Abstract UK landscape

Abstract UK landscape by cards by Jane

this is a superbly clever treasury by Cards by Jane and I'm thrilled that my green lampy stringers make up part of this wonderful abstract landscape.

Jane makes a fab selection of handcrafted delights including beautiful decoupage style cards but my favourite has got to be this cute Elephant card, he's absolutely charming. Jane sells her cards in order to raise funds for the charity AYME which stands for Association of Young People with M.E. Which is a very worthy cause.

Jolene x

Kitzbitz Art Glass & Frit N chips lampwork supplies

Artists Spotlight - Claire of Clasibags

Today I'd like to introduce you to Claire of Clasibags. She is an extremely talented textile artist and accessory designer who works with felt (that she also makes herself!) and with yarn and wool. This little tactile black and white number is my current most favourite of all Claire's bags so far but heck she is always surprising me and filling me full of uncharacteristically girly accessory lust with each new creation she makes.




I adore the way that Claire adorns her bags with her own special coordinating knitted and felted flowers. She also offers these in her sophisticated a range of stylish brooches.

You can find out more about Claire's gorgeous designs including this unashamedly funky hot pink number by following Clasicat Designs on Facebook. You acn also get the latest gossip from Claire on Twitter and follow her lovely blog.

Jolene x

Mini Mo' Club June 2011 - Sea Heather

After taking a full year off from melting glass during pregnancy and after my son Ethan was born, I am very excited to be back to work and creating lovely little Mini Mo' packages again. This selection of glasswork for June is the very first collection for the the Mini Mo' Club this year.

The main colourway for Sea Heather Mini Mo is CiM Lapis and Effetre Dark Turquoise, two of my absolute favourite glass colours. I have teamed up elements of Sea Heather with CiM Crocus in my first test bead set and really put the murrini through its paces. On the left you can see Sea Heather murrini both encased and as a surface embellishment. The murrini in the round bead at the fore of this picture has been melted flat, spot heated and the twisted to form a delicate swirl.

I have encased the murrini in the focal bead for this set. First I made a small tube bead core from CiM Crocus and attached two murrini, one on each side. Next I heated the murrini gently until it domed and then used a brass pokey tool to indent the center of each murrini. I heated a gather of Lauscha soft clear glass and spot encased over the murrini fully to trap and air bubble and protect the murrini from smearing. Neat I put down some twistie in between the murrini for interest and then spot encased and melted te encasing layer smooth and marvered in to shape.

The three murrini visible inside my Sea Heather focal Bicone have each been treated differently, One was attached and immediately encased, one was melted partially flat and then encased. The third was melted completely flat and then encased.



Pictured above is one of my test bead sets for the Sea Heather shards. I've used CiM Gunmetal with is pewter patina as a contrast to the glossy aqua colour of these pretty enamelled shards.

In this large organic focal I have used a fairly substantial piece of shard and covered big section of surface area of the bead, dusting with some white enamel to add interest and texture just before garaging.

Here are all of the Mini Mo's for June together in their pretty packaging.

As an extra special treat I also made a second murrini pull, Atlantic, to send with the June Mini Mo's as thank you to my Mini Mo' Club members.You can see it both as surface decoration and also under deep encasement in my Pink Atlantic bead set shown here.



Jolene x

Frit N Chips lampwork supplies and Kitzbitz Art Beads

Artists Spotlight - Mel Harding

I have been looking forward to writing this spotlight since the start of the Craft Pimp artist spotlight project. All week various things have happened including the blogger upgrade blip and a whole evening down at A&E with my eldest (don't worry folks, it turned out to be nothing serious after all).

It's almost the end of the week and I can finally sit down with a mug of coffee and surf about the net looking at Mel's beautiful creations. Mel and I have a fetish in common for winged things. This intricate enamelled six piece topper is my current favourite piece in Mel's brand new Etsy store called >Inkydoodlecrafts

These seaside scenes are rather gorgeous too and would look lovely in tiny driftwood frames. You can also find pretty toppers from Mel at >Inkydoodlecrafts on Ebay.

Mel is moving in the exciting direction of using her own original designs exclusively throughout her product range and I have been lucky enough to see her first original topper up close, you can read more about the birth of a dragonfly on Mel's own blog. When I think about Mel and her work and creative spark I can imagine such bright things in the future, demoing to packed crowds at the NEC or pitching products and original artwork to the buyers for Ideal World. I have this lovely feeling that I will get to say one day that I knew her before she was famous.

Jolene x

A Perfect Circle

A Perfect Circle by Anna McDade

I am sure you will agree that Anna has created an stylish treasury jam packed with some extremely beautiful hand crafted treasures.

I'm thrilled that Anna has chose one of my new scarab tattoo bead pendant bead sets to be featured in her beautifully curated collection.

I am finding it just too hard to select just one piece from Anna's stunning Etsy inventory to showcase and so I wont.....I'll show you three!




Watch this space for a more in depth feature on Anna in the near future and she and I are fellow CPteam  members on Etsy.

Jolene x
Kitzbitz Art Glass

Flutterby Butterflies

Flutterby Butterflies by minipretties

A big thank you to Christina of mini pretties for featuring a piece of my lampwork in her beautiful butterfly treasury. My featured beads are is called "the one with the Moth"











Christina makes and sells a broad range of fabric and crochet items including lip balm holders, hair clips and brooches and textiles for dolls houses. I really like her newborn baby clothing best and love these little slippers!

Denim and Blue Plaid Soft Sole Crib Shoes

Jolene x
Kitzbitz Art Beads

Artists Spotlight - Ruthies Ramblings

Today I have the pleasure of blogging about an amazing beader, Ruth Duck.

Ruth had her first experience of beading when she was little and told me that she had been taught by her mother to make a daisy stitch chain with picots when she was four. After a long break Ruth rediscovered her early fascination for beading about three years ago when she went through an arch she hadn't been been through before at her local craft centre and found her local bead shop. It was like walking into Aladdin's cave and Ruth left there that day with an armful of beading materials and beads and treasure.

I really like this cuff bracelet and amazingly Ruth had only tried bead embroidery for the first time about three weeks before making it. It was her entry for a Making Jewellery magazine bracelet competition and it took second place. When I asked Ruth about the inspiration behind the design she explained - The coin came about because I was skint at the time and didn't want to fork out for a cabochon.


Ruth designed the pattern for this delicious peyote cuff one day when she was bored at the day job. She describes this Celtic cuff as a cow to work out but even worse to stitch. Since then Ruth has moved on to using computer software to design new patterns for her peyote work but her designs will always start out on paper first.


 This necklace is a real work of art. I asked about the inspiration behind it's creation and Ruth said - I’ve always like Egypt (used to have a bright yellow bathroom with Egyptian stencils all over and full of cheap and nasty nick knacks although the camel was rather cool) and I got a book out of the library about jewellery design through the ages, just to get an idea of the thought process behind designing a piece and there were some lovely Egyptian pieces. I had an idea to create a beaded Egyptian style piece and Google some images for inspiration and spotted the piece I made out of gold and enamels. bead embroidered pendent based on ancient Egyptian jewellery design. The polymer clay scarab was created by the very talented Caroline Harvey. In total this beautiful embroidered bead necklace took about 9 months from idea to completion.

Visit Ruthies blog and flickr to find out more about Ruth.

Jolene x

Colors of Sunrise

Colors of Sunrise is a stunningly curated treasurey by of gipsy spirit with the most gentle and serene colour soft pastel colour pallete.

I was thrilled to see my Palma Violets bead set featured among so many other lovely hand crafted goodies. I'm particularly drawn to those very pretty edible butterfies (and how could I resist!) by Lisa G of Sugar Robot

Gypsy Sprit has an indisputable amount of good taste an style. Check out a few more of her collections (images clickable) above and you will see just what I mean. Thank you ever so much for the feature,

Jolene xx
Kitzbitz

Cheeky Bead Gallery 3 - Tattoo beads

Firstly a quick shout out for Craft Pimp.....Do you create with polymer clay? Why not enter our *all about FIMO® Competition* on Craft Pimp Forum with monthly prizes donated by STAEDTLER (UK) Ltd.

And now a quick cheeky gallery of some of my latest inspiration and beads. This gorgeous pram blanket was a gift to my son Ethan from my good mate Tam. It is the jumping off point for my first bead series, Tattoo Beads. These beads use three intricate canes based on the butterfly, scarab and bird that you can see in my son’s baby blanket.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my pictures.

Jolene x
Kitzbitz

Artists spotlight - Smitten Kitten

Nicola describes herself as a devoted hobbyist, keen crafter, passionate about making clean cut simple stylish jewellery.

I love this Fiery Dragonfly, it is part of a  hugely successful series of stunning cluster pendants that Nicola has a talent for creating.



Aside from pure eye candy, Nicola also shows off the funky fun side to her designs. These tweety bird earrings inspired by the popular "Angry Birds" game are so cute.

I'm also loving Nicola's more serious side. Glam Rock in Schwartz is a tasteful little number which would be equally at home with a flirty little black dress or looking cute and moody next to jet black painted finger nails.

To see more from Smitten Kitten check Nicola out on Facebook and on her beautiful and interesting blog and on her own website SmittenKitten.de too.

Jolene x

WIN! WIN! WIN! with Brand New *All about FIMO® Competition* on Craft Pimp with monthly prizes donated by STAEDTLER (UK) Ltd

I am so thrilled to be able to share the news that I have just launched an Brand New *all about FIMO® Competition* on Craft Pimp Forum with monthly prizes donated by STAEDTLER (UK) Ltd.

I am a huge FIMO fan as you may have gathered from my blog and can't believe how excited I am to be able to share this news and project, there will be a prize up for grabs every month now up until Christmas 2011!

Come and join the fun!

Jo xx


Please obtain full instructions/safety leaflet and stockists from STAEDTLER (UK) Ltd.
marketing@uk.staedtler.com

For more information and project sheets:
www.fimo.com
T: 0845 600 5930

Artists Spotlight - Dizzy Kitten

Dizzy Kitten, otherwise known as Kayleigh is a fellow polymer clay addict. She has a real knack for combining zingy colours to create bold and vibrant jewelery designs. You can find out more about Dizzy Kitten by following her fan page, Kayleigh's Craftyness on Facebook.

This picture below shows a range of Kayleigh's whimsical toadstool necklaces which are very cute indeed!




And these pirate cats really capture the sense of fun that Kayleigh brings to her creations which brings her critters to life.

To see more visit Flickr and Dizzy Kitten's Arty Farty Stuff.

Jolene x