Saturday 28 November 2009

Listed!

Yay!

Finally all the pictures are taken, all packages are packed, and everything is listed on artfire!

http://www.artfire.com/users/SparklingSky

*Edit: I've updated the pictures!





Hope you enjoy them! They would make great Christmas gifts!

~Sky

Friday 27 November 2009

My First Christmas Jewelry

Hi!

I've been quiet lately, which was basically because I had so much to do for exams and seminars and such that I haven't had time to blog nor to work on the FIMO stuff.

But I was clever this week. I had a lot of free time between two lessons, so I took some clay with me and started to work on it. And here is the result:


A candy cane necklace, candy cane earrings, and a candy cane bracelet! The picture is a bit dark because it is close to midnight over here and my lamp is not that strong. I'll post some better pictures tomorrow after I've put the two additional bracelets and the 9 other pairs of earrings I've made on sale on artfire.
Hopefully someone likes them! XD

~Sky

Monday 16 November 2009

More stuff ordered :D

I've been shopping some more for material to work with on Etsy and Artfire. And I finally found a cheap pasta machine on ebay to use as well. I got 2 machines, hopefully one will be paid by the school as it is for the workshop.
And it looks like I'll get the OK to order stuff from a huge online store. So that means I'll get a huge supply of material soon. To safe postage fees I'll order some stuff for myself, too. I'll just need to ask if it is OK when I mark the school stuff on the bill to seperate it from my own.
I think I'll try to make some heart earrings and turtle earrings this weekend when I am done with my exam lesson.

My students were all crazy today. I don't know what it is with Mondays or if it is the bad weather, but I am always sweaty when I come out of school. I know that kids need someone to test their limits on, but it is tiring sometimes. I know so many ways to make lessons more interesting, but these don't work when I have to fight against 30 kids in different stages of puberty who find everything else more interesting than school. *sighs*
I hope that the jewelry workshop will get me a bit closer to some of them on a personal level and hopefully that will also transfer into the lessons and make life a bit easier as teacher.

So, back to work!

Saturday 14 November 2009

First experimental items finished :D

OK, so here we go. They are all glaced now and look shiny and pretty. :D

The necklace gave me a real headache. First it was too short and because I had already sealed one end of the string I had to remove all beads again and start from the beginning. Then, when I had sealed the other end, I wanted to try it on instead of waiting until the superglue was completely dry. So the string slipped out again and the beads spead all over the floor. Took me a while to find all the beads again and then I had to start again. But I am finally done and I think it looks kind of cute.


I still like the Christmas tree, but the ground part was too uneven to use it in the snow globe. So I added the green bow instead.



I think the hair pin turned out pretty neat.



Isn't the wingless dragon cute?

Friday 13 November 2009

I've been shopping

Today I had to go to the handicraft store to get some material for my little workshop at school. I bought lots of stuff, so I hope the kids will like the Advent Calendars. I might prepare one myself to show them how it is supposed to look like.

And while I was hunting down all the neccessary material, I also bought some FIMO stuff. I am too impatient to wait another week for my order to arrive. I wanted to do something creative now.
So I got myself a few small packages along with some beads, a snow globe set and lots of other tiny (but so expensive!!!!) things.
Because the material is so expensive I want to show the responsible teacher at school what possibilities there are with clay and what I could do with the students if we get the financial support. I'd then order all beads, clips, etc from a larger store to make it cheaper, I just need to get the official OK, first.

So, anyway. I started to test a few things I had in mind or saw in a book. On the picture below you see my first attempts before they went into the oven:
* the Christmas tree with the packages is for the snowglobe
* a dragon/dinosaur figure that was meant for the snow globe but turned out a little bit too big for it
* a flower hairpin
* lots of beads made from the rest of clay that I used for the flowers
* little dresses that will be turned into little angel earrings as soon as the wing beads arrive

I just took them out of the oven. Tomorrow I'll glace the beads and the hairpin, the dragon will get some acryl eyes, and I need to get better glue and some distilled water to finish the snowglobe. The earrings will be finished as soon as my beads arrive with the mail. I'll keep you updated on here.

Thursday 12 November 2009

Still no clay :(

The package was supposed to arrive between the 11th and the 14th... now the 12th is almost over... I am impatient...

I'm going to go to the craft supply store tomorrow to buy some coloured paper for my students. I'm leading a handicrafts workshop at school and we want to make Advent calendars next week. Got the OK from school that I can go and buy all the stuff I need and they are going to pay for it. They even said that I could spend between 100 and 150 EUR without anyone asking questions. I definitely won't need that much for the paper. But having a bunch of girls in that group... it would be fun to make some simple jewelry from polymer clay, too. We could exibit it at the next school event.

Oh, and in the meantime swine flu is spreading. Now our neigbours are infected. Their son has it for sure, one of his sisters and his mother have the symptoms, too. So now I can not only get it at school but also at home.
I still don't know if I should get the shot or not. I have a graded exam lesson in 2 weeks and I don't want to become ill before that. And I usually react sensitive to medicine, so I don't want to get ill from the shot. But I don't want to get swine flu either...
So I guess I just hope that I'll be fine for the next 2 weeks, after that I might get the shot. Then it doesn't matter if I get ill or not. I just want to make sure I won't get ill over Christmas and New Years'. My boyfriend will be in Germany then and I don't want him to have to stay away from me or get infected himself. That's not how our holidays are supposed to be like...

Anyway, I'll go shopping tomorrow and while I buy the stuff for school I will also get some more supplies for the clay.
Oooh, and I also discovered some cool books on making wire jewelry. Those looked pretty, but the book was 50EUR, a bit too much for my poor purse. But luckily it is Christmas soon so that I can add them to my wishlist :D
And I've ordered some pretty neat stuff from artfire, too. That should arrive within the next 2 or 3 weeks, too.
So I REALLY wouldn't mind if they had to close the school for a week or two.... ;)

Monday 9 November 2009

1st package arrived!

Hello!

Today the first package arrived. It contained a book about how to make FIMO jewelry and a jewelry bead machine to make beads of a regular size and form. The book is quite good and has some beautiful ideas inside. And it also has various lists of material I can use so that I now know what I am looking for.
I just scanned the book briefly, I'll read some more in it tonight when I am done with preparing lessons for the next few days.

Which reminds me: We have at least 1 case of H1N1 in each year. Last week there were only 2 confirmed cases, one in the 5th form, the other in the 9th form. Numbers exploded over the weekend, I have 2 students with swine flu in one of my classes, the others are OK, so far. But there are so many ill at the moment. I've heard from collegues that from 30 students in class only 15 were at school today. The others either have swine flu, normal flu, a heavy cold, or their parents are just scared that they could catch something.
Our principal raided all pharmacies today and bought all their supply of desinfection soap and stuff. Every class now has at least one of these bottles in the classroom and they got a letter for their parents with all the swine flu symptoms.
There is still no injection available at our doctor's, but I am not sure if I will get the shot anyway. Swine flu often occurs softer and less drastical than the normal flu. It usually is only heavy when you already have other illnesses, especially when you have problems with your lungs. I've never head a shot for the normal flu either and I have also never caught it, so why should I panic now?

Well, we'll see. Maybe they close down the school for a few days. Then I'd have more than enough time to work on the jewelry. ;)

~Sky

Sunday 8 November 2009

The Beginning

Hello!

OK, I thought that I should tell you a bit more about how the idea of creating my own jewelry came to my mind and started to flourish.

My boyfriend and I were at the Texas Renaissance Festival (http://www.texrenfest.com/) this year. It was just awesome. All the artists and comedians, all these people dressed up in costumes, living their roles for a weekend. Food, drinks, merchants; everything was in theme. Both of us have been roleplayers for a long time, we've even met in a roleplay game, so naturally we've been fascinated and enchanted by this wonderful surrounding.















So we started to toss the idea around of having our own stall with our own stuff, becoming a part of the whole event. He bought us puzzle rings (rings that consist of 4-15 single rings that can fall apart and you have to put it back together in order to wear it) and is fascinated with them since then. He also would like to learn how to make hats. He has this costume idea that would make him look like Hugh Jackman in Van Helsing (sexy!).





























<-- doesn't he look hot?
I myself then started to google a bit for jewelry components and ways to make your own components. I found a few online supply stores and the idea of creating individual jewelry from polymer clay. So this is where I want to start. First of all I want to learn how to sculpt with polymer clay, practice a bit, and then maybe make my first few jewelry attempts for myself and friends. And we'll see where it goes. Of course it is just a dream having a stall at the RenFest, but it is a fun thing to dream about. And doing something creative might help to release some stress from my real life job: being a teacher. LOL!

Oh, and something else I've learnt while being in America for the Halloween season: there are so many ways to torture your puppy! xD Maybe I should make puppy costumes, too! *giggle*













But for now I will just have to wait until my package with Fimo arrives.

~Sky

Saturday 7 November 2009

Welcome To Sparkling Sky!

Hello!

Thank you for having a look at my humble blog! I hope that one day "Sparkling Sky" will be my brand for making jewelry or anything else I think is fun and maybe worth selling. :D

Until then I will just blog about random stuff that comes to my mind. :D Of course I will also post pictures of any approaches that might be worth blogging.

I've ordered Fimo and some books this weekend. I also got pointed to a great polymer clay website with lots of sculpting ideas. http://www.polymerclaycentral.com/
I'd love to make my own beads, or faery and dragon sculptures. The stuff should arrive some time next week. I will hopefully have some time next weekend to make my first Fimo attempts. :D

So much for now!

~Sky