Homewares and Crafts

Functional Art

Aim: To minimise waste materials and create a functional piece of art

My Tree of Light

It began as a way to use leftover grout from a session of grouting mosaic pieces and completing a refresh of the grout in the bathroom.

A Work in Progress

Step 1 – Put the left over grout in a mould (in this case a yoghurt container)

Step 2 – Add some interestingly shaped sticks and wait until set

Step 3 – Paint the sticks (the colours of a gum tree)

Step 4 – Add cord to the base and paint using a complementary colour scheme

Step 5 – Make the leaves and attach to the ‘tree’

Step 6 – Add metallic wax to blend the leaves and add some shimmer to the piece

Reflect and Consider….

While I am not ‘in love’ with the piece yet, I am definitely warming to it. I am thinking that I need a few more elements to balance and enhance the design.

Elements yet to come

Step 5 – Add the fairy lights

Step 6 – Embellish the branches with crystals (to catch the light)

Step 7 – Complete the tree base and touch up colouring and add highlights.

Final result and images in colour in my next post.

Jewellery

Wine and Grape Inspired

I love working with textures. I created a mould using the leaves from a grape vine. These made me think of creating a few fun earrings that are wine and grape inspired using this mould.

Love the dangles ❤️ 🍇🍃 and will look to find other ways to use this mould in designs.

Created using the mould and alcohol inks
Reverse side highlighted using metallic wax
Larger dangles – frosted grape bunched (stylised)
Christmas · Jewellery · Uncategorized

December – Christmas Inspired

During the month of December, I was inspired by the season to design work using the Christmas colours of red and white.

I usually don’t use white clay by itself as it is hard to keep clean and clear. I do have a dedicated pasta machine just for white clay. This definitely helps reduce cross contamination.

The images below are the result of my creating.

My favourites are the dangles with dots and spots that came to me in a dream and the pendant as it has an experimental back made using a deep texture from Helen Breil Designs.

Enjoy 😁.