25 Wednesday Oct 2017
Posted in jewellery
My new shop is finally online! There are many items I haven’t listed yet, but in the meantime here are a few pairs of earrings that I think have not been seen online yet.
Polymer clay and Swarovski crystal bead earrings
Yellow wonky cube bead earrings
Violet flower cane earrings
Please have a look, I’d appreciate any feedback. Thanks 🙂
20 Saturday May 2017
I will be taking part in the Art & Craft Fair as part of Ingleton’s Overground Underground festival this year. You will be able to find me at the Ingleton Community Centre on 28th & 29th May 2017. If you are in the area it would be great to see you.
Red Palette earrings by Cate van Alphen
Green Palette earrings by Cate van Alphen
You may have noticed the beautiful pottery I use in my photography. This is made at Ingleton Pottery. The pottery is open year round, but during the festival you will be able to make your own pot (see pg. 14).
I recommend sending the more energetic members of the family off for some Extreme Canyoning so that you can browse in peace. There’s lots more art to see in the area (Lunesdale Arts Trail), and several other outdoor activities (does caving count as outdoors?), so it’s definitely worth a visit.
23 Sunday Jun 2013
Posted in My work
Tags
beads, colour, ear-wire, earrings, fulgorine, lampwork beads, pink wire, shop, tassel, wire, wire wrap, yellow beads
I have been making a lot of earrings lately. I have a tiny window of time in the evenings after baby has gone to sleep (IF she goes to sleep quickly) and it is really satisfying to be able to complete a project in that time. I have discovered that making earrings is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get, and you can’t stop after one. I’ll show you what I mean with some (clumsily) edited images as I didn’t take photos along the way.
First I made a pair of earrings using lampwork beads on dark pink coloured wire. I framed the focal beads with baby pink seed beads, which I also added to a pink niobium ear-wire. I love using niobium ear-wires because they come in different colours and they have the bonus of being hypo-allergenic.
This time the colour of the niobium ear-wire worried me as it didn’t quite match the wire I had used to wrap the beads – it was more of a dusty purple pink and looked a bit dull in comparison to the wire. As there were touches of silver visible in the lampwork bead I changed the ear-wires to titanium.
I liked the combination of the pink seed beads with a pair of white beads that had orange and yellow speckles. I decided if I was adding pink, I’d really pink it up, so I used super bright pink wire. I had planned to frame the focal bead with the pink seed beads, but while I was wrapping the beads I decided that the yellow beads looked better on the pink wire. I added a tassel of bead charms (including pink) to the bottom of the earrings to link with the pink beads on the ear-wires.
Now the pink beads didn’t look right on the ear-wires since I had framed the focal beads with yellow beads. Therefore I made some new ear-wires with yellow beads on instead.
The dusty pink colour of the ear-wire still didn’t look right to me so I changed the ear-wires again. This time I used purple ear-wires (the brightness levels matched) with a coil of the pink wire I had used to wrap the beads.
Now if you’ve been keeping track you will realise I had two pairs of unused pink ear-wires (one with pink beads and another with yellow). So I made another two pairs of earrings…
The tassel on the long earrings went through a few iterations before I was happy, but the earrings with the yellow, purple and clear rectangle came together on the first try. And that’s how one pair of earrings became four.
Here are some of the other earrings I am in the process of listing in my shops – Zibbet (listings are in USD) and Folksy (listings are in GBP).
09 Wednesday Jan 2013
I have been working on a new and improved hollow doughnut recipe, but unfortunately part way through I realised that there is a flaw in my method. While I’m still working on that, I have decided to open a new online shop on Folksy. For the moment I will also keep my Zibbet shop open, but I’m not sure if I will be able to make enough stock to fill two shops when the baby arrives.
I still have more listings to add to both shops (I only get time to add a couple every day), but here’s some of the new stuff so far:
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07 Friday Oct 2011
Posted in My work
Tags
Inspiration is like a rubber duck floating just out of reach. The more you lunge and splash trying to grab it in desperation, the faster it moves away. If ignore it, chances are it will get trapped somewhere stagnant. So, very gently, you need encourage the water around it and allow it to flow towards you.
I am therefore nervous about starting an online shop in case the pressure of making stock and finishing pieces instead of playing and seeing what happens causes my duck to change direction. I can’t hope to ever be paid for my hours, but possibly I’ll be able to support my habit 🙂
I have started listing some of my beads and pendants – who knew it would be so time consuming?
