers, and found the perfect ones. All three prints now hang in my bedroom:

Snow day!

Followers of my Twitter may have read that I was "Planning to be very creative" today - in other words, intending to spend the day doing a lot of painting and maybe even a bit of wirework. Well, the snow had other ideas. Much of today has been spent either watching the snow out of the window or actually being out playing in the snow, leaving little time for much else. But no matter. Days like this tend to bring a lot of inspiration, which makes up for the lack of actual work :)











I have in fact got some 'actual work' done today - I've made a start to a painting that will eventually look a bit like the last of the above photos:



I've also made a sinister snowman - don't have nightmares! ;)