A Sunshine Award Huzzah!
Huzzah! I’ve been awarded the Sunshine Award by The Jewel Box – thank you!
What is a Sunshine Award then?
The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity & creativity inspires others in the blog world.
The rules for accepting the Sunshine award ~
Put the logo on your blog or within your post
Pass the award onto 12 bloggers
Link the nominees within your post
So I’m going to be nominating 12 of you for one of these sunny delights!
The Sunshine Award Logo
A Folksy Valentine’s Day
Folksy is the UK equivalent of Etsy. It is full of very talented people making handmade pieces that have been designed and created by individuals. When you handcraft something, you tend to put a lot more effort and care into it, to the point where when you sell it, it can be a sad goodbye.
However, we all have to make a living and I’ve placed just a few of the many wonderful Valentine’s day gifts that people on Folksy have created. Click on the image to go to the Folksy page that it is featured on.
You can find more here: Folksy Valentine’s Day
Quirkycards
WellyDog Designs
Sian Bostwick jewellery
Handprinted by A Deegan
Wood Jewellery
Bookity
Just Who is Remy the Rat?
I am part of the Creative Handmade Artisans Etsy team. The team is diverse and has some really talented people. One of those artisans is Tanya who creates not only jewelry, but also strange whimsical creatures who seem to have a life of their own. I am convinced they come alive at midnight. Remy the Rat is my favourite, but just who is he? He looks a bit of a lady’s rat and a bit of a lad too!
Say hello to Remy the Rat
However Tanya’s skills don’t stop at creating crazy creatures, she also makes jewelry. A particular favourite of mine is her tree pendant within which sits a lovely little bird:
Tree Pendant
The Sun God Has Risen
At last, I have finished the necklace ‘Homage to the Sun God‘, see earlier post.
The final stages included soldering the rays to the surface of the Sun – ironically you seemed to need temperatures that normally are only found at the centre of the Sun to get the things to bond!
The problem being that the disc is made from thick sterling silver and so was acting like a heat sink, allowing the heat to flow away from the solder. Took some doing, but eventually the solder flowed and the rays became part of the Sun.
In the meantime, I also created a bezel cup in which to sit the heliodor beryl gemstone. I decided that I would sit the beryl unconventionally, upside down, to have the effect of the sun’s flames coming out from the belly of the Sun. The bezel cup was slightly sunk into the Sun disc to house the beryl.
After that the next most difficult part was to clean up the disc, as I couldn’t tumble it, as the bezel housing for he beryl is quite delicate, so it became very laborious and took a number of goes with varying grades of wet and dry and then finally very fine wire wool and soap, to make the Sun shine.
I then drilled a hole into the Sun disc from which the Sun hangs via a silver hook to the chain.
After that the beryl was fitted into the cup and the necklace was complete and the Sun finally rose.
Here are a few images of it. I’ll be listing it on Etsy and Folksy very soon. What’s particularly nice about this necklace is that it can be word with the Sun pendant or without a chain on its own. So you can have your crazy pendant days or your much quieter chain only days.
Homage to the Sun God
me wearing the Sun God
A Different View of the Sun God Necklace
Sterling silver bracelet winner
There were 152 comments on the shadow box (minus about 4 from me reminding people to leave their email address).
Thank you to everyone who entered and for your kind comments which go a long way and mean so much when you create your own pieces .
So, I am just about to run randomiser.org and pick the winner…hang on…
The winner is…Beth of Comotose Design Shop who was comment 119
Congratulations Beth – i’ll be emailing you to get your details to post it out to you!
By the way, I’ll be running another giveaway for some sterling silver earrings soon and will automatically include all of you who have already made comments on the EtsyStalker shadowbox.
Kitzblitz:Art Glass Artist
Jolene of Kitzbitz, is a glass artists based in Middlesex in the South of England. She has been making lampwork beads and jewellery for 3 years now and excels at her art.
Her lampwork beads have a very earthy feel to them, some remind me of animals like big cats and others of days at the beach.
Her Dragon Eye beads are probably the craziest and would make an amazing statement necklace (Jolene are they real dragon eyes?):
And some of her latest creations are just as amazing:
she also runs classes on lampwork beading and her Etsy shop is here
Fine Toothed Comb Etsy Shop Critique Giveaway
Julie, of the Etsy advise blog and newsletter, Fine Tooth Comb is giving away the chance to win an Etsy shop critique.
If you have an Etsy shop and feel it needs a good going over with a critics eye (as I do!) check out this blog post on how to enter.
Oh and don’t forget to check out my blog giveaway below (still a week left before it ends!)
Morningside Makers Market, Edinburgh, Scotland
Lynwood Jewellery will be doing the Morningside Makers Market in Edinburgh for the Valentines market on the 6th February. A cold hard drive up from Northumberland at the crack of dawn (actually before dawn) is expected but it looks like a great show.
And, on the day we will be offering 20% off all jewelry(jewellery) pieces on our stand, including the wonderful designs in wood by Lynwood Designs.
If you are in Edinburgh on the 6th February pop along and say hello!
A slightly different way to show off jewellery for sale: Deviant Art jewellery
A lovely woman I know on Deviant Art (nimue-morgan ) liked one of my necklaces (there’s a link below) and so she painted it onto one of her characters called Sundazzle and she has allowed me to use it to show off the necklace.
I think it’s a great and different way to show off a necklace or any other jewellery that’s for sale – what do you think?
Blog Giveaway IMPORTANT
Re my previous posting on my giveaway
You must leave me an email address on the Etsy Stalker comment otherwise I wont have any way of contacting you.
