Crochet lace - and the winner of the sms giveaway!

Here we go! I don't like blog entried without any pictures so I just combine the crochet lace bracelet I made with the announcement of the winner of the sms giveaway (the sea urchin earrings and -what makes even more fun for me! - some crafting stuff as surprise :) ).

 

The little bracelet I made with cotton thread and a 1,5 mm crochet hook. It is really easy to make, just several rows of single or double stitches and some little knots. To get the pink satin band through the crochet lace proved to be way more complicated... at least to get it even throught the holes! I love the effect and to crochet this kind of bracelets... but the (absolut necessary!) satin band is always... arghhs! If it were not for the satin band (or ribbon) I would make a lot more of this bracelets!

But enough rambling about crochet bracelets...

(we have a big festival here in leipzig, the wave gotik festival or short WGT and there are still two days of music and dancing and fairs to go to!)

The winner is:

Maureen Hayes

I like the sea urchin ones, although your lace is beautiful as well. I do all sorts of crafting, from stamping to art journaling to mixed media, so if you threw in any kind of art supplies I would probably be thrilled with it. I love all the Tim Holtz stuff by Ranger!

Thanks for the chance to win!

 Congratulation! I'll send you and email! The package will go on its way as soon as I have your mail adress and the post offices are open again :)

Thanks everyone for participating in the sms giveaway!

Inspirations: Numbers (Leipzig)

I started a collection of pictures with numbers. I don't know for sure what to make with them but I had the idea that it would be cool to use number pictures for advent calendars or anything else where you need a large collection of numbers!

So here is the first part of my (hopefully) growing collection :)

SMS giveaway - sea urchin earrings

I never got to take part in the sew mama sew giveaway day (sms) before. I just always took my chance with all the other participants which gave the possibility to win some of their beautiful stuff. Even now I am a little bit late...  

...better late than never, mh? ^^

So here we go! For the sms I'd like to give one of my sea urchin earrings!

I already showed you the first of my sea urchin earrings (I am still in the process of making new ones and to experiment with colours and materials). And yes, I'll also show you more of the process how to make them but this may still need some time. I just got my date to defend my thesis! Finally! HA! And this will (for sure) occupy a lot of my time in the near future. But I already started to write about the first steps of making the mold... so have a little patience. :)

The earrings are made from a silicon mold (from a real sea urchin from the mediterranean sea, better to say: from Formentera!) with polymer clay (fimo). I drilled little hole inside with my dremel and painted the surface with different kind of acrylic colours (classic ones, aqua acrylic paints, metal effect). I tried to take pictures from the earrings with different light sources and background but it is difficult to catch the real colour. They are in shades of blues, a wee tiny bit green and bronze and copper accents at the top! 

Now for the rules part... Yes, rules, there are always rules ^^

- the giveaway is open to all (as long as the mail service may reach it ^^)

- the giveaway will be open until May 25 at 5 p.m. PST 

- the winner will be noted by May 27 

Please be sure you'll leave me a way to contact you! Either you have included / attached your email adress to your account or otherwise write it down at the comment section (just like this name (a) host (dot) com so your email won't be found by searching engines). 

For a chance to win leave me a comment and tell me which of my earrings (I made a lot of earrings ^^) in my blog you'll like best. 

If you're a follower, just leave a second comment for another chance to win :)

There you go!

PS: And of course I'll add some crafting stuff also! If there is anything you are really interested in, don't hesitate to mention... chances are there you may be lucky ^^

Lace and beads - jewelery

I used a piece of lace I got from Silke @für große Mädchen.(even if she writes in german, just have a look at her blog because she has a lot of pics of her great stuff! :))

I cut out very carefully the patterns. I really used everything I had from the lace (I have to find more lace like this!). 

I started to stabilize the lace...

...and then sew little glas beads onto it.

The beads are in a matt white.

I think they fit just perfect!

All the metal pieces I used are nickel-free...

...some of them made out of silver but not all. I just used what I had at hand and had the right size :)

I really like the shape and the irregular, a little bit vintage look. I am still not sure whether to keep it, to bring it with me to the fair "Leipziger Wollefest" or just to put it into my dawanda shop. ^^

Sew your mail!

You have some old envelopes / packages? Too big, a little bit torn...?

Sew it!

Holds better than anything else...

...and also looks better! ^^

This little one went to my sister lachafa to Münster...

...and the bigger one here to a friend in Berlin (the one with all the pink stuff!).

Glueing, drawing, and a bow!

...and of course several different stamps!

...next time some stitching maybe?

Inside your cell

Okay, it seems that I am a little bit slow sometimes. I mean: Hey, I just realized that I still don't have a cell stamp. And I am a biologist! Without a (an eukaryotic) cell stamp!

I was a little bit shocked by myself. Really! So I had to change that...

...and carved an eukaryotic cell stamp ^^

I just stamped with lino print colours (it is a big stamp) on water colours like here.

Mh... and I think I need another one, this time more detailed or "stuffed"? Or just a beautiful neuron? 

PS: Who can name all the structures inside the cell? ;)

Sea urchins

I love the structure and surface of sea urchins. They are so delicate and all the colours! Since I was a little child we went to formentera every year and there one could find a lot of the typical sea urchin most people know. Which is the leftover of a dead sea urchin ^^ 

We found tiny ones and big ones... and from my collecting I tried one to make a silicon mold of (I'll show this one to you in another post!). During the process the sea urchin itself was destroyed.. *sniff* ...but I like the resulting sea urchins I could male with the mold and with polymer clay (fimo)!

I drilled little holes inside with my dremel (love this multi function tool!) and treated the surface with aqua and normal acrylic colours. I already made several ones but still want to get more experience with it! And also I want to find a tinier sea urchin to make really tiny polymer clay sea urchin beads! :)

PS: And yes, I am starting to add more and more of my earrings to my online shop at dawanda! :)

Beetle wings - earrings

Beetle wings are just beautiful! Like small smaragd the shimmer and shine and glitter in the sun in unbeliveable facettes and colours of green and blue and turquois! 

The didn't weight anything but the chitin they are made of is suprisingly sturdy and stable! Don't have to worry about breaking them or something like that :)

And no, even if I am a biologist, I didn't kill the beetles for their wings, don't worry! These are the "trash" or rather leftovers from beetles used as food in asia. 

The are not coloured but rather the surface of the wings is a certain structure which breaks the light and therefor creates all the shine! The never bleach out due having no colour ^^ 

In the past it was quite common to use beetle wings for jewelery or even as ornaments / beads for dresses. A friend showed me a picture of a dress from 1888 made out of more than 1000 beetle wings. It was worn by Ellen Terry who played Lady Macbeth at the Lyceum theatre in London. It is still stunning and all the kinds of green are still glittering like jewels. Also even if some of the wings are broken this is more to the fact how it was stored and not to the material of the wings themselve! 

Of course I made earrings out of them!

You can't really see from the pictures how beautiful the are! 

I sold several of the earrings at the last craft fair...

...even if nearly no customers came (due to the problem of good PR...)!

So I am taking more with the at the next craft fair! Also I have some with silver ear hooks for myself, wearing them for the last days! (Yes, my new favorties.. again ^^)

For you being in or near Leipzig:

Das Leipziger Wollefest erwartet Sie am

Sonnabend, den 2.6.2012
von 10 Uhr bis 19 Uhr

sowie am

Sonntag, den 3.6.2012 
von 10 Uhr bis 17 Uhr.

in Markkleeberg-West, agra Park,
Eingang Raschwitzer Straße / Ecke Parkstraße

den agra Park erreicht man mit den öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln, der Straßenbahnlinie 9 Richtung Markkleeberg-West, Haltestelle Forsthaus Raschwitz oder die nächste Haltestelle Parkstraße, ein paar Laufmeter und den Ausschilderungen folgen.

Inspirations: Just water drops (Leipzig)

Just water drops on plants / leaves after the rain. Simple, something quite ordinary but beautiful! 

Here are the plants - just you get an idea how they looked like.

And now just a lot of uncountable little jewels made out of water ^^

Add a tentacle...!

This is a clay bowl a made with a tiny tentacle inside. 

No, I don't know how you could use a tentacle in a bowl.

I just wanted one.

Tentacle from every side!

I love the colour of glace on clay!

Here you can see the empty spot where the bowl was standing up while being burned/fired.

I am still trying to get some experience with real clay as well as how to use the different glaces.

Every tentacle needs suckers ^^

Maybe next time I'll use tentacles outside the bowl...

...but I just manage to go to the clay studio once in several weeks (sometimes months *sniff*). I need a solution for this. Maybe starting to work with the clay at home, let it dry and just go for firing and using the glaces to the studio...

...I always wanted to try the clay with paper inside to give fragile objects more stability!