A tiger lily in autumn

 Well, it's been a chilly (below 15 °C), rainy day which started out ok but ended with thunder and hail, so maybe it isn't strange than I rather think of warm autumn days, saturated with colour. And, anyway, I know it's not uncommon for beaders as well as others to be inspired by the coming season rather than the current. Even by those of us that don't bead to sell and therefore have to be ready with an appropriate collection when the season begins. Though, I'm not sure it was thoughts of autumn that (consiously) inspired this bracelet. Rather it began with a thought and a bead and then the other colours where chosen to work with it.


I made the bracelet for Heather Powers' Inspired by Nature challenges -- which you should read about if you don't already know about them -- the theme of the week being tiger lily. When I first read that my crystal chili pepper flower beads came to my mind. The chili pepper finish is kind of a shiny slightly reddish amber. It's a coating on clear glass which means it can have a charming variation in depth. The colour (to some extent) reminded me of the orange lily and the shape echoed the petals of the tiger lily.

As I only had four flowers, I also added a few similar beads in crystal brandy and then crystal apricot 8 mm daggers for leaves. For the findings, I wanted something that enhanced the sparkling autumn colours so I chose bright copper plate and solid copper (the head pins).

The delicate chain with the elongated links was twisted and folded double. Both to form a more substantial chain and to give an illusion of some sort of intertwining vine or some such. It was a bit tricky, not least since the links are so elongated that the twist ends up slightly too loose for a charm bracelet. But I still like it.

As so often it ended up being a pretty dainty bracelet (this time partially due to bead shortage, but it's also my style) and I think it might look good worn together with a couple of other autumn themed bracelets. What do you think?

Violet drops earrings

 And for those of you not interested in kitties, here's a pair of earrings I made up a few years back. I had had the idea for some time before actually trying it out. It all began when I saw Lea Rose Nowicki's Looking Great Coming and Going earrings in BeadStyle. The thing that made her earrings stand out was that she'd added dangles not only to the stud itself, but also to the nut. I thought it looked fun.

Looking at it, I also remembered how people using earrings -- I don't myself, haven't pierced my ears -- often complained about losing the nuts and therefore didn't particularly like stud earrings. Well, I thought why not take Lea's idea but instead of using two seperate dangles, make just one than extended from the loop on the stud to the loop on the nut. That way it'd be impossible to lose the nut. Sure, it can still fall of the post, but if it does you still know where to find it.

I never have much chain laying around so I thought this one could make due for my experiment. Then I just added some drop beads to keep it simple. I'm sure the idea could be developed and evolve into nicer designs than this one.

The kitties have names

Last time I showed photos of the kittens, they didn't have any names yet. Well, not too long ago we managed to name them at last. As usual we rarely use traditional cat names and we also tend to name one cat after others before them. Sometimes there's also a theme when naming a litter. I'm saying that to prepare you for the slightly unorthodox names.

Jisse is named after Isse (Svartis), who died about a year ago. He's very active and full of energy. Especially early in the mornings when he likes to attack my feet, scratch my legs and just generally run up and down on me while I'm trying to sleep.

Jinja is the only girl. She's named after Jin-Jin (Jindy) and her mother, Ninjis (Ninja). She's a little more careful than Jisse and the smallest of the three. She likes to sleep really close to you in bed -- and now she's old enough to do that without me being afraid of crushing her in my sleep...

Julle is named after a cat we had many years ago, Mulle. He had long hair and of the three, Julle is the one with the fuzziest fur. Julle is actually a real human name or at least nickname in Sweden. He was the one to open his eyes the last and that probably contributed to the fact that he's the shy and hesitant one as he spent more time not seeing what happened around him.  He's got a white tip on his tail to go with the spot on his nose.

As you see they all got names beginning with a j. Jinja because she's named after Jin-Jin and then it was used as an abbreviation of junior in the other two names. It was either j as in junior or m as in mini, both used by us when naming a cat after one that's passed away.

My aliases online

 So I just joined Pinterest and I've been tweeking my Twitter page. I have a really lame Twitter accounted that's pretty much never been used other than to follow a couple of people/shops and I've never even tweeted once. I just haven't gotten into it, merely stood by the side when others have had fun. Kind of like at the amusement parks where I've always been too chicken to go with my friends on most of the rides. And so I join Pinterest, yet another facet of social media, without having a clue how to get started with it. I mean, it's not as I need another place to be social at (I'm not a social person and rubbish at socializing really) and spend more time at the computer to keep updated. But I did it. And I'm thinking of becoming more active on Flickr, which I've mostly used to publish pics to be hotlinked in forums or challenge entries (at the Art Bead Scene group mostly).

But that's not really what I wanted to post about. What prompted this post was that all this made me think about how to be recognized online as I started to join communities and websites before I began thinking about having one common online alias, one online persona. How can someone I "meet" on Flickr know that maneki-neko girl is the same person as Vildros on Etsy or kristina on UKBF? I like being somewhat anonymous and have used different aliases so separate the beader from the fantasy reader and so on, but at some point I feel I should tie some of my accounts together so people know that behind the different names is one person, Maneki (which pretty much is my online beading persona, I rarely use my real name online anymore).

Most of the time my alias nowadays is Maneki  --capital m or not, it varies -- but I still use some different names you might know me under. Here are a few sites where you can find me under different names. Links go to my profile page on each website.

Blogger: maneki

ColourLovers: maneki

Etsy: Vildros (no shop, just shopping)

Flickr: Maneki-neko girl  (Katten & Draken is my old account)

Pinterest: ManekiBeader

Twitter: ManekiBeader (used to be ManekisParlblog; haven't tweeted even once)

Uk Beaders Forum: kristina

On forums like Smyckestillverkning iFokus, Nätverket Inspira etc, I'm Maneki.

*

Coming up with a good alias is hard, which I discovered when I joined Pärlplatsen, one of the first online communities I joined. I couldn't think of even one good name and in the end I gave up and wrote down Maneki-neko girl because it was something I'd come up with one day after fallen in love with the japanese maneki-neko lucky cats. Anyway, that stuck, but because it was so long many abbreviated it, calling me m-n or maneki. And nowadays Maneki is pretty much my beading alias -- eventhough the name makes no sense to anyone who understands japanese. One several other forums I joined as a newbie beader I didn't use that alias, though, but instead went with the thuroughly unimaginative kristina (most of the time not capitalizing my name).Not only is it my first name, but it's also a very common name in Sweden so it's easy to be confused with another Kristina or Christina.

Vaucresson rose necklace

In pretty much the last minute, I uploaded my entry in the Art Bead Scene monthly challenge for July. For a long time I couldn't think of what to do and figured I'd skip the challenge just as I've skipped or missed most challanges for months now. After playing with my stash or embroidery floss, yarn and ribbons this week, I finally got an idea last Friday: wouldn't it be a perfect opportunity to make a new ribbon flower pendant? I haven't made any for ages now and hopefully one will pass as an "art bead". The artwork that was the theme of the month, Morning in the Garden at Vaucresson by Edouard Vuillardit,  features some lovely white and pink roses that seemed perfect to translate into ribbon roses.

Bias cut silk ribbon is pretty flimsy so the flowers you make are very delicate. Just like the flowers in the paintings (though I admit in jewellery "delicate" and "flimsy" are not normally properties you strive after as it makes the piece difficult to use without damaging). I used hand-dyed pink and grey ribbon for the petals and then stitched the rose to a old rose ox dapped filigree. The metal adds some needed weight, makes it easy to attach bails or jump rings and protect the flower from some of the wear and tear.

The rose pendant is made from hand dyed bias cut silk ribbon, mounted on a piece of filigree. The necklace chain is made from space-dyed viscose gimp that I stitched into a three-strand necklace and added linen thead on which I knotted vesuvianite chips and yellow "jade" beads. It's a pretty simple necklace, which is of cause due to me getting the idea so late and finishing the flower even later (petals are easy to stitch, tricky to puzzle together to make flowers). That's the real reason, but it also makes the necklace look like the rose bush in the painting where the flowers sit on winding branches with few leaves.

From the palette I choose just to work with the pinks and greens with a hint of yellow, omitting the periwinkle/mauve/greyish blue tones eventhough I liked what they added to it. If I'd come up with my idea earlier perhaps I'd have time to think of a good way to use them, but of cause I had to come up with a last minute idea and had to think of a design on the top of my head.


Instead of the dull and simplistic collage I ended up uploading on Flickr, I initially wanted to make an inspiring and beautiful etc etc collage incorporating the painting that inspired the necklace, but I just couldn't make something nice today. This is what I ended up with and I'm adding it here more just to show the painting I'm speaking of than to show a good jewellery collage.

Red poppy (WIP)

I haven't blogged in a few days now. Mostly it's because I haven't been that much online (which is also the reason I still have unanswered e-mails in my inbox and haven't been active at all on forums lately). I do have a lot of flower photos I want to show, but none of the pics are edited yet -- and I still have pics from May that I wanted to blog about but never got around to *sigh* -- so in the meanwhile you'll have to do with this little felted poppy.

I didn't originally intend to make a poppy. It all started when I saw a multi-coloured hand-felted piece of, well, felt in a craft magazine. I thought a melange cloth like that could make an interesting background for embroidery. A hazy landscape, perhaps, or a green meadow to fill with flowers. Perhaps I should make a few felts myself, I thought, using different coloured rovings. Not that I've really wetfelted anything before (and no more skilled when it comes to needle felting).

I think it was my lack of experience that made me think "what if I don't felt the whole thing, but just add wool to a piece of ready-made felt?" That would be easier, just needle felting on a finished surface. I have some red wool I bought at a sale (part of a christmas ornament kit, I believe) and I have scraps of felt. First I tried just to attach the wool to a piece of heavy synthetic hobby felt, which was at most a partial success, but then I tried the Nepalese felt scraps, 100 % fair trade wool, instead. Worked much better.

This is my second go at needlefelting so I think I can be reasonably pleased with the result. It was just a "blob" to begin with, but then the shape began to remind me of a flower so I kept working with that in mind and added a small piece of the black felt in the middle as stamen. And so my poppy was born. It'll probably become a brooch, I think. A relatively small brooch as the flower is approx. 3 cm wide. Not sure what to back it with (needs to be more rigid that it is right now) or how I want to edge it, but it should probably be kept clean and simple to really put the focus on the dramatic colours and the shape of the poppy.

I also made this 12 mm heart. My intention was to make a five-petal flower, but when I added the second petal, it was clear that it wanted to become a heart. A slightly lopsided heart.

So that's one of the things I've been working on lately. I keep having ideas, but it's frustrating not to be able to test them all as I lack supplies and it's likewise frustrating that sometimes the ideas are just "loose ends" that I don't seem to be able to work into projects and finished pieces of jewellery. But at the same time it beats having no ideas at all.

Clay and I

I'm not sure what it is with me and clay. I kind of like the idea of working with it, but when I have it I end up not doing that much with it. Be it a lack of inspiration or lack of the proper tools, I just don't seem to be able to do anything good with it. Part of me says it's because I'm no good at moulding and sculpting. Let's face it: I've always spent more time painting and embroidering, working with flat images. Sometimes dimensional, but rarely in "full 3D" as you -- most of the time -- do with clay. So maybe I'm just supposed to admire ceramics and other clay artists rather than work with it myself. Perhaps, eventhough I wish it was otherwise, clay -- of any kind -- just isn't my thing.

Let's review it. When I first heard about silver clay as a newbie beader and jewellery maker, I was really interested, but like many things it fizzled out. I didn't have the money to buy everything you needed and the clay itself was expensive. I'd printed a lot of how-tos from the Net and even got a book, but to this day I've never touched it. I became very dedicated, as I always do when I hear about something new and interesting that I want to know more about. For example, I spent months reading photo mags, learning about cameras and photo editing, before deciding which camera to buy. I can spend days researching a feature for Manekis Pärlblogg. If something catches my interest, I easily become that way. It can be a good thing, but sometimes I have to tell myself to stop and think it over so it doesn't just end up being a matter of acting on any whim I get flipping through a bead mag or reading about jewellery techniques/media/products online. Because that doesn't work in the long run.

So I didn't act on that first crush I got on metal clay. My wallet thanked me and I found new things that seemed to be a better match for me when it came to jewellery making. Then I got to see the artsy side of polymer clay. I grew up with Fimo and Cernit. It was clays for children to make cute and childish sculptures, beads and more with. Then I saw what kind of stuff adults could make of it. Sofisticated jewellery and effects that couldn't be replicated using ceramic clay. (Now, ceramic clay I had used before as a kid in school and children's art classes -- pretty ugly things, but in the eyes of a child they were fantastic.) So I read all I could about PC as a bead making medium and bought clay, glitters, Deco Gel etc. Did a few things -- including some fun mirror-image beads -- but found it probably wasn't really my thing. At least I didn't find inspiration to work with clay and it was hard to find the time to sit down in the kitchen and claim the oven for my beads and pendants. Sold off some of the clay and glitters, but still have some left. Can't sell it all if inspiration strikes: after all, one day I'll probably get an idea that requires PC.

What happened then? Because we both know that's not the end of the story. No, cue base metal clays. Ah, I love base metals! Much more than I've ever cared for silver. And here they came. First bronze clay. Then copper clay and last but not least steel clay. Oh, these are so cool. I want to work with them and they brought back some of the things I felt when I first read about silver clay. They rekindled my love of metal clay. But they require special equipment and are even more cumbersome than silver clay to fire. The price of it all makes me hesitate: what if it all just ends up like with the polymer clay? Though I've got ideas for these clays -- carving molds for pendants rather than sculpting -- I fear it'll all be a lot of money for a small output. But steel clay... I want it so badly...

Now, is that the end of it then? No, recently I've gotten an interest in resin (epoxy) clays and Fuwa fuwa, japanese paper clay. Like with PC it doesn't require a lot of equipment and cumbersome firing. In fact, it doesn't require that one thing that was partially responsible for me not working with my polymer clays: an oven. These are air-dry clays. Ok, there are two problems: paper clay has interesting textures -- perfect for Swiss rolls and similar miniature cakes for kawaii charms -- but it needs to be sealed to withstand moisture in the long run. And I generally don't know how durable it is. And resin clay can be very sticky. And I know things like that can have a -- a-hum -- negative effect on my mood if things start to go wrong.

So that's where I stand right now. I know I haven't exactly shown that I'm any good at working with clay, though I thing part of it has been that I either haven't found the right clay techniques for me (or the right type of clay) or that I haven't had the space and equipment to work with clay when I've had the desire to dabble in the medium. So one voice in my heads keeps saying "resin clay looks cool and useful, I should try it", while another voice is just telling me " yeah, right, it'll just end up like with the polymer clay, much ado about nothing".

If I have the money I probably will buy some resin clay (or putty) at least. It seems like a lot of fun and it can be used in so many ways compared to many other clays, seeing how it can be both a clay and an adhesive. The rest will have to wait. Even it I want to dabble in it, I will not buy any other clay until I've got some actual ideas about how I want to use it. Not just one or two, but a handful of good ideas worth the investment (of money and time) in yet another material. Sensible. Not fun -- I'd love to be rich enough to follow all my creative whims -- but sensible.