All booked up!

Just booked a ski holiday to Mayrhofen in Austria! Oh my goodness me I am soooo excited! Check out how many runs there are!! 157, 46 lifts. Can't wait to go!

Featured on an etsy.com treasury!

Oo! Look! My 'Regimented Rainbow' birch-framed artwork has been featured in an etsy.com treasury. A true honour! Hopefully it will get me noticed and start sales rolling in...

View the treasury here: http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=26139

So pleased with my new card designs

I had great fun last night putting together new card designs, combining my new hand-carved stamps, handmade fused glass nuggets and gorgeous new cards and inks. I think you'll agree they look great. I am so pleased. I love the little linen cards with the texture showing through the stamp, but then I also love the new bright pink 'Bloom' cards (with pink and turquoise envelopes). I'll never pick a true favourite but the lovebird one is pretty special.

Aww, lovebirds

And today's hand-carved stamp offering is...

Two little lovebirds. Bless.

Ebay & vintage pottery

Emma is a bad influence. It's official! I am now obsessively browsing ebay for vintage pottery from the 50s/60s/70s. I love all that retro stuff, especially the shapes and patterns. My work itself is contemporary with hints of retro-ness about it so it's no big surprise I love all that stuff :) My fave designs are from Scandinavia. I just received my little trio of Figgjo Flint eggcups. How cute?!

Then I started browsing for other funky ceramics, etc I liked and look at these beauties I found...

(This website is great for more info and pictures: http://bloesem.blogs.com/wr_vintageceramics/2007/02/test.html)

Still alive!

It's been a while hasn't it. You'd think I'd fallen off the face of the Earth after my last post and such a HUGE gap between now and then but no, I haven't. I'm still about, keeping myself up to my eyeballs in glassy work and other crafty ventures. I'm as busy as ever but I wanted to get back into blogging, especially as I am venturing into some new crafts, namely hand-carved stamps and gocco printing (an affordable, compact version of screen-printing, which I have always wanted to do).


On the glassy side of things, I have just completed a commission which will find a home in a Spanish villa (very nice too!). I made a latticeware bowl and a set of matching lattice coasters in chocolate brown, orange and white. The result was a very snazzy looking set I named 'Jaffa Choc':

On the craft front, printing is the latest thing to move from the 'to do' list to the 'i do this craft' list! I thought I'd start simple with hand-carved rubber stamps and recently got my kit from the States. I think this one is going to be massively addictive. I found it real fun drawing up designs (remembering to do them in mirror-image!) and gouging out the areas I didn't want to print. I made 4 stamps in a couple of hours but I am sure if I focused solely on that and not half-watching the new series of 'Primeval' on the computer I could go faster! I'm expecting this one to turn into a bit of therapy. Carving the rubber is quite easy and the designs could quickly become real stamps. Makes a nice change for some instant crafty gratification, rather than the glassy side of things where a single piece can take hours from start to finish. So, my very first stamp was a Handmade Heaven 'HH' in a loveheart to be stamped on the backs of my new cards (more about them in a mo). I didn't want to use my HH stickers, thinking something with a proper handmade look would be much more attractive. Next was a chick. Don't know why but I suppose Easter is coming - there are Easter eggs in the shops already! Then, inspired by my arty friend Emma (check out her work at www.emmahelbrough.co.uk), I made a teeny tiny teacup which I think is my fave design so far. There was a scrap piece of rubber I couldn't face throwing away so that was swiftly turned into a little loveheart, scarcely 5mm across. Waste not, want not! It looks the business over the teacup too. Here are the first batch. Hope you like them:

And today, during a quick 15 mins I knocked up a little cupcake, which, I think you will agree, is pretty darn cute!

Next challenge is my gocco printer that came from Japan today. More about that in future posts, I hope.

So, cards. I mentioned them earlier in this post. I have had these little fused glass blobs for a while now. It was one of those things I make just because they look cool. The poor little blighters have been in a tupperware for a while now so it was time to do something with them. One day they will get tack-fused onto a base as raised polkadots but that's still on that 'to do' list. I decided while I was in the stamping mood, to try some stamped cards and use these little blobs up. The 'Fusion' and 'Bloom' ranges were born on Saturday and have already proved to be time well spent. I have sold all but one of the cards already! So much for my plan to give one to someone for their birthday. I guess I will have to make more then!

This is the 'Bloom' range - a giant line art flower with a trio of fused glass blobs forming the centre:

And this is 'Fusion', some funky shapes with a single fused glass blob in the middle. I can't decide which I like best!

I hope you're all well and are relieved to hear I am still alive and kicking and not all washed up in the floods! I will try to keep you updated on all my crafty progress but you know me, I'm a blog-neglector! S.

Tut tut!!

Ok, bad Steph! It's been 2 months and no blog. Thanks go to Caroline for giving me a virtual poke to remind me I should blog!

So, what's new? Well, I last wrote about the show I was going to do at Sudeley Castle. This show was cancelled as the beautiful natural amphitheatre setting ended up flooded out! The INCREDIBLE rains came on the Friday and the show was meant to be the next day. Sudeley was under 6ft of water, the staff were trapped and the emergency services were there. Hmm, no show then!

With the floods came the water crisis. All that water and it got cut off for ages! A week after the flooding, still with no water, I was meant to do another small artists market in Oxfordshire @ Sunningwell but I have to admit to running away to my folks' place! (I am doing one there on the 30th September though). Funnily enough I wasn't in the mood to trek out to Oxfordshire, early on a Sunday morning after showering using a watering can full of bottled water, to sell to the few people who could make it to the market (probably those who had boats!). I'm glad I did go home actually. It was my big brother's girlfriend's birthday and Mette (big brother's gf!), Colin (big brother) and Mette's parents over from Denmark who I'd not seen for 6 years were up at mum and dad's. Mette didn't know I was coming, nor did her folks, so it was a great surprise to them when I turned up as they were finishing dinner! Hopefully it was a good surprise!! They made all the right noises anyway as I tucked into some birthday cake! ;)

Since then glassy things have been a bit on the back burner. To be honest I am not sure exactly what I've done since then! With 2 shows cancelled I don't have that mad rush to make stock so things have been a lot more chilled out. I still have work to do of course, as ever. Still in demand! I have cufflinks coming out my ears! Made loads of those recently so don't need to make more for a while. Check out this link and scroll to the bottom to see the newest designs.

I also came up with a winner of a design. In a moment of inspiration 'Happy Ever After' was born and I instantly fell in love with it. Such a simple yet beautiful design. I am really proud of it. Almost as soon as I'd made it I'd sold 3 sets which is great.

Happy Ever After

I actually made them specifically for an up-market holiday cottage in Rutland, 2 Chapel Lane (http://www.twochapellane.co.uk). My arty friend Tash (of http://www.tishtash.co.uk) has her work there and got me in on the act too. I supplied 2 pairs of coasters, 'Happy Ever After' and 'Patriot' (latticeware) for the 2 bedrooms and a quad of coasters for the lounge - 'Cherry Cola Multisquare'. I also supplied 2 Chapel Lane with an unframed artwork for the wall. I have posted this before in the blog. It's called 'Rich Red Patchwork'.

Patriot

Cherry Cola Multisquare

As well as paid work I have also been, finally, making things for family members. I owed my aunt some fused glass goodies so she got 2 hangers (5 x 25cm)...


My little brother was also hankering after some artwork so I rustled this up for him. Initially my plan was to make something in black/white/grey but I changed my mind last minute and I'm glad I did. I am really pleased with this piece and I think he is too...


I have also been putting together some samples for a lady in the US who would like to use my glass tiles in a bathroom she is redesigning. She loves the 'stripes! stripes! stripes!' design so I made 3x 4" samples for her which I finished this week. Fingers crossed they are what she's after...


Well, that brings me more or less up-to-date. I hope this makes Caroline happy and anyone else who reads my blog will know I am still alive and still working! :)

Making me hungry...

I keep doing designs that look edible! Glass does have that boiled-sweet quality about it but this particular design - Sugar Cinnamon - reminds me of those sweet spicy biscuits with large sugar granules sprinkled on. This new design is one of many for the Designer Art & Craft Show I am doing on the 21st July at Sudeley Castle.




I had a quick look on the Sudeley website to see if the show was advertised on there and had a nice surprise - they have used my Bandits! cufflinks image to promote the show! Look...

Eventful morning!!!

What a crazy journey to work that was. Have been awake since about 4am listening to the torrential rain. Lots of schools in glos are closed due to flooding. Had to mount the kerb to pass a flooded stretch of the A40 with an abandoned Ka in the middle of a HUGE 'puddle' then passed a garage which I had to do a double take at. Half of the front of the building was missing! Perhaps it had been ram-raided? Flooded and crumbled? Driven into by accident? I dunno, but it was bizarre! Then, just outside work there was an accident on the road meaning I had to traverse car debris. I hope my tyres are alright. So, those were my 3 things. Hopefully that's an end to a very eventful journey into work! Of course, there's no flooding in Oxfordshire so probably no-one at work believes me :P

Cufflink crazy!!

As well as developing new styles, I've also been working on cufflinks. My handmade fused glass cufflinks have proved to be really popular which has taken me a little by surprise but it's great! I love making them and I've sourced some really smart boxes. This is Theseus boxed...

They look the bee's knees and I think they make great statements. As ever, the Bandits! design is my most popular - I think there are a lot of patriotic men around! I recently finished a commission for 10 matching pairs for a friend at work's ushers...

Here are some other designs I've also made...


Poseidon...

Red Baron...
You can see the full range of current designs on my Wearables for men page on my website, www.handmadeheaven.biz.