Vintaj November challenge entry

I haven't participated in the Vintaj blog challenges for ages, it feels like. But this Friday I sat down and told myself I just had to do something this time. The result was this bracelet, which I haven't named yet.

The theme of the challenge was wandering journey and at first I had a few very diparat ideas I mused over, but in the end I put them aside and instead found a new approach to the theme. For someone who's never been outside Scandinavia, what is the longest journey I've made? Apart from the usual strolls around here and the hikes in school, when do I wander the most? Well, in my dreams of cause. In dreams, everyone can travel far and wide. During night -- and sometimes also day -- we can make the most fantastic journeys and wander along magical paths. Not through the world outside, but the universe inside.

For the dreamy quality, the soft air of reverie, I choose to work with romantic "rose opal" tones. Pink is not a colour I use very often, but I've accumulated some light pink opalescent beads lately and they seemed perfect for this. I used picasso finish Czech glass beads, where the brownish finish blended well with the Vintaj brass components. The rows of dreamy beads and brass flowers are held by two swallows, birds that also fit the theme. Not just soaring high in the air, wandering freely above our heads, but also because of their annual great travels: migrating to Africa in autumn and returning to us here in the North again in spring/summer. They travel far and free -- like we can do in our dreams.


If you like this bracelet and want to vote for it, you find the poll here. Votes are always very appreciated. Don't forget to check out the other lovely entries as well. Unfortunatly, it's one one vote per person so you can just vote for one of your favourites. Last day to vote is 19 November.

How I suspended a brass sparrow

I won this brass stamping in the shape of a flying sparrow at the Vintaj blog. The easiest way to use this stamping as a pendant is just to attach wire, jump rings or a stringing material of your choice to the corners where wing meets tail. The way you can see it done in Vintaj's own examples. I was playing around with my swooping swallow, not sure what I wanted to do with it. I had been interested in getting one to make Melanie Brooks' cool Arteria Arcanum Pendant, but I don't have the supplies to make anything similar.

Instead, when sorting my Vintaj loot -- som bought, some won -- I found some leaf charms I'd bought to make a necklace never realised. What if... I thought. Soon I had begun bending by leaf charm to make the suspension you can see above. Here's some instructions for how I made it.


First I put the charm through the corner of the hole between one of the wings and the tail, flipside up and placed so the leaves where pointing inwards and the loop was beyond the tip of the wing/tail.

Then I just bent the soft, malleable brass charm so that the leaves now faces outwards, laying over the loop. I pushed the two sides of the charm together to minimize the gap and thereby not risking the charm falling off. Then I repeated the steps with another leaf charm around the second wing tip.


I carfully manipulated each leaf, moving it to one side or the other while holding the rest of the charm still, until I felt they were in the right position. As I use the same charm on both sides and the charms are asymmetrical, I didn't want the leaves to look as though one was just an identical but upsidedown version of the other.


The holes between the wings and tail are so large I could use the charms as hook-and-eye clasps, hooking the leaves around the tail, but I was afraid the thin soft charms would too easily be bent when using the "clasp", which could lead to the charm snapping from metal fatigue.


Now I'm ready to make my pendant into a necklace. I'm thinking an all brass piece of jewellery here. Don't really know why, but when I look at it I keep getting associations to the 18th century. Not least when adding the "flowers" and leaves I plan on using in the necklace. Perhaps it's the leaves together with the shape of the bird (especially that tail) that reminds me of the motifs used in interior decoration and frames in those days. They'd use gold or gilded materials: this brass looks like patinated antique gold or gilding I suppose.

I'm still working on the details -- this is a work in progress -- but when I get that sorted I'll post a pic or two of the finished necklace. Let's see if I can keep that 18th C feel throughout the design process.

A barn swallow drama

Ok, as you can see, I'm no good at shooting flying swallows. And barely sitting swallows for that matter. So I hope you see these photos as more documentary in style. Think newspaper photographer on site of accident. And if you make it to the end of this short, but slightly dramatic, tale, you'll find a couple of nice pics of a sweet young swallow.


It's been a warm and sunny day today and I spent the afternoon outdoors. As usual, the swallows were circling in the air. Our beloved barn swallows. They build nests in our stable every year.


They circled low this afternoon, which is unusual on sunny days like these. Normally, the fly around catching insects and on warm days the insect fly high up in the air. And thus do the swallows. They did not behave as I was used to.


In fact, they even seemed to swoop down on me. As if trying to scar me away. I didn't pay much attention at first, but the closer I came to stand to the greenhouse, the lower they flew. Still, I was too focused on other things to "connect the dots" yet.


It wasn't until I fetched my camera, thinking I'd give it another shot, trying to photograph these elusive (to the camera at least) birds. When I began focusing on the birds I soon realised that there really was something wrong. I wasn't imagining it when I thought they were "aiming" at me. I got the final proof when one swallow actually swooped down on Mini, one of our cats that had just wandered into the yard and laid down on the gravel. He wasn't doing anything to aggrevate the birds so something had to be really, really wrong from the birds' point of view.


Still not knowing what was wrong, I stepped closer and this is what I found. Can you see what it is? A kid, a young swallow that probably wanted to try its wings, but failed. As you can see below, the vent hole on the top of the barn wall is right above our greenhouse. The swallow must have either fallen from the hole or perhaps bumped into it during one of its first flights.


Poor soul. There this little one sat, while the parents were soaring above, trying to defend it from the carnivores that called the farm theirs. Humans and cats. And also, by flying, trying to get their little one to get airborn. Poor birds, they can't pick their kids up in their arms or carry them from danger by holding them by the nape.


At one point, which I got a good look at and which was so touching to watch, one of the adult swallows sat down on the clothes line that run from the greenhouse to a nearby tree. As if trying to comfort the youngster and at the same time trying to coax it to get into the air to get to mummy/daddy. At this point I'm standing about two metres away from the birds.


Oh, look at the poor defenseless one as she or he is looking up into the sky, following the flights of mummy and daddy. At one point it tries to flap its wings, but alas, it remains stranded on the glass roof.


As the adult swallows didn't seem intent on attacking me, I got into the greenhouse to get closer to the poor baby. Some of the panes are missing since the autumn storms and snowy long winter and when dad got ill, no one got around to repairing them. Luckily for me, this meant I could get a couple of good shots, being within a meter of the bird. It was heartbreaking, seeing this lost little child looking up in the sky at mummy and daddy.


I wish I could end this story with a happy note, but the truth is I don't know what happened to the bird. I turned my back and the next time I got there, the swallow was gone. I didn't hear anything that resembled the sound of a cat catching a frightened bird. I don't know if it fell to the ground, but I didn't see it inside the greenhouse at least. If it did fall it would probably be the end for it. But the swallows disappeared so maybe, just maybe, they didn't abandon a falling child, but flew away with their little one. Maybe it did, in the end, flap its wings and soar into the sky. On should never give up, but try and try again. Baby birds know that better than most of us. Let us hope the story ended so.

Resin charms with Gel du Soleil

In my other blog, I've written a long ode to Gel du Soleil, a single-part epoxy "resin" by JudiKins that is cured with UV light. Theoretically, it can be cured in sunlight, but November in Skåne is not the best time and place to test that... I had to give up after 30 hours of barely no sun at all. But as luck would have it, my dad has this old UV-lamp for philatelistic purposes, which turned out to be perfect.

I really like not having to mix a two-part resin -- that can be really messy -- and the need of UV light means the resin will stay liquid as long as I want it too, unlike the usual epoxy resins. The bottle also make the resin super-easy to apply. Small bubbles can easily be removed by keeping it close to a lighter flame. And if you accidentally scratch the surface of touch the resin before it's fully cured, it will disappear with a new layer of resin covering it. It's a bit smelly, but not worse than many other things I work with.

Above you can see my first charms I made with the resin, using Patera pendants and NunnDesign image transfers. For the charm on the right I used a piece of a "vintage perfume label" sticker. Unfortunatly, I didn't think of sealing it so the resin seaped through the sticker, making it darker than I meant it too. Still think it turned out OK, though.

I bought the small 0,3 oz (9 ml) bottle and my only worry right now is how long it will last. Because the bottle is black, to keep UV-light from curing it already in the bottle, I can't see how much resin is left. Nor does it help to shake the bottle. My fear is that it will run out halfway through a project.


There are still times when other resin may be a better choice, but for the rest of my projects, I'll probably stick to UV-curing epoxies.

Brads bracelets

As some of you might already know, I enjoy looking for jewellery supplies in the scrapbooking section in the craft shops. One thing I especially like, apart from the papers, is the decorative brads that come in a wide range of styles. I use both the kind where the motif is made of painted metal and the ones with epoxy stickers on.

Brads are easily made into jewellery links or pendants/charms and they can also be attached to bracelet bases, as I've done in the bracelet above. Round brads with vintage motifs were added to a tough suede bracelet, which came already with holes. A quick project -- what took time was arranging the brads and trimming the legs so they were short enough to more or less "embed" in the suede after attaching them in the holes. (If you are looking for the same type of bracelets, I got it from .)


Making brads into jewellery links was one of those ideas I came up with all on my own -- and was pretty proud of doing it -- just to realise later one, when doing some online research, I'm not the only one having had this idea... See Stampvamps.com for example. In my "Colourful Sakura" bracelet I've used jump rings made of square wire as these matches the rolled up legs of the brads better in style. In the summer bracelet on the right I've instead covered the plain jump rings with Miyuki drops.

I have also found another way of making brads bracelets, unlike the methods I've used, Patty's Stamping Spot. She uses a bracelet chain and "wrap" the brads around the links. I really like this way of making brads bracelets too so I think I must have a go at something similar soon.