It would seem that I am very behind with my blogging - I've had a bunch of work to do for uni. Got essays to finish before I can start revision for exams so I'm almost panicking (but not quite!)
So this post is dedicated to focusing on Jill Egan from Kiln Fired Art. Jill has some utterly gorgeous work. I must say I am a huge fan of her fused glass pendants - I love the colours and the textures and it's just all so pretty! It was really hard to pick a favourite because I love all of Jill's pendants in this style so here is a sample and the piece that struck me most :) I just love all the layers colours and it's just so yummy :D
Apart from fused glass jewellery, Jill also handpaints porcelain and her work is simply stunning. Among her handpainted pieces are zentangles, wildlife and plants. Here is a selection of my favourite pieces of Jill's work (ok, I have to say that at this moment I have a five month old german shepherd puppy wanting my attention and climbing on my lap to give me cuddles! What a cutie!!) ... Where was I? Oh yeah, here's a selection of some fantastic pieces of Jill's work: And even though I don't eat cheese, I love this melted bottle cheeseboard! And this is where you can find Jill online: Her blog Her website And Jill's Etsy shop Go take a peek! :D
As for me, I'm now off to write another essay (boo hiss!) and then to do revision. My next post will be soon, promise!
NOM NOM NOM That's how I would describe Jolene's work. Utterly nommable and gorgeous.
Jo is a lampworker and a bit of a dabbler in polymer clay. Glass is her main focus though and boy, am I glad about this because I love seeing new beads come up on her facebook page. Each bead makes me go ooooOOOoooOOOh! Quite literally.
I was luckily enough to receive some of her beads from my boyfriend for my birthday and I just can't stop looking at them.
Jolene is very lovely and hardworking. Apart from making all these delicious beads, she is also the main woman of the wonderful Craft Pimp forum having set it up just over a year ago and working very hard to make it the successful and brilliant forum that it is (I think I may be a tad biased, but I'm telling the truth, promise!).
All I can say is she better keep on making all these wonderful beadies because she'll have me to deal with if she stops, teehee! She is has a really good eye for colour and pattern and I shall leave you now with a few of my favourites from Jo's range of beads :) And here is where you can find all the loveliness: Jolene's Etsy shop Her Facebook page Her website Her blog
I was also a complete plonker and forgot to mention that Jolene also sells a bunch of glass supplies for all you lampworkers and glassy people out there. This is the link to follow if you're looking for some fun supplies: Jolene's Etsy shop for glass supplies
New post soon with some funky new things from me :D Have a good few days :) xx
Hey peeps! Been a bit of a long gap between posts again, apologies! This week I am blogging about another fellow Craft Pimp-er, Mel, a greetings card creator :)
I've just been having a plod round her online hideouts and found a few cards that appealed to me because I can relate to them at the moment:This one touched me because I am almost at the 'pre-exam-panic!' Exams start in a little over a month and I think I need one of these cards to give me that extra boost! I really love the colour scheme of this card as well :)
This next card is a 'Thank you for being bridesmaid' card. I haven't been bridesmaid yet, but will be in July so my thoughts are quite weddingy at the mo. Mel has a range of thank you cards along the same lines as this, for example, a Page Boy thank you card. And this last one I am going to share with you is purple because I love the dinosaur! Everyone needs a dinosaur greetings card in their life! And everyone needs a dinosaur costume... I'm not quite sure why but it'd be fun to be a scary grr t-rex for a day, teehee! I am however incredibly sleepy now. It's been a lovely day of pampering my mum for Mother's Day and also some t-shirt altering has been done using my sewing machine for the first time! Lotsa fun :) Though I do tend to get in a right tangle. So as I am off to sleep I shall leave you with all the places on the tinternet that you can find InkyDoodleCrafts and the lovely Mel :)
Been working on some new bits over the last couple of days. Very colourful, very fun and also practical as they are buttons! Made about 9 sets so far and they're pretty funky :) I'll put up photos once they're baked and varnished.
Also just bought another few blocks of clay so that'll be even more fun :D
AND I just got my sewing machine thready stuff through the post so I can hopefully have a play with that sometime soon. Could be interesting as sewing machines tend to blow up when I'm anywhere near them :P
Hey peeps! This is the first post of the new blog ring I am in - essentially I will be writing about a bunch of crafty peeps over the next few weeks. There will be a variety of crafts being talked about and the Lovely Laney is the first to be featured.
Now, where do I begin? Laney works with glass, she makes really cute beads, is an animal lover and she is also slightly mad :P Mad but loveable and the CraftPimp Forum wouldn't be the same without her about!
I do love her quirky beads, they're just wonderful to look at and she is brilliantly creative with what she does and brings cuteness and humour into her work. You really need to go and look at where you can find her work, I definitely recommend doing just that! You can find the links underneath the photos I've included of my personal favourites of Laney's work :)
Ooh, P.S, just a quick bit about me - we picked out my bridesmaid dress this weekend for my boyfriend's sister's wedding! It's goooooorgeous :D And have enormously high heels (also gorgeous!) to wear with it :D
Well, I've been a bit rubbish about my 'one post per week' thing haven't I? I haven't had a lot in the way of craft stuff to post about so couldn't think of anything interesting to write! My mojo has been a bit down recently, think it's because of all the uni work I've been doing so this post is going to be a bit of an update of the last three weeks and then the next post will, I think, be my first post of a new blog ring I'm in with some of the CraftPimp girlies.
So, what's been going on in the life of Kayleigh? Not a huge amount unfortunately! Life has been full of uni work - lots of reading and a couple of essays to write. However, it was my birthday on the 16th, so that was pretty exciting! Does being 21 now mean I have to be a proper adult? Because that doesn't sound like much fun!
Well I'm gonna talk about my birthday as that's been the most exciting thing :D
What did I do? Well on my actual birthday I was in uni from 11am-7pm, so I didn't do a lot really. But then I went home for a 'birthday weekend' which was a lot of fun :D I went shopping in Bury St Edmunds with my mum. Had a browse, didn't buy loads, but chilled out and 'met my birthday present' (come to that in a mo!) Then after shopping, we went home and relaxed a bit and then had an uber scrummy Indian meal for dinner, delicious! My Aunt and Uncle also joined us for that. Then on the Sunday, we had a huge roast with my family followed by yummy cake. Then we all went for a walk with the pups (Little pup from below is getting mahoosive!) which was nice and refreshing :D Then I came back to uni on the Monday and sorted out my presents :)
What did I get I hear you ask? Lots of stuff! My mum decided that as I'm only 21 once she wanted to get me 21 presents. Some were big, some were not so big but just fun :) Her main present to me was a 1-day glass fusing course!!!! Eeeeeeeek I'm so excited to do it :D This is the lady I met in Bury - she had an exhibition going on so mum took me to meet her. She is very lovely and the day with her will be lots of fun :D And mum said she might even give it a go with me! From my lovely other half I got these: which are made by the lovely Jolene from KitzBitz Art Beads. Bless him, he hacked into my Craft Pimp account (cheeky bugger!) and then went through all my posts trying to find which were my favourite beads of Jo's because he knew I really love her work. So that was such a lovely surprise! From my mum's other half, I got a bookcase (much needed for all my uni stuff!) and a sewing machine! I haven't had a chance to have a go on the sewing machine yet, boooo, because I've been too busy with uni work. However, after this week I should be able to get it out and have a play :) Yay! And I haven't had my Dad's present yet... He said that there was something that needed to be sorted out with it so he was delayed in sending it. But it's on it's way now and (fingers crossed) hopefully it'll turn up tomorrow - very exciting!
And that was my birthday weekend in a very big nutshell :D
This week I'm focusing on getting this essay written (It's worth 50% of my module, eek!) and then on Friday I'm going up to Derby to go bridesmaid dress shopping (can't wait!!!) and then will be seeing my boyfriend on Saturday evening (also can't wait!!!).
So enjoy the rest of your Sunday, peeps, and hopefully I will be back with a new post shortly :) :)
Pushing it even later this week! Silly me. Will get back into the routine.
Unfortunately I haven't go any photos for you this week - I'm at my lovely boyfriends and none of my photos are on his pooter so I shall just ramble for a few minutes and then make you wait a few days for a new photo :P
It's been a good week really. Not done loads of making but been trying to concentrate on my uni work instead. This term's modules are pretty good so it's easier to do work than last term.
Will be starting a new blog ring with the Craft Pimp forum in the next week or two - this is where we have a group of forum members blogging about each others work. One person is featured each week and we go on until we run out of peeps - tis good fun and you'll see a bunch of really fun work from people other than me :)
Well as I don't have any photos to show you or much to tell you, I shall leave this week's post there :) I'll be back hopefully about mid-week :D
Hope you've all had a brilliant weekend, Kayleigh :)
For those of you who like puppy pics :) Thought I'd update you on the ickle pup who seems to be quickly growing up! She used to look teeeeeeny tiny next do our other dog, Sasha, but now look, she's half the length of her already!
Bit behind with this week's post, but it's still Sunday so I haven't technically messed up my run of one new post per week :)
So what have I been up to? Uni work for once! I'm doing my best to keep up to date with the work I have to do. Last term was no fun because I didn't put a lot of effort into it so I'm doing my best to put effort in this time around :)
However, that being said, I have managed to do some crafty bits and bobs :D It's a lot less than I normally make in a week but maybe making less brings out the better ideas :) So what have I made? A new bracelet in gorgeous blue, green and bronzey colours, a mosaic type photo frame, and a test piece for a wedding cake topper I'm doing for my boyfriend's sister. I'm also in the process of making another little book. It's all ready to be bound, just waiting for the binding thread to come through the post :) Here's the photo frame: And here is the bracelet :) In other exciting news, I may end up having some of my jewellery in a shop in Vermont, USA where my Dad lives. More info on that if it materialises :D
And some other exciting news - I went wedding dress shopping with my boyfriend's sister - it was so much fun! I'm being her bridesmaid so gonna have to learn how to help her into the dress, hehe! It is utterly gorgeous though and I'm sure there will be photos after the wedding in July :) Next time I go see her we'll be going shopping for my dress, eek! How exciting :D
I guess I better go get on with this uni reading. Must find the motivation to do it! :)
So far so good on the one post each week for 2012 :) I know it's only the third week but I think I'm doing well, hehe!
So I thought I'd just stick in a photo there of our new Puppy. It was hard to get the whole of her in a photo because she kept moving around! So I ended up with this one, an earless photo. Still pretty cute though :)
Not a lot has gone on in the last week to be honest, and really not a lot has gone on in the making department.
I made a few beads today along with some little tile things that I'm not overly sure what I'm going to do with yet. They are unbaked and unphotographed I'm afraid but hopefully there will be more photos of what I've been up to in next week's post..
I can't remember if I mentioned last week but I bought a new oven to bake my bits and bobs in. I've only used it once so far but it seems to work really well. It doesn't have elements because it is a halogen oven so my beads didn't burn when they were in it. No discolouration either and definitely no cracks in sight! - I had some problems with my previous oven, my beads kept coming out cracked, highly annoying when you spend ages on them! But all is well now with my spangly new oven :)
I'm back in Norwich now, lectures have started again. I've only had one module's lecture so far this week. It seems really interesting. It's called 'Film as Philosophy.' Instead of looking at the philosophical things that can be taken from films, we're looking at whether any of the films on the course take philosophical topics further than they've already been taken, so basically whether the film-maker has used the medium of film to express something further than has already been expressed in the philosophical world. I don't know if that makes any sense, but it is interesting. We've watched Blade Runner this week (any of you seen it?) and then we're watching the director's cut of it next week which is apparently significantly different to the original release of the film. Should be interesting :)
Well I am now going to stop my ramblings and most probably crash in bed. Extremely tired and have to get up for our landlady's handyman bloke to come fix our loo seat! Whole other story - came back to find our toilet seat unattached on one side - bit wobbly so we were careful when sitting down. Then typically, I go and plonk my bum on the loo at about half 11 last night and what happens? The whole thing comes off and I pretty much go flying. Very unladylike and very surprising when all you can think about is how you're bursting for a wee! Not fun trying to fix a loo seat that late at night when you're uber sleepy.
I haven't really got a lot going on in the crafty world yet this year. I did buy a new oven to bake my clay though so I'm looking forward to testing that out later today :) I think I'm going to make some stamps out of clay. I have no idea how well this is going to work but I wanna give it a go :) I'll put up some pictures of the results, whether disastrous or not!
Back off to uni on Sunday. Can't say I'm looking forward to it and all the work. Give me more time to make stuffs pleeeeeease!
Had a lovely time away at my boyfriend's but unfortunately I was ill and had no appetite so was a wreck pretty much the entire time :( No fun! But I'm better now apart from being left with a niggly cough. Better now than in the middle of lectures though, nothing worse than people coughing constantly.
My exciting news for the week: GETTING A NEW PUPPY!!! Well, my mum and her other half are. I don't think I can call it mine as I won't be around much. But we're going to pick her up tomorrow evening and she is just adorable :D See?
That's my mum with her last week when we went to pick a pup :) She's just the cutest. Not sure how our current dog is going to take to her though. I reckon she'll be miffed for a good while once she realises the puppy is here to stay!
I'm sure there'll be more photos to come :D
Off to breakfast I go now, and then to the clay table, woooo!
Really Kayleigh? No updates in over two months! Ridiculous. Considering how much I talk, I really should be able to keep up to date with a blog.
I have no New Year's resolutions but I am going to do my best to update you at least once a week. I reckon that's a good amount to be blogging :)
So what's been going on?
I did a couple of craft fairs towards the end of last year in the run up to Christmas. I thought I would do a lot better than I did unfortunately. They just didn't have the people turning up to them, and those that did turn up didn't really want to spend any money. I am one who gets quite disheartened when my things don't sell but it appeared to be like that for all the stallholders unfortunately so at least I know that it wasn't my things that was putting people off! I did make back my table costs plus a bit more so it wasn't a complete loss :)
There's a big show that I want to do this year in my hometown but I don't know if it's going to clash with my exams. Unfortunately the uni don't sort out exam timetables until just before Easter and the show is at the beginning of May. Really want to do it though, it'd be fun!
Also going to look for a couple of other fairs to do I think, but not sure when or where yet.
I haven't been making a huge amount of clay stuffs recently because of being busy for Christmas. I made sock monsters for everyone for Christmas and that kind of took over from claying! I have made a few of what I think are gorgeous bracelets though and I'll put photos at the end of this post. I really love them all. I wanted to make myself a Christmas bracelet as the one below was commissioned from me but I didn't get a chance! I may make myself one sometime this year though and also do a few variations on it in preparation for next Christmas. (I can't believe I'm already thinking about next Christmas!!!) The other two bracelets are just completely different to any beads I've made before and I would love to make some more like these. They feel like grown-up bracelets! :)
How did everyone's Christmas go? I had such a lovely few days. Alex (my boyfriend) and I spent Christmas Eve and morning at my mum's and then we pootled on over to his mum's for the afternoon. I received brilliant gifts - two new clay books, some clay tools that I had been drooling over for a while, LOADS of chocolate, literally about 3kg of the stuff, lovely jubbly! and I'm a bit of a film-fiend so my DVD collection grew significantly. I also love watching people open gifts and giving people things that will make them smile. As I said, everyone received sock monsters from me, here's a photo of a few of them:
Cuteness! What do you think? Not amazing, but very fun to make and the looks on people's faces when they opened them was just brilliant! Even my 77 year old Grandad loved his!
Right, well I best leave it there, got to go eat dinner and then get sorted to go to Swansea with Alex for a few days. He's at uni there and I'm just going back with him to make sure he eats properly for a bit, hehehe!
I'll leave you with a few bracelet photos and I WILL update my blog again very soon :D A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all :) x x
I just love all the layers colours and it's just so yummy :D
