My rice writing is in a movie

Well almost! A few weeks ago I was contacted by a film producer who was in the middle of making a series of short tutorial films about camera lenses that will eventually appear online on the Canon website.

One of the lenses was to be a macro lens and they were thinking it would be very nice to finish the tutorial film with the words 'The End' written on a grain of rice.

He had seen my name on rice jewellery and wondered if I could produce one and get it to them for their filming. I was given a day to do the rice writing and sent the grain of rice by over-night delivery to their film studios.

At the end of the movie the presenter sneezes and blows my hard work off the table! Sadly the tutorial is no longer on the Canon website, however I have preserved some screen shots of it below,

Here is the grain of rice being prepared by the presenter. He is lifting the rice out of a box (that I sent it in) and placing it onto a red silk pillow with tweezers.

Canon Macro Tutorial with my Grain of Rice

And here is the rice after being brought into focus with the macro lens. It’s amazing how poor handwriting looks when it is magnified like that! But having said that, the writing is on a grain of rice as well...

My Rice writing is in a Movie

If you would like to see more of my rice writing, take a look at my name on rice website page.

Gothic Steampunk Rings – Recycled Watch and Clock Parts

This type of jewellery has been categorised many ways, whether you want to call it Steampunk jewellery, gothic, recycled, up-cycled, altered art or any of the many other labels that it has been given. I have always wanted to create something out of old watch and clock parts and when I came across these antique pewter Patera ring blanks I had the urge to make some Steampunk Rings (or whatever you want to call it).

For those who haven’t come across Steampunk fashion (and I have only recently discovered it), Steampunk fashion and jewellery tends to be modern styles influenced by the Victorian era. It is very popular with Goths, punks and industrial music fans and often incorporates old watch and clock parts into the jewellery. Steampunk jewellery is probably like Marmite, you either love it or you don’t. I am quite fond of Steampunk jewellery, but not so keen on Marmite...

Steampunk Ring from Recycled Watch Parts

 

The Patera ring blanks are really nice and chunky and the worn, antique feel to them really do lend themselves to this type of jewellery. All of the old watch parts that I used were all responsibly sourced i.e. no watch was harmed and the parts could not really be re-used as spares. I came across many old watch and clock parts on my travels that had been ripped out of perfectly good and working old watches and clocks. Many of the watches and clocks had been broken up for their gold content on the casing which is shocking because many of them were handmade, very old and have been broken just for the gold.

Steampunk Ring - Gothic Ring

I set the watch parts into the ring blank with resin and included a small Ruby glass cabochon to give them a little bit of colour. The Ruby glass also resembles a mechanical watch jewel so I think it works well with the other watch parts. The rings are fully adjustable and are completely one-of-a-kind. Although I have intentions to make more Steampunk jewellery in the future I will never make some like this again!

Since making these Steampunk rings, I have managed to get my hands on some gorgeous old, handmade watch parts and some Victorian looking bezels, so expect some more Steampunk jewellery from me in the near future!

Horsehair Jewellery with Cross Country Colours

I am really busy with the Christmas rush at the moment and have bags and bags of various samples of hair waiting to be made into jewellery. Many of them are from horses and people but a few are from dogs and even a couple of cats. I think forensics would have a field day if they examined my work area with the DNA that is likely to be about!

I wanted to show off a horsehair jewellery order that I completed last week, mainly because it brought back memories of my very first piece of jewellery that I made. The customer wanted some little blue and red stars also incorporating into the horse hair necklace. The horses show name is ‘little star’ and her cross country (XC) colours are red and blue stars so it seemed appropriate to incorporate the blue and red stars into the pendant.

Horsehair Jewellery with Cross Country Colours

 And here they are, I incorporated a few tiny blue and red confetti stars into the pendants and made two designs one with the horse hair criss-crossed within the pendant and the other pendant with a straight gathering of the horse hair.

Making these brought back memories of my very first resin pendant that I made, where I incorporated multi coloured confetti stars within a resin heart shaped pendant. This is still one of my favourites to this date and it was great to incorporate this design into the horsehair jewellery.

Confetti Stars Pendant

 Please visit my website page if you would like to see more Horsehair Jewellery designs.