Adventures in Jewellery Making

I had a breakthrough with some designs for my jewellery ideas while on the train to visit my Mum in  Leicestershire. So I came back and got stuck in making them.

Unfortunately something went wrong with the first batch and then again with the 2nd batch, but I got 5 good ones lol!  I keep telling myself that practice makes perfect and its all about experimentation they're not ready for sale yet and the ideas keep popping into my brain faster than I can sketch them, but I'm determined to perfect this and get them up on my Folksy or Misi site.

Behold the reject pile... I think it had something to do with the paper so I think I'll buy some heavier weight paper. (and maybe let the glue set lol) 

This one was an accident after it had set slightly I dropped a pen and it got stuck. Once I lifted it up the resin came with it and kind of swirled over the top. It looks a mess, but I'm sure if I did it a little artistically it might work with a design.

 

The good ones came out ok. I still need to perfect them and possibly print the designs off at a higher resolution.

 

These are only 2 of the designs I've done, but I have a few more with different collections in mind too. I've also got some ideas with using shrink plastic as well, so fun times ahead.

As for my seminars and workshops. I've got  this week. One tomorrow on becoming self employed and 2 on Thursday for business planning and marketing, I'm really looking forward to them. The first one I went to was a business awareness one, basically designed to make us aware of everything that could crop up while starting up. It was really interesting although quite scary lol.

Got loads going ont his week heading to the 3 workshops and then at the weekend myself and Peter are heading to the Merchant City for the 3 Years to GoSports Challenge for the Commonwealth Games, there's a possibility that Peter's work for the Tontine Building will be on display too which is exciting!! Then we're heading to the Britannia Bazaar in the The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall, a building I've never been in, but am looking forward to after seeing the website and hearing about it. So many things to see in Glasgow :D

 The Britannia Panopticon Music Hall

New Adventures

This year is shaping up to be an exciting one, even though we're already half way through. I've finally decided that the only way for me to get a rewarding job that I will love for the rest of my days is to do it myself. I might not be a millionaire by the time I retire, but hey I'll have tried!
For the last wee while I've been thinking about where my tattoo designs could take me and I think if I keep designing them only for tattoos I'm not going to get very far, I have to branch out. So after much debate and full on mental fisticuffs with my inner pessimist, no full time employment and recent inspiration and encouragement from others I have decided what the hell, I'm going for it!

My only problem now is where to start...
I have enrolled on a few courses in the next few months to get me heading in the right direction. On Thursday I have a seminar run by Business Gateway to go to about starting your own business and next Tuesday I have a workshop about being self employed. I figured this was the best way to start.

As for the creative side, last week I finished a 2 week course in resin jewellery making and it was fab. I also have to say that I came away feeling so inspired and have now got some ideas floating around my head to turn my tattoo designs into jewllery pieces. I also met some great like minded folk and can't wait to get stuck in to some ceramic painting or sewing at The Life Craft when I get back from a trip to my Mums.
If anyone is interested the same Resin class it's being run on the 20th and 27th July, just visit the Facebook page for details. It's great fun and well worth it.

My resin creations 

Bats isn't mine, it was made by tutor Addison St Louis of Freak Carousel, but I sanded it, drilled the hole and put the chain on :D

This very ungraceful Matryoshka would not keep her backside in the resin, so I ended up with a very promiscuous pendant, oops!

I've also booked into a cupcake decorating class on the 14th July in Make it Glasgow, but thats just for fun really. I'd love to decorate cakes for a living, but I really only love to bake for my family and friends and a certain man who happens to love my food lol :D (Note: Dear family & Friends, commissions accepted, but only Peter gets cake for free as he is the guinea pig)

In October I've signed up for a weekend course in screenprinting in the Glasgow Print Studio. I'm really excited to see where that could take my designs, I've wanted to try it for years and Tshirt/bag design is THE dream!
There'll be other Business Gateway courses to go to as well, so I can get as much information as possible.

I'm finallly feeling inspired and more energised in getting things going for myself and I plan to report back here about how I'm getting on, what I'm up to and other ramblings so that maybe they will help other folk in the same situation. I'll be 100% honest and say that I am terrified at the thought of going out into the big bad business world on my own, but I know whatever happens it'll be worth it because at least I've tried. Something I'm no longer scared to do...

Wish me luck!

Daisy*B

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New Work

Yesterday I did some work in Illustrator and came up with 2 new pieces. I've been wanting to get practice with it for a while so I had fun!

Will hopefully have some more new stuff up soon

Thanks for reading
Daisy*B

xXx

Cupcakes and Hobbits

From lovely sunny days to horrible rainy ones, I really hope that isn't our summer over and done with!
While it's been raining I've been working away on a few projects, mainly reading the Hobbit on my new gadget :D I bought myself a Kindle as a late birthday present to myself. I justified it by the amount of weight I would save when reading Lord of the Rings again, well thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
But first some amazing news, my lovely other half has only gone and got himself a new job in a computer games company, he's on a wee trial at the moment so lots and lots of luck to him, we're both so very excited although I think he's more nervous than I am lol!

I've also been planning my Mum's 50th birthday cake for the past wee while and on Thursday night (very late) I finished it as well as 24 cupcakes, well 23 as I ended up eating one to test how sticky it was with foil wrappers as I've never used them before, again thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it :P






All the cakes were vanilla with vanilla buttercream. The main cake had three layers of sponge, 2 purple and 1 plain. I used fondant icing to make the roses and I glued them to the cake with a wee bit water. I really enjoyed making it, more the decorating than the baking, but it was lots of fun.
It all went down well and everyone seemed to like it so happy days!

I've also been working on a few tattoos and some stuff of my own. I recently finished Dan's tattoo which was a triskele with an edge and a lot of fun to do. He wanted the triskele to have thorns and be a bit thicker than my usual ones.

I think it looks pretty cool and I can't wait to see it done, was really chuffed with it!
I also started Carrie's celtic turtle tattoo. This took me a while to figure out in Illustrator, probably because of the awkward way I did it, but I got there in the end.


As I said earlier I've been reading The Hobbit recently and have got a lot of inspiration from it. I've been wanting to work in Illustrator for a while now, creating something totally vector so I thought mixing both these ideas would be a start! The chapter in the book that involves Mirkwood was my greatest inspiration and I wanted to use that image for the vector piece.

I had fun doing it and really getting into Illustrator and all the things it can do. Planning other works too when I have the time to sit down and work on them.
And last but not least the most important news of the day *cough* Tangled has just arrived, thank you postie!

I'm off for a watch :D

Thanks for reading
Daisy*B
xXx

New Job & Big Post...

So I've been working away on my new freelance job and have finished the first pieces. They're for a poster that will go in the window of the Print Centre, Paisley.
The print company I work for were looking for someone who could do photo-manipulations in an Anne Geddes sort of style. As in babies and flowers. Obviously I'm not near her standard, but with practice & time I could be.

Anyways I've been doing tutorial after tutorial in Photoshop to get better and at the same time working away. So here are the 5 final images:

The idea is that when a customer would like a canvas printed of their baby in a flower, they can pick one of 5/6 flowers, send me the baby image and I manipulate the photograph to fit within the flower.

I'm actually really excited about it cos its finally my start in digital art as freelance work. A year after graduating I finally get a break, even if its a small one, its still a break :D

I'm still lacking that confidence in my own work at times tho, but because of all the tutorials I'm doing I can feel wee bits of confidence slipping in as well as some pride in my own work. Something I've not felt before in self motivated pieces. Yes I knew I was good at art etc in school and Uni, but when you get out of that comfort zone and into the big bad world the competition & quality is so high, you can get very scared. Not to mention looking at other artists work can be daunting and off putting. But now I'm beginning to think "I can do this" and instead of being put off and intimidated I'm thinking "right, how did they do that and how can I achieve something of that standard"
Anyways, I'm really hoping it takes off and I can get more work because of it!

At the moment I'm working on a vector image of Bumblee (the lovely yellow Camaro) from Tranformers! I've been seeing all these vehicle vectors on Deviant Art. I absolutley love them and had to try one. So stay tuned, I'll be posting it soon!
Here's a wee snippet of Bumblebee's progress:

Thanks for reading

Daisy*B
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