Yay

Yesterday, during my post-assessment-deadline Dawson's Creek fest (*cough* 11 episodes *cough*) I made these wire necklaces like the ones I've made before and are in my Etsy shop.

This time we've got a gold 'yay'.

And a cute little silver bow.

They're made by wrapping shiny thread around garden wire and glueing along the way.

These two should be in my Etsy shop in the next couple of weeks.

Miniature Fun

The other day at uni my friend Natalie and I decided to have some fun with my miniatures.

Luckily we have really long corridors so Natalie could be far away enough to appear tiny.

I just had to crouch on the floor with my camera.

She got caught up in the tornado.

Acted all Godzilla on the tiny house.

Swung from the tree.

And pushed the tire swing.

Speaking of, I managed to sell the tree at the exhibition it's in at the moment!

Yay!

Step up

My latest miniature has this set of stairs in it.

I've made 2 other staircases before but I think this is my best yet, structurally anyway.

These stairs from last year were all kinds of wonky, but it was dark in that box so noone could really tell.

I do really like this set of stairs, but the method was a bit annoying.

See how I made it here.

For this set of stairs I did my best to make sure the steps were all the same size and didn't warp when I glued them together.

I was also feeling ambitious so I went for a banister with spindles.

If I were to make it again I think I'd tried and add carved details to the spindles, but this time I just wanted to make sure that they were all the same length.

You should be seeing the rest of this miniature some time next week!

I'm off to go finish it.

Beyond the Confines

Some of my work is currently being exhibited in a little group show in Norwich Arts Centre with five of my fellow students.

It's called Beyond the Confines and you can read a bit more about it here.

I'm exhibiting my tree...

...and my tornado.

My work has been put quite high up because it's in the art centre's cafe/bar which also gets used as a performance space so they didn't want my work getting damaged.

But I guess it's interesting for my work to be seen from a different angle.

The exhibition is up for two weeks so if you're in the area, check it out!

Miniature room

My latest miniature piece started looking like this.

Bit too nice isn't it?

That's better.

Someone's got some rage!

Fist through the wall, broken photo frames, knocked over chair.

Letters and photos scattered. 

The plants been knocked over too.

I used a real piece of plant for this but it's already wilting and shrivelled so I'll either have to keep replacing it or find a way to make a fake plant.

There's the clock you've already seen, and I got to make some more mini books.

Bricks

I'm sure when you saw my miniature bungalow you thought, 'Man, that's a lot of bricks to paint!'

Don't worry friends; I made myself a handy little time-saver.

10-brick rubber stamp!

I made it the same way I made these rubber stamps; just cut into the rubber/eraser with a craft knife.

I did a similar thing for the bricks on this fireplace, except it was only a one-brick stamp. But it wasn't too bad because the bricks were a lot bigger and there wasn't so much card to cover.

Starburst clock

Have you seen the latest trend of starburst clocks?

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

Well my latest miniature piece even has one!

I kind of love it.

It was pretty simple to make too.

I had a little metal disc in my box of shiny things so I just glued bits of the wire to the back and added a clock face.

I used a small piece of thin jewellery wire for the clock hands and added seed beads around the edge for decoration.

And to show you just how tiny it is, here are my grubby painty fingers to give you a sense of scale.

More hairbands

Things I need more of :

Words on my dissertation.

Things I don't need more of :

Hair bands.

So guess what I did this weekend...

Made more hair bands!

Yay!

Well, assembled more hair bands, rather than 'made'.

I just took some of the butterflies my Mum crocheted and attached them to some new elastic hair bands that I bought.

I've used these butterflies to make necklaces before, some of which you can find in my Etsy shop.

*cough* shameless promotion *cough*

Here and here.

Is ombre hair still on trend?

I hope so, because I'm never on trend but as my dyed hair (that I dyed well over a year ago and was supposed to be semi-permanent!) grows out it's kinda looking that way. Aces!

And welcome to new followers!

And of course hello to y'all who have been with me for longer.

Thanks for being here.

I wish blogger had a better way to reply to comments to we could actually have a proper, like, conversation.

Or as we say in the art school world 'start a dialogue'.

Baby on the Doorstep

This is my newest miniature.

I'm finding I'm doing more exterior pieces compared to last year. I guess it's good to try out different things.

It's a cute little bungalow with a baby in a box on the front doorstep.

This actually happened in my home town, except the baby was in a plastic bag not a box. Sad.

This is the first piece where I have an actual person in it. Usually I make a point of leaving figures out but it wouldn't have worked without the tiny baby.

I painted a bead skin coloured and tucked it in some fabric which I folded swaddling-style (a trick I learnt from Lost) to look like a blanket. 

The slate roof tiles were cut from black paper with white chalk over it, and then individually glued to the roof.

In a recent tutorial my tutor said they were "bloody good".

Yes, some people in England actually do speak like that.

I tried to challenge myself a bit with the piece so instead of plain windows I tried out a stained glass effect. From a distance it looks alright.

The door knob is an earring stud which was conveniently the right size.

Studio tour

I've been back at uni for over a month now so it's about time I showed y'all my studio space for this year.

This is my table which usually looks this messy.

Most people - especially in the painting department where I am- use the wall to put their work up, but since my work is 3D I use my wall to put up things that I like to look at.

Like a photo of my friends back home and a Tim McGraw poster.

I share the space with my friend Natalie and we've really made it our own.

For a start, we got a carpet!

It's more comfortable with it because we can go shoes off.

We managed to get a 5ft8 square piece for £5. Bargain!

Now imagine 5ft2 me carrying it back from the shop. 

This is the shelving unit that I brought in for us to share.

Check out all our books. We impress ourselves with our mad reading skillz.

And that open orange drawer is our snack drawer! Nom nom nom.

And this is just to show you a little comparison between other peoples spaces.

Some people prefer minimalist, but we like colourful and comfy!

So shiny!

I made a new necklace and it's super sparkly!

I used the same wooden disc as in this necklace along with a wooden ring which I painted with nail varnish to match the glitter.

I drilled small holes in the discs and then covered them in PVA glue and glitter. Lots of glitter! 

Twister

My latest miniature is a tornado!

I started it whilst I was still at home over the summer and finally got round to finishing it.

It started off as some chicken wire nailed to a piece of wood.

Then I added polyester stuffing to make it look cloud-y. 

I made the tornado grey by spraying it with watery grey paint.

I did this at uni and tried not to make a mess.

A lot of people have suggested I add a cow...the film Twister has a lot to answer for.

And here the house that you've seen before, only it's a bit messed up now.