Redfern's Cottage Museum of Uttoxeter Life

Redfern's Cottage Museum of Uttoxeter Life

One of the trustees from Redfern's museum, contacted me a while back and asked if I'd like to sell some of my work in their museum shop. It's taken me a while to get my act together but today at last they have taken delivery of a batch of assorted brooches.
It is a tiny little museum run entirely by volunteers after the council decided they no longer could afford to run it.  I had a quick guided tour and learned quite a lot about Uttoxeter that I didn't know
prior to my visit to scout out the place. I dont think I've ever been into Uttoxeter town centre  before,despite it only being only 18 miles away. Which is a shame as I found it to be a lovely little town with lots of old interesting buildings and shops. The Saturday I visited there was a small market and some live entertainment next to the war memorial in the market place.
The museum itself features information about local famous people like Mary Howitt who wrote the well known  and slightly chilling poem about the spider and the fly  which starts

"Will you walk into my parlour? said the Spider to the Fly

So in honour of the museum I have made two new brooches, one a small mouse as they have a Redfern's mouse and the other is a half timbered type cottage brooch with smoke curling out of its chimney.

                               I have made another similar mouse to sell myself, available here
                                 http://www.hollowbourne.com/products/24/175/mouse_brooch/

The house is a sort of reverse image of the part of the museum that is behind the red car in the photo,  with an added window above the door, and an extra support beam for good luck....

If you live in Staffordshire or nearby, please give them a visit and spread the word to let more people know about this hidden gem .

Oh and the parking is cheap in Uttoxeter too, (behind the Co-op off Silver street) and there's a lot of lovely little shops and a butcher around the corner from the memorial selling very nice and cheap  handmade sausages that I can recommend.

Here is a lionk to their website
http://www.redfernscottage.org.uk/

My sister's wedding , and cake..............

My big sister got married yesterday it was a lovely day , the weather having turned at last  it was a beautiful sunny day. The service at the registry office in Pershore was in a conservatory , a great setting and luckily at that point of the day not boiling hot yet.

My sister made her own wedding dress and did all the flowers and organising herself . As I've done a few cakes for family birthday dos she asked me to make her wedding cake, so there would be one thing that would be a surprise on the day. the consequence of which is that  I've spent most of my days off for the last 2/3 weeks making cake rather than jewellery. I quite enjoy making and decorating cakes but dont like cake myself so never get to eat my creations. 

                                   
 This is the result of all my work................................

 A 3 layer fruit cake with fondant icing,The brief being a cake with a spring/summer pale green and yellow theme. All the flowers should have been pale yellow but faded overnight, perhaps because I used Asda colourant, the green leaves kept their colour perfectly, they were done with proper paste colours . I'll know not to use old food colouring next time. I was pleased with the fondant it was Tesco's own brand and rolled out beautifully,  I bought some expensive sugar paste to make the flowers but it didn't smell/taste nice or have a nice texture, so I went back and bought more Tesco fondant and they worked out fine.   I took it down to Worcester where the reception was, with a kebab stake driven through the layers to stop then moving but despite driving really carefully so as not to damage it but it  slipped to one side of the box in transit and a few flowers were squashed. As a result of lots of reading online cake info and blogs I was prepared with spare flowers and icing to stick on to repair it.. Having made this I can fully appreciate why wedding cakes cost so much. 

And this is the happy couple cutting my cake.

Congratulations Pat and Alan , the new Mr and Mrs Carter.

 

Birds, drawings and enamelling

It has been quite a while since my last post as I've been busy in my new, mind numbing and totaly un craft related job. Only having two days off a week restricts the time I can spend on my own work condsiderably.

I bought a kiln after christmas and at last I am  getting round to playing with it.

paragon sc2 kiln

 I find with any new piece of equipment I spend a lot of time looking at it before I get up the nerve to use it.....The more expensive the item is the longer the contemplation time.

First I spent a period of time reading up all I could find on enamelling in the local library and on the internet, then I watched various enamellers demonstrating on U tube, then a few weeks later finally I got around to buying some enamels. 

I think choosing what colours to buy is the hardest part as the information on the British web sites that sell enamel is very poor, colour samples are either non existant or very  inconstistant , in the end I went to WG Ball as it is only a couple of miles from where I live and bought 6 basic colours. black ,white, grass green,yellow ,red and dark blue, and a clear flux.

Then I went back to the library and reborrowed the books as I'd forgotten what they said!

Testing time................................................

One half of the test piece has clear flux underneath, the other is just enamel. The base is a 1p piece.
O.K tests are boring.
The next question of course is "what of all the ideas floating around in my head to make first?"
 During the quiet bits at work I've been doodling birds 

 

which lead to some drawings................

 

..

and finally 

Ta Da!

to some finished? enamel bird pendants

Black bird pendant

With the black bird, the beak seemed to go matt with handling over the next week so I refired it then the centre of the eye went matt.............I think I might try firing it again to see what happens. 

Green and yellow bird.pendant

These are both enamelled on very thick copper (1.5mm) so I have not counter enamelled the backs, The colours are all applied over a clear flux base. I'm quite pleased with these, I like the speckly nature of the enamel colours, and the bulginess of the bead eyes. I left the feet off as I thought they would be more comfotable to wear without.

 At  the moment I am subjecting them to wearing tests to try and ascertain their durability before putting thetm up for sale, any feedback would be appreciated.

Merry Christmas

                                            I wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year.........................

Online Christmas Craft Fair or Chistmas Craft Fest

This week there is a world wide online Chritmas craft fair taking place at
http://creative-connections.ning.com/page/craftfest-home
I'm taking part along with lots of other craftspeople and this blog is to show some of the range of diverse  designers  and craftspeople who will be taking part.

Even if you are reading this after this weekend you can still check out these peoples work if you follow the links.

So in no particular order...................................


 Kokokelli

http://www.kokokelli.co.uk

 The Velveteen Cat

kants Crio

http://www.folksy.com/shops/TheVelveteenCat


Sci Art Images

Nofkants Curios

http://www.folksy.com/shops/NOfkantsCurios


 Lorraine Dowdle

http://www.lorrainedowdlecreations.com/category_64/LDC-Beads-to-own.htm

Wildflower designs

http://felt.co.nz/shop/wildflower

Mystic Moon

https://marketplace.asos.com/seller/mysticmoon/collection

Kims Colourway

https://www.facebook.com/kimscolourway

Buggalug Bubbles

http://www.folksy.com/shops/BuggalugBubbles

Waterlily Designs

http://www.waterlilycards.co.uk

Karenza Paperie

http://www.karenzapaperie.co.uk

long legged birds...brooch to muser

From my long legged bird brooch...................























comes this multicoloured muser plushie, courtesy of Kathryn Muse from Metro Atlanta USA. This is the wonderful thing about online selling you make contacts with people all around the world that you will never meet but your lives cross for a brief time.


She is a member of Etsy's "Ugly cute" team who inspired by another member has started making plushies to go on sale in her shop based on other members creations.So far she has done a Ninja juice box,a fairy, a day of the dead head,some one eyed monster things,a wriggly octopus,and a turtle. And now one of my birdys.








Here is the link to her shop, please go visit
http://www.etsy.com/shop/kathrynmuse

it works if you copy and paste, sorry havn't worked out how to get a link to work yet!

http://creative-connections.ning.com/photo/albums/hollowbourne-craftfest-stall

I had a "stall" at the creative crafts fair this weekend which provides another link to my shop.
I cannot get the link to work at the moment(my link works if you copy and paste and you can get to the others from there) but there were lots of other sellers there with beaded jewellery, pottery,papercrafts, fabric crafts etc. I didn't sell anything but its all extra publicity.

BUY EARLY FOR CHRISTMAS!?

So I am posting some pictures of my workshop and works in the making to show that my brooches are hand made by me from metal rather than bought in items. I do buy the brooch catches to keep the price down as I prefer a brooch to have a safty catch, and they would take ages to make...


welcome to the entrance of my shed, it is impossible to work outside without our cat Spot joining in...














This is my bench, relatively tidy here, I'm not the tidyest of people when working.











Spot likes to sit in the middle of things,the green box is there to stop him curling up in my polishing area which he will do given half a chance, I suspect jewellers rouge probably ins't good for cats. The crock pot behind is what I use to warm my sulphuric acid, I use it as a double boiler so there is just a small beaker in a large pot of water, then I can use the water as an initial rinse. I do not have running water in my shed yet. So any thing that needs washing either has to be taken in the house or has water poured over it in to a drain outside.....

So this is how I make my work

The first picture is arranging the patterns for what I am making on the brass, this was a special order for someone last year. I dont like to waste too much metal.






Next they need to drawn round....Not a precise science, variations creep in at this point







Then I saw them out by hand








File off any sharp edges







If the brooch is flat then I paint on the resist as it takes a while to dry , If its cold I use a wine warming plate which we used to use when we made wine years ago.







In this batch the customer wanted the chicken to be domed slightly so this is me hammering it on a round doming stake









Then flattening the comb and tail feathers









The finished hammered chicken, at this point I would give it a bit of a sand to even the surface up a bit.







The flat ones are dry now and I have signed the backs,some are signed M. Honeybourne some M.Hollowell, most these days end up with Hollowbourne on them. The numbers are a date system , I have stopped doing this as people thought it was an edition number.




Then the surface design I want unetched is drawn on with permanent marker or a nail varnish pen.Or painted on with resist.Then they are dropped in the etch, I have a wonderful contraption my dad made to slop the etch back and forth.






This fox has been in the etch once then recoated in resist to he can be etched again to give depth. At this point he could have a fur pattern scratched into the resist. This one is plain.





A bit of a gap here, when I got absorbed in what I was doing and forget to take photos, what is missing is , cleaning all the resist and etchant off the etched pieces. Filing the edges again as they can get roughed up in the etch, sanding the surfaces if necessary. Then polishing on a mop (or two). Soldering on the brooch catch. Cleaning flux remains off , a final hand polish, a degease clean and lacquering....
And hese are the finished articles....



Please feel free to leave comments, suggestions etc