Niky Sayers Artisan Jewellery: handmade

Showing posts with label handmade. Show all posts

28.12.19

December - Art Elements Theme Reveal - Holiday Creations

I LOVE the idea of a handmade Christmas (Kirstie's Handmade Christmas is my favourite TV shows ever and I have learnt of soooo many crafts that I had never even heard of from that show!!!) Every year I try to make more and more things but don't ever really feel that I manage to make very much as Christmas is just so busy, but this year I started much earlier and managed to get a lot more done!

The biggest problem I had was trying to photograph every thing as there was just next to no day light and very little time before finishing a piece and having to package it up to post it off in time, so some things I made I have no photos of!

This necklace was one of the hardest pieces I have ever worked on! The opal was on a base of sand stone and it kept crumbling away as I was fitting the bezel. Half way through the top half of the opal broke off and I almost gave up, but the stone ended up looking so much better with out the inclusions at the top so I filed it round and kept going, and I am glad I did as I really love this one.

This one I kept! Its an Andamooka opal with a trilobite on the back, handmade chain and I intend to make a trilobite clasp to finish it off.

There was so much more things I made but I think I will need to invest in some kind of daylight lamp and a better camera as the photos did not make the cut!

I can't wait to see what everyone else created....

AE team:

Lindsay

Sue

Guests:

31.10.19

Art Elements Theme Challenge, October - Eyes

This month our October theme - eyes, was chosen by the wonderful Laney Mead and I have had such a roller coaster of emotions making my piece!

I had these elements blue tacked on my wall for so long, but I never got around to making the piece as I was, well ....scared! This has been the most complicated, the largest and the most expensive piece I have made to date and I was rather worried I would mess it up.

I never normally draw designs but I thought this might help keep me calm! I was hoping for a magical talisman kind of look?!?!

After two solid days of sawing soldering and hoping, it worked!!!

I still need to make some kind of chain and I may well add more LOS and some more texture as I want it looking older and well loved!

But I'm really happy with how it turned out. It has 14mm amethyst, wolf eyes by Laura Mears, a Tiffany stone, some petrified wood by Designer Cabochons and some touches of gold, plus there is a 14mm moonstone on the back....

With a hand sawn wolf and a cast silver Crinoid star.

Thank you Laney with out your challenge I never would have got around to making this piece!!!

AE Team

Susan

Marsha

Claire

Cathy

Jenny

Niky

Jennifer

Laney

Guests

Dawn

Hope

Beth & Evie

Kathy

Michelle

Tammy

Cat

Elaine

31.7.18

July Art Elements Challenge

July's Art Elements Theme Challenge was chosen by our wonderful and talented Jen Cameron and was seed pods.
As soon as I learnt of the theme I started to collected all the different seed pods that I came across, but I had no idea what I was going to make and found it hard to get started.

I decided to try some thing easy to begin with and made this copper fold formed seed pod with Jen's beautiful lamp work head pins bursting out....

Then once I saw Claire's fantastic polymer clay tutorial on the Art Elements Blog I decided that I needed to try making some of those, I did not unfortunately get to Finnish these as I am very easily distracted and they need a few more coats of paint....

The polymer clay got me thinking, oh how about moulding tiny seed pods and recreating them in silver metal clay?!?

I looked for the smallest I could get my hands on but with the best textures and heres what I came up with....

I started to add gems and beads to see what I could create with the metal clay pods but in the end they just looked much better on there own so I made them into simple earrings, the studs have a wonderful star type pattern.

Then I wanted to try some art work, I really like the idea of painting and drawing but always find it hard to get started! So on these ones I used parts of the seed pods and either stuck them on to the page or used them and some acrylic paint to print on the page, these were experiments and need a bit more work but as I was making the "helicopter" seed pod piece I was distracted by how much they looked like dragonfly wings so then I made this....

Not seed pods but seed pod inspired, I made a water cooler background (I had much too much fun doing this and may have made 50 or so water colours splats) and used the helicopter pods and some acrylic paints to print the wings and drew a very simple dragonfly and added some more water colour, I rather like this one!

Thank you Jen for inspiring us all this month, I can't wait to see what everyone else has created...

Guest Artists:

Tammy

Raven

Alysen

Anita

Cat

Kimberly

Rozantia

Art Elements Team:

Jen

31.5.18

May Art Elements Blog Hop - Tide Pools

Yet another month over in the blink of an eye!
May's theme was chosen by the wonderful and very talented Lesley Watt and was Tide Pools or Rock Pools as we call them over here.
When I think of rock pools I always think of sea anemones, I have never seen any in the wild, only ever in the sea life centre, but thats where my mind heads straight to.
While searching through my stash (as often I do while looking for inspiration) our wonderful Jen's Lampwork headpins kept screaming out "I look like a sea anemone caught in a water bubble what more do you want?" the original idea was a wide band ring with the head pin at the middle surrounded with silver rocks, but some how I got distracted and the idea transformed into a pendent....

I tend to be easily distracted! The main stone has a hole drilled through the centre and the headpin (which is set in a 9ct gold bezel) and "rocks" (which are all soldered together as one piece) have been set as you would set a stone on stone. The actual stone has then been set in a very thick sterling silver prong setting.
I then had another idea I wanted to make a rock pool, not an actual rock pool but a tiny little metal ring dish inspired by rock pools....

I started off by gathering some of my sea stones, shells and sea glass that had interesting patterns on it and then I added in a few tiny fossils (I'm thinking rock pool in the Jurassic Coast, in Devon a place that is on my bucket list to visit) I then made a fimo texture plate with these pieces and tested it on the fimo before breaking open the metal clay.

Unfortunately I have not gotten around to firing the metal clay pieces yet, but I did experiment more with the fimo pieces (why dose spell check keep correcting fimo to limo? what even is limo?) pieces and I was really pleased with how they came out....

These are the little cabs I had made, these have each had several layers of water colour paint and one of them has even had a layer of resin, which I plan to do to all of them, but I ran out as I used the last of my resin on my little ring dish....

I really love this piece and it turned out much better then I expected, again it is coloured with many layers of water colour paint that pooled into the recesses, a few coats of matt varnish and then a thick coat of resin.

I love how much it looks like ceramic and am planing to make a little metal stand for it, possibly out of a domed coin with three soldered rocks for legs!

I had so much fun this month, Thank you Leslie for inspiring us!

I hope you will all join me in hopping around the other blogs....

Guests

Raven

Kelly

Cat

Kathy

Tammy

Alyson

Elaine

Mischelle

Deborah

Anita

Sarajo

AE Team Members:

Lesley

Sue

31.3.18

March Nest Theme Reveal

Today is the day for the March Nest Theme Reveal over at Art Elements Blog! Thank you Cathy for such a wonderful theme, I have throughly enjoyed this one, but as luck would have it I had more ideas then time this month so mine are all works in progresses!

I had so many ideas for this theme that I had to start writing them down and then came the rush to buy supplies and then life got in the way and slowed me down! The original plan was to needle felt some spring scenes onto the polystyrene eggs and crochet a big fibber nest for them to rest in, think beautiful mossy green coloured nest with little pieces of ribbon woven in for a touch of colour, but the moss wool did not arrive in time and the needle felting did not happen! In the first photo there is also the beginnings of a little bird house, I found one on pintrest with a penny tiled roof and thought oh my I need one of those but you can't saw a bird house with a jewellers saw or a massive man saw which were the only saws I had. The mossy star was a christmas decoration I feel in love with and have kept on the wall the plan there is to create a woodland scene but I'm pretty sure this project will take me most of the year.

These are the practice crochet nests I made while waiting for the moss coloured wool, this gold mohair wool is just so lovely and the smallest nest is just under an inch wide. The plan is to needle felt a humming bird for the smallest and fix it to a twig mounted on a plinth.

Also you may have noticed if you follow my instagram account I am slightly obsessed with making wooden books at the moment and there was this beautiful gnarly hole in one of the pieces that I thought would make a wonderful space for a nest, Im thinking of having a metal wildflower set into the corner cover and some how having this quote on the front.

I think next time I shall have to focus one one project at a time rater then all the things!

I do hope you will join me in seeing what everyone else have created....

Guest Participants-

Kym

AE team members-

31.10.17

October Art Elements COM

October was my turn to host the Art Elements component of the month and due to my first idea not quite panning out I decided to send out hare coin clasps.

The clasps are made by doming old Irish 3d coins and soldering a hook clasp on the back, I have always been fascinated with old, unusual or just beautifully designed coins and love that they are so easy to use in jewellery, and here is what I created with mine....

A simple bracelet made with thick sterling silver chain, a couple of lampwork beads (with a dicro core so they sparkle beautifully), a couple of lampwork headpins by Earthshine beads and a beautiful moon and star by our very wonderful Lesley Watt.

This was a complete pain in the backside to photo due to every thing being shiny and reflective (the moon and star are a silvery glaze on one side and a beautiful deep blue on the other adding just a touch of colour), but I really love it, my very own moon gazing hare!