Charm necklace, done!

Just a quick post to show you my finished charm necklace.

Each charm was made by a different member of the EtsyMetal team and I love it and can't wait to wear it soon. :D

EtsyMetal charm swap update

The charm swap is complete! This one was a bit delayed in finishing but the end result looks amazing.  I am still waiting to receive my charms (any day now!) and I am so looking forward to getting them and opening them one by one.

As Su from Quercus silver said
                                 "I had a very lovely peaceful half hour with some fresh coffee, Christmas music on the radio and a mince pie while I opened each one in turn. EtsyMetal charm swaps are an occasion to celebrate."

Indeed they are and I can't wait!

As I haven't received mine yet, I borrowed this photo taken by Vic from Experimetal, how cool do all the finished charms look?

I have a chain ready, I am going to put them all on and wear them as a charm necklace!
We all made extra charms, one charm will go into the EtsyMetal shop and the other will will go on a bracelet with all of the other charms and be sold with some of the proceeds going to charity.

Etsy Metal Blog Carnival

Welcome to our EtsyMetal monthly Blog Carnival!

Blog Carnival is about a group of our members sharing their experience on a common topic

When I was in my early 20's I used to be a bit addicted to lifestyle magazines.  Cosmo, OK, Grazia, pretty much anything really that gave me my daily dose of celeb gossip, silly stories that happened in the bedroom and endless relationship advice;  I spent a fortune!

Thankfully I outgrew my addiction and if I could read only one now it would have to be a jewellery magazine f course!  I have only read Lapidary Journal which I liked, just a pity it is not very thick.  If anyone has any recommendations on other jewellery/metalsmithing magazines I would love to hear about them. :)

Check out other members choice of magazine:

Laura Jane Bouton

Beth Cyr

SilentGoddess

Evelyn Makarsky

Deborah Lee Taylor

Tosca Teran

EtsyMetal blog carnival- Why do you make jewellery?

This is a tough one! I think I naturally progressed onto making jewellery from when I was making my cake toppers; I had a lot of polymer clay lying around and thought I could do something else with it.

This was my first attempt about 7 years ago, don't laugh, I thought I was cool *snort*

I made some pretty ugly things to be honest as I was teaching myself and didn't really have a clue.  Eventually I decided I wanted to work with metal so I started using metal clay.  I remember when I did my first bit of soldering, it was soldering some posts onto my little paint palette earrings and then sheet metal was the next step.

I still make jewellery because I like to experiment, I like to be able to cut out intricate designs with my saw and see how far I can push myself.  I love getting the feedback when a customer likes my work and this spurs me on to think of more designs.  I still have a lot left to learn and rings are my next challenge, I must conquer them! :)

I am not sure if this has really answered the question properly but I didn't think I have a specific answer, I do it because I love the materials and challenges and putting a smile on somebodies face.

Other members of the EtsyMetal team have answered this question too:

1. Cynthia Del Giudice
2. Laura Jane Bouton
3. silentgoddess
4. Beth Cyr
5. Tosca Terán
6. Nodeform
7. Mary Anne Karren
8. My Precious Studio
9. Deborah Lee Taylor
10. Anne Walker
11. Andrea Ring
12. Gracebourne Design
13. Evelyn Markasky
14. Inbar Bareket
15. Jewellietta
16. Abella Blue

EtsyMetal charm swap 10

I took part in the 10th EtsyMetal charm swap and my charms are complete and shipped off.  I am now waiting to receive 20 charms back all from different members of the team, I can't wait!
Here are some pics of me making them, hope you like them :)

If you are interesting in a charm, you can also purchase one from my Etsy shop too.

New!

Just a quick one to show you a new pair of earrings I have made, I love them!

A new website....again

I decided to get rid of my Big Cartel website as I realised with my Moonfruit account (my cake topper website is with them) I can make up to 5 websites! I already pay a yearly fee for this so why am I paying again monthly for a Big Cartel site, doh.

So I have been busy working on this new website which is at www.peculiarforest.com and here is a screen shot of the homepage.

I really like how it looks so far, at the moment I just listing my items which I replicate a lot in my Etsy shop and then maybe I will add some more individual one off items too.

It would be great if you could take a look at let me know what you think :)

EtsyMetal blog carnival, Pets!

Welcome to the EtsyMetal blog carnival

Blog carnival is about a group of our members sharing their experience on

a common topic: "Pets"

I love this months topic as I have a lot of pets! 

They are not everyone's cup of tea but I have 10 rats.  I did have 15 at one point too, it's quite a funny story.  So when my partner and I moved to France I decided I would like 2 pet ratties, I have had them before and they are great fun, so we got to little ones called Bella and Bo (who are now in ratty heaven, RIP little ones).  

We then decided we would like 2 more to add as we were getting this BIG cage, so off we went to get them and my partner says, "ohh I really want that big black one too!" I said okay, so we came away with 3.  Two days later The 'big black one' gave birth to 10, yes 10! Of course we didn't know she was pregnant and me being me I couldn't give them away so we kept them all, 15 in total.

Here are some pics

Bella

All the babies a couple of days old

8 days old

Here they are at 4 weeks

Unfortunately we have recently lost 3 of the babies who are now over a year old, to illnesses and we now have 10.  We had 5 girls and 5 boy rat babies which meant we had to get all the boys neutered and they are now huge! I must take some new pictures.

This year in January we welcomed another baby into the family, our little Yorkie puppy called 'Brutus'

He is the coolest dog ever, here are a couple of pics.

A very young Brutus

As he is now.

I hope you enjoyed meeting my pets, take a look at other participating members of

the EtsyMetal team blogs and meet their pets too :)

 Laney (silentgoddess) 

Beth Cyr 

 2Roses 

 Evelyn Markasky 

 Erin Austin

 Rebecca Bogan 
 Victoria Takahashi/Experimetal
Cynthia Del Guidice 

In Memory of Mieko Takahashi Shull and Lucia Gulino

This year we lost 2 members of the EtsyMetalClay team, Mieko Takahashi Shull and Lucia Gulino. Members of the team have created 2 beautiful charm bracelets to honour their memory and to raise money for their individual charities.

The proceeds will be split 50/50 between World Vision, Mieko's favourite charity and an art scholorship in Lucia's name.

The EtsyMetalClay team is a close knit, international group of artists who share their love of all things metal clay.  We are selling raffle tickets for a chance to win the bracelets and tickets are $5 dollars each.

Please visit the EtsyMetalClay blog to participate and for more details.

Bracelet 1

Bracelet 2

EtsyMetal blog carnival 6/8/12 "The Five Senses"

Welcome to the EtsyMetal blog carnival

Blog carnival is about a group of our members sharing their experience on

a common topic: "The Five Senses"

I think it's quite hard to describe the 5 senses, we just take them for granted I think...

Taste is probably my favourite, as I love to eat! When I was at college I studied cooking for 3 years which was a lot of fun.  I love to cook and I love to bake and I try and do it as much as possible although my waistline probably wishes I didn't love it so much.

Smell, what would we do without it, has it's good sides and it's bad sides but I am glad that I can definitely smell! Some of my favourite smells are freshly cut grass, new born babies, thyme, fresh flowers, cinnamon and vanilla.

Hearing and sight, I always used to think about what I would choose if I could only have one of these, I think my choice would be sight.  That way I could still see the world, still work with my hands making my jewellery and cake toppers and still see my beautiful family.

Touch is important, without it we wouldn't know if something was hot or cold, if we were in pain or not and pain receptors are probably the most important.  Apparently we have more pain receptors than any other, sometimes I wish this wasn't true :)
Without touch, blind people wouldn't be able to read braille so for some people touch can be the most important.

They say if you lose one sense another sense is heightened.  I for one am definitely grateful that I have all of mine.

Check out what other EtsyMetal participants have to say about the subject

Beth Cyr

2 Roses

Victoria Takahashi

Cynthia Del Guidice

Rebecca Bogan

Inbar Bareket

Abella Blue
Quercus Silver

EtsyMetal team and a new piece

I am very happy and proud to say that I am now a member of the EtsyMetal team, if you don't know who they are they are a group of International metalsmiths from all over the world who create amazing work and have shops on Etsy.  Just put etsymetal into your search bar to find out about the Team.  You can also visit the EtsyMetal blog which is updated regularly, and also our shop on Etsy.

I also have a new piece in my shop tonight, it's the Tiny Heart necklace, perfect for everyday wear.

I hope you like it :)

Treasuries

I have had the treasury bug lately and I made 3 in one go, go me!

Here is a snippet of each one, just follow the link to see them in full :)
I hope you find something new.

Treasury #1

Treasury #2

Treasury #3, an Etsy Metal Clay treasury.

New website, new pieces

First of all I have some new items in my etsy shop which I haven't blogged about yet!

Another pierced bird necklace with some stamping and also I have riveted on some sterling silver flowers.

This next one is slightly smaller and has the silver bird riveted on to a copper background, also with some stamped leaves.

Finally some poppy post earrings in oxidized silver which match this ring.

I have also made a new website with Big Cartel, at the moment it only has a few pieces in that are made to order items but I hope to be adding to them soon.  Etsy will still be my main site though and will have contain more of my intricate pieces, here is a screen shot.

Currently making....

...this name necklace for a friend, it is quite big too.  Good job it is not in Gold or I think she would look like a gangsta!

For Bella

This first post for June is dedicated to my darling rat Bella who was put to sleep a couple of days ago.

Rats aren't for everyone but I have had 15 at one point and we love them.  Bella was the eldest of my rats and we had her for 2.5 years, she started getting tumors and had about 3 in total.  Even though she was living her normal life as usual, one of the tumors was getting too big and she was becoming really skinny and was unable to groom herself.  To keep her around longer would have been too selfish on our part.

So she is now over the rainbow bridge with her sisters and I still have 12 little monkeys left.

RIP my sweet Bella, you were the best rattie ever! :)

She loved tea!

Just sleeping

Shop Update!

Hello all

I have had a little shop update these last couple of days, it was a bank holiday Monday just gone here in France and I managed to be quite productive!

I have stepped into the realm of rings and I quite like it.
First up I made an abstract poppy ring, I actually got the image from a fried egg but thought it look like an abstract flower once I had soldered in the central ball.

Next I made this rustic floral ring, I originally made it to fit me but as I am a large ring size and I wanted to put it into my shop, I re-sized it.

I have a couple more pieces which still need to be added, stay tuned!

A cuff!

Finally something new to write about! I made my first cuff, it is copper with silver flowers riveted to it, first time I have tried riveting which is exciting, definitely more to come.  I stamped, pierced, hammered and oxidized.

This cuff also won me Cookson Golds, design of the week competition so I was doubly happy :D

I hope you like it, it is in my etsy shop as usual.

Instagram for Android, finally

Since Instagram has been released for Android I have become a little bit addicted!
You can follow me here if you like :) http://statigr.am/peculiarforest

Something New!

I made this ring quite a while ago and it has been sitting around for ages.  I finally decided I wanted to oxidize it and add it to my shop.  It is quite a large ring, a U.S 11 as I based it on my ring size, I have fat fingers!  They look like podgy baby hands, lovely.

I really want to start making more rings and I finally have all the tools to do it.