Skeleton Hand Choker and Hair Clip

Merry Christmas to all and I hope Santa delivered all the presents you wished for :)   

As you can tell by my other blogs I tend to make skull pendants and other strange jewellery, so I thought why not make some creepy skeleton hand jewellery?

These where rather difficult to make. Trying to get the fingers to look as skeletal as possible was the hard part, that and bonding them to the metacarpal bones. I hand sculpted every part of these skeletal hand. I don't use moulds unless I really have to.  Each to their own as they say. 

Skeleton Hand Hair Clip and choker

These are fun to make, even if the process is a pain in the backside! 

To make these I started with the metacarpal bones first. I just formed a oval shape from a blob of polymer clay and flattened the back of it. With the back now flattened, the top was left oval and domed. Before I made the fingers I sculpted

the metacarpal bones. I use stylus tools but you can use a tooth pick if you don't have a stylus tool. Taking my time I outlined the basic shape of the hand. After I mapped out where I should start shape and characterise the detail. Once this part of the skeleton hand was done I then moved on to the disturbing and eerily long bony fingers. 

I rolled out the polymer clay in to long strips then cut them to size. Once cut I then attached then to the metacarpal bones. I used liquid fimo when attaching the fingers as it bonds during baking. Convenient and practical yay! :) 

Back to the making of the bony fingers, so after I rolled out the polymer clay ad attached the bony fingers. I then added in the finger joint detail. After all this shaping and detail, I then added shading with a grey pigment powder. After all this, which took me two days to make, off to the oven they went. Once they had cooled I then glued a blank hair clip to the larger skeleton hand....., and yes I glazed it :)  

For the choker I drilled a hole at the bottom of the hand so I could put a jump ring on it. As you can see it's attached to a black velvet ribbon which was measured, cut and made in to the choker. I will be making more of these as I just love them. I'm afraid the photographs of these aren't very good as someone asked me to make the choker for someone's Christmas, so I didn't have time to take very good photographs of them. However! When I make more I shall take much better pictures of them :)  

Keep It Spooky Children Of The Night!

 

Jewellery Displays And Photography

Using a white backdrop with Christmas flower decorations.
Also two glass faux crystals
Photograph taken today

Jewellery displays take a lot of work! Sometimes your looking at your jewellery and thinking how am I going to set this up so that it looks inviting and some what professional. My personal experience is that it can be tiring mentally, not only do you have to position it perfectly, but you also need the perfect lighting to bring out the best

Black felt background

 in your jewellery, especially if you have multi-faceted gem stones, cubic zirconias or glass beads.

 Whether it's pendants, bracelets, earrings or rings, having the best lighting just adds that extra special something to them. Just trying to get the light to hit them in just the right place can be frustrating however...maybe an investment in some pro lighting would make even more of a difference! :)  

Using a red rose wreath for a backgroud

So today I was just playing around with displays just to see what works and what doesn't. I would like to work with more coloured backgrounds as I'm limited to either black and white which isn't bad, but I just want to use more eye catching colours. 

I also use fake flowers, skulls and anything else I can get my paws on. I tend to use things that don't take to much away from the jewellery. It's always good to have something in the background just to give the photograph some added depth :)

Using a black felt background

Next year I'm looking to get my jewellery modelled meaning I should be able to add a more diverse range of photographs of my jewellery, and I'll get to practise some photography skills. So I get to level up both my skills at the same time, yay! :)  

I will hopefully be getting a better camera next year, and even though the one I have now is good at getting the job done, I want to get the best out of my jewellery. So people can see the jewellery in greater detail and colour. 

Well that's me done for today. I hope you enjoyed having a read of my blog.

Keep It Spooky Children Of The Night!  

Halloween jewellery display photograph

Craft Fair In Dingwall

I have been looking around the highlands for craft fairs and my lovely soon to be mother in law found one in Dingwall. So this morning I was up at 6.30. I woke up with the thought so what do people do at this time in the morning? I've never seen 6.30 in the morning! Just kidding :) 

So after my (it's to early in the damn morning) coffee, I check everything such as jewellery displays, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and rings so they are priced and ready to survive the trip to Dingwall hehe. 

Once we had arrived we got everything out the boot and made our way to the building where the craft fair was being held. It was such a lovely place, there where other ladies there who had lovely pieces of jewellery and clothing which are all handmade. It was rather quiet but with most craft fairs it's rather hit and miss with people but this doesn't faze me people either love hand crafted stuff or they stick to the chains of jewellery stores, each to their own. I would love to see more people buying hand crafted because some of the things that I saw just made me drool. If had taken some spending money I would have bought myself a wee present! But I didn't and that was poopy (sad face). Ahem! moving on. I did however enjoy the day it was great and the other women where just fun and talented. It was rather short day but I really enjoyed it! Here is a photograph of my table in all its glory. Even though this blog was rather short I hope you enjoyed it.

My jewellery displayed for all to see.

Keep It Spooky Children Of The Night!