"Far, far away" - a kind of steampunk and overdue challenges

It is still not finished... What if I told you that this was from our january / february challenge at the german polymer clay forum I am participating (polymerclaykunst)? The topic was "Gestirne / Metall" (celestial body / metal). 

I painted my own little galaxy behind a cabochon using different nail polishes. It reflects the light just stunningly and it seems to go very deep (shades of blue and violet). I tried to catch this on the photo but it is difficult. 

The pendant I made with polymer clay (fimo classic) and coated it in swellegant bronze that was treated with darkening and the blue patina (the paint line from Chriti Friesen and I still don't know how I managed to live without it ^^). 

Coming to the next challenge topic: "Traumzauberbaum / Mosaik" (dream-madic-tree... sorry, german just allows beautiful word combination that are not translateable / mosaic).

Here is a preview of the piece I am working on for this challenge. A mosaic of leaves and wigs and flowers... here you can see the patina solutions of a copper surface.

And of course a hidden dragon fly... :) Just now need to go on with these projects...

"Through time" - earrings

In my last blog entry I wrote about the birthday party where friends of me celebrated together. There I showed one of the birthday presents... her is the other one (for another friend ^^). I made the small ammonites with polymer clay (fimo classic) in white and out several layers of acrylic paint (Reeves) on top. I bought a lot of different shades of brown, they work just perfect together!

Again.. some metal dangles! So much movement, love it :) Combined with the blue and clear czech glass beads (The Curious Bead Shop from Rebecca) they remind me of petrified pieces from ancient oceans...

"Take it with you" - earrings

If my friends have some beads or stones or anything else they think I could work with they bring it along so I can have a look! This time a friend gave me some swarowski crystals. You have to know that these crystals were part of her table decoration during her wedding last autumn and that she celebrated her birthday yesterday together with two other friends (so rather their birthdays ^^). 

I also had in my stash these little metal beads that my sister gave me last christmas. What shall I say? The were the perfect fit for each other and I liked the idea that I could make her some earrings with the crystals she used at her wedding :)

After the patina challenge I took part in my first thought was to alter the metal a little bit. Therefor I used dark violet acrylic paint for the background and sanded the surface a tine wee bit to get more contrast. The swarowski crystals were glued in with E6000. 

I also love the back with the colour and sanded edges! It is subtle but still gives the feeling of depth you only can get with layers of colour.

For some more sparkle (look at the light reflections!) I used czech glass beads (from Rebeccas The Curois Bead Shop and the little ones are from Korea). As you may have noticed... I am attaching these metal dangle beads everywhere at the moment. They create such a nice movement!