Today is National Happiness Day. 🙂 What makes you feel happy and inspired?
For me it is definitely Spring, bright colours, flowers, nature, exercise and the Sun and I have certainly not been lacking in inspiration these past few weeks, so much so I have hardly had time to keep up with blogging, Facebook etc. So I thought I would make this weeks post a bit of a catch up on what I’ve been inspired to make these past few weeks.
Birds, Bees & Ladybirds!
I was at the dentist recently and whilst waiting for my appointment I started to read an article in a gardening magazine about ladybirds, I didn’t get to finish it but it inspired a thought. I also have a very good customer/friend who loves ladybirds and for her recent birthday I made her a bracelet with beads that were the colour of ladybirds (no photo I’m afraid). She jokingly said, necklace and earrings to match then for Mother’s Day? With the article on ladybirds still in mind, I took this as a bit of a challenge and as I love a challenge, I decided to try to make some ladybird earrings for her. This then inspired me to have a go at making some bee earrings too. I’m rather pleased with how they both turned out and I have made more since. You may have noticed that on each of the Mother’s Day hearts I have made there is a ladybird included too (see further down)!
This then lead me onto making birds. I started with the intention of making earrings but they seemed rather big so became keyrings instead.
And the only bit of inspiration for these was a bit of leftover clay and yet another chance to make a flower!
Pantone Colour of the year 2014 Radiant Orchid
My next source of inspiration was the Pantone colour Radiant Orchid, I love bright colours and this colour is a particular favourite, a kind of combination of pink and purple. I mixed together the clay first to create the colour and then I made the flower bracelet. I then started to think of colour combinations including this colour and using my extruder is a great way to create patterns with different colours. I think these turned out really well and I loved combining the silver beads with the clay, I must do more of this.
Shades & Neutrals
I’ve also been working on trying to create different textures and shades using only 2-3 colours of clay, first the browns, then the blues and finally some neutrals. If you want to know how I created the texture on some of the beads, it was with a cheese grater!
Still thinking about colour, I’ve also been practicing my skinner blends with clay, which is blending 2-3 colours together through a pasta machine to create shades and depth. These are the first items I’ve created using this method.
And lastly a couple of necklaces with some cord beads I made with the help of my extruder again. I love the colour combinations of both of these.
Hot Pink & Turquoise
Back to my favourite bright colours and flowers again, I combined turquoise and hot pink to make a flower cane and then I created these pieces of jewellery. The elasticated tile bracelet didn’t turn out as good as I would have liked, I spoilt the shape of the beads trying to make the holes, so I am keeping this one for myself.
Flowers
And finally more flowers and a couple of flower bracelets in different colours. I think my aim is to make flower bracelets to match most of my outfits in all colour combinations. I love how the purple and white one turned out. I have in mind to make a lime green and orange one next!
And last but not least I will leave you with a few more Mother’s Day hearts I have created, trying out some Bluebells (I think I got the colour wrong), more daffodils, crocus, snowdrops and even a sheep! I am in the process of writing a tutorial on how to make a daffodil with polymer clay, I will hopefully post this next week.
Thanks so much for looking, feedback and comments are gratefully received. Have a happy and inspired week.
Linda x
Georgia P Designs 
Linda, what a lovely collection. Your black sheep, with white wool, looks rather surprised it ended up modelling for you. 🙂
Happy Day!
Thank you, my son said I should have put the grass and daisy in its mouth, then it would have been a naughty sheep! Lx