Yarn Art with MeeksSandyGirl

 

MeeksSandyGirl

Eco-friendly materials for jewelry abound if you are open to the unconventional. A renewed interest in the old textile crafts like crochet and lace has percolated into other unrelated crafts including jewelry. Some amazing work has been done 'recycling' the old time crafts into something novel!

I'm happy to feature Sandy Meeks of meekssandygirl on Etsy, who has that rare combination of skill, talent and creativity to make something truly unique. I was astounded at the amazing work when I first visited her shop and later thrilled to learn that her cashmere yarn comes from upcycled sweaters!

She makes a variety of items including necklaces, bracelets and brooches as well as non-jewelry items like hair clips, corsages, scarfs, hats and mittens. Remember the bacon and eggs baby mittens from my last post?

Here's what she had to say:
I was an art major in college when I met my husband in 1992 in our painting class (he too is an artist). We have 2 children, ages 14 and 3. We reside in Hot Springs National Park Arkansas.

What are you most proud about and why?
Of all my pieces I have made, I really enjoy the sculptures, where I can put as much tiny details as I can!

What is your favorite piece?
It would be hard to choose between my heart mansion, and my Beatles inspired sculpture of "The Fool On The Hill"

Amigurumi Heart Mansion

The Fool on The Hill

Many of your flower pieces are based on real flowers with their accurate names - am I right in assuming you have a passion for plants/flowers?
:) It is not me that has the passion for flowers, that would be my late Grandmother, who had about a hundred green thumbs LOL!"

And yet look how true to their names these flowers are!

Dianthus Necklace

Pink Fuchsia Necklace

What inspires you?
I love Art Nouveau, the shapes, the curved lines, the botanical nature about it, Mucha is my favorite artist of that era.

Why have you chosen to use recycled yarn?
When I first started to recycle yarn (about 12 years ago) it was because I craved nicer quality yarn but did not have access to it in my hometown.

What do you hope to accomplish in the new year?
I really need to get more organized LOL!

I love how each piece has a pattern developed for it's unique design needs.

Lavender necklace

White orchid necklace

She really had an eye for design and color:

Cherry Blossom Necklace

Yet another style of crochet is used for these next pieces:

Cherry Necklace

 Lemon Necklace

South West Necklace

More of her incredible yarn sculptures including my favorite: an underwater scenery complete with a tropical fish dangling from a coral via fishing wire!

 

The Beatles themed sculptures!

Strawberry Fields Forever

 

For the Benefit of Mr Kite

 

Octopus's Garden

Notice the octopus' little watering can:)

Visit her shop meekssandygirl for more one-of-a-kind eco-friendly yarn art!

Thanks for reading!

Jewelera

Today I found some amazing jewelry and.....yessss! The seller has some eco-friendly selections so I can share it here!

Jewelera

 This is the first time I've seen wallpaper being used in jewelry - wow!

From the listing: "An artful combination of different materials are featured in this design; the flying bird is cut out from an old wallpaper and mounted on vinyl, the antique copper vintage style pendant piece is from my original city 'Istanbul' and I've placed a clear crystal cabochon at the center, also a sparkling vintage rhinestone piece (once an earring) is dangling from it. All of those are connected to faux leather belt used as the neck piece. Oh, not to forget the draping white enamel chains, which I think completes the overall design perfectly!

I didn't put any closure as the neck piece easily goes through the head."

Her store is full of interesting pieces with innovative materials and techniques. It's rare to find so many unique ideas from one seller - I'm in love!

This is my favorite:

Istanbul necklace

A combination of vintage findings (omg check out that amazing seahorse!) and faux Turkish ceramic tile.

I found Jewelera by browsing the nominations for the Handmade Olympics over at the rikrak studio blog.

You can nominate yourself and your favorite sellers in 8 different olympic events celebrating handmade, eco-friendly and vintage. There are a TON of prizes so read the rules and nominate and if you need inspiration you can find lots of great eco-friendly handmade jewelry on this here blog of mine:)
You have until January 31st

Here are some of my nominations....

Event #3 Favorite handmade eco-friendly item

One of mine of course:)
Creole Earrings made from recycled vintage parts

From hypothesis on Etsy

Mermaid cuff made from recycled leather belt (also currently in my favorites!)

Event #1 Favorite goody with an innovative design

from Etsy seller FoxAndClover
Etched glass necklace handpainted on reclaimed glass

Event #3 Favorite handmade goodie for kids

From Meekssandygirl
Bacon and Eggs baby mittens!

I will hopefuly be featuring Meeksasandygirl very soon and her amazing eco-friendly yarn jewelry!

In the meantime remember my giveaway is still going on until the 23rd of January. Just follow my blog for a chance to win these babies in time for Valentine's Day!

Thanks for reading!

Vintage Treasures

Some of my favorite jewelry components are old raw brass and copper stampings.  There is such of variety of interesting shapes and the aging process turns them into precious works of art!

How'd they do that?
An initial design is created by hand which is used to make the dies/stamps (kinda like a mold). The dies are usually made of a hard metal like steel and come in twos: one concave, the other convex (an innie and outie) and the pressure of both is what forces the flat sheet of metal into the desired shape.
You can go from relatively flat, simple cookie-cutter stampings to those with amazing dimensionality, embossing and filigree detail.

A flat copper leaf stamping with detailed filigree veining.

 

Reading Tea Leaves

Some are actually made to fold into in-the-round objects like beads and bead caps. Some large filigree stampings are used to 'wrap' around stones, jewels and cabochons.

Here's a ring I made using a 'flower' shaped filigree stamping in which each 'petal' was folded to enclose a few genuine sea glass pieces:

What's also neat about vintage stampings in particular is the colors they will take on over time or their patina.

This very old copper Robin has a patina that is almost iridescent:

 

Flight Path Necklace

This old thick copper fleur-de-lis  has a very deep patina. I highlighted some areas with a soft scrub pad and rubbed on some candle wax using the heat of my fingers to protect it and add a subtle shine.

 

Lilium Necklace

These brass cupped leaf stamping have acquired a beautiful dark purple patina!

 

Filigree Earrings

 The warm matte cinnamon brown patina on this wise old owl would be qualified as 'gingerbread'.

 

Woodland Friends

Another very old piece. Beautiful rusty brown patina on the copper filigree fan and a once light golden brass leaf is now almost black

 

These vintage brass stampings were well cared for and have retained their original light golden color. If you want to remove the patina of a piece all you need is an old toothbrush and toothpaste!

 

Sea Bird Necklace

Guilded Cherries

Adding a Patina!

These little brass insects were given an artificial blue patina similar to the one formed on outdoor copper structures and statues:

 Love Bug Earrings

Brass and copper are great as they will readily form a patina. The patina isn't a sign of damage, it is an outer layer of various chemical compounds from the surrounding environment; copper is often used for outdoor sculptures partly because the patina actually forms a protective coating against corrosion. Like in the examples above patina can form in a variety of colors with the blues and greens being the most striking!

The green of this Goddess in only skin deep!

I found some simple instructions from an amazing jewelry artist Hodgepodgerie on JewelryLessons.com that made this:

She says:
"The blue color comes from the patina which is achieved by soaking the copper in a strong brine solution of 4 tbl. salt to 1/2 c. water for 4-6 hours. Remove, let dry (don't rinse it! :)). You then suspend the piece in a lidded container (like Rubbermaid, etc...) with about a 1/2 inch of Ammonia at the bottom. The color is a chemical reaction between the metal, the salt and the ammonia fumes, so you need to make sure your container has a tight fitting lid to prevent the fumes from escaping and that the fumes can get to the surface of the metal. The Aegean took about 3 hours to turn blue. And yes, it's very vivid! The longer you leave in your item, the darker blue it gets. After I removed it, I rinsed it well, let it dry, lightly buffed in places with fine steel wool and then coated it with a clear lacquer finish."

There is also a forum thread on Etsy.com called How do you give brass a BLUE patina?
Some note you can achieve a greener color without the salt and that using wax to protect the patina might be better than using a hard sealer which might wear or crack over time.
Good stuff!

But there aren't any holes for hanging?
Being super low-tech I wanted to find a way to drill small holes as not all stampings have them. I tried my boyfriends pocket drill he uses to stick pins through the limbs of his miniature monster models. It worked beautifully, even for thick stampings and the holes were very clean!

Check out the cute aadvark stamping!

'Thaw' Necklace

No electricity needed: with this model you use you palm to apply pressure and use you thumb and middle finger to turn. Love it!

My boyfriend bought his from a "Games Workshop(c)" but they are used on many kinds of miniature models. Here's a nice one I found on Etsy with different bit sizes.

Gettin' your hands on some stampings

If you want to recycle vintage findings be aware that some may use terms like 'vintage' but are in fact made using new materials that are stamped with vintage tooling or they may simply be describing them as being of a vintage 'style' rather than using the term to denote the age.
Also beware of terms like 'antiqued' as it refers to a chemical process by which the items are made to look aged. If the piece is described as 'antique' but the stamping is sold in bulk at a cheap price it probably isn't really an antique:(

Handy search terms: vintage, old, stamping, filigree, brass, copper, patina, 'filigree bead', animal, bird, feather, wing, insect, butterfly, fan, flower, rose, floral, face, symbol, key,  ...

Thanks for reading!

New Year, New Giveaway!

Contest is now closed - thanks everyone!

Happy New Year everyone!
Hope the Holidays have been good and not to detrimental to your health:)

To start off the new year with a bang I present yet another giveaway! This one will be for January 23rd to make sure they get to destination before...Valentine's Day.... 

These babies are made with genuine vintage pear shaped juicy red faceted glass stones in brass settings. The color is known as Siam Red

To win these pretties just follow my blog by clicking on the 'follow' button in the box with all the little square people:) One person will be chosen randomly on January 23rd. 

IMPORTANT: I will be sending you an email with the title "This is Green Blog" if you are the winner. If I don't receive a reply within 48 hours I will have to choose another winner so check your spam folders!:):):)

Good luck and thanks for checking out my blog!

Eco-Friendly Leather Jewelry

I'm really excited about this post as you won't believe the amazing stuff I found - and of course it's all eco-friendly! Dress to impress this holiday season or find an amazing gift~
Here are some amazing finds from Etsy - they are all made using upcycled or scrap leather! Click the store names to visit their shops~

One-of-a-kind leather lace choker by Vietto

2 astounding necklaces by Mainichi
she offers free shipping until Xmas!

Fish scale cuff by Spectacle a la maison
free worldwide shipping until January 1st 2010!

Dark silver woven cuff by Straps NW

Unique and colorful jewelry and accessories by Meredith Eye's : 

awesome 'eye' bib necklace!

leather and upcycled chandelier crystal necklace, wow!

  

 spiky flower cuff
 

Two beautiful flower power bib necklaces

 

Check out these great reversible lacy recycled leather cuffs by TrilbyMade!

And lets not forget earrings!

Glamorous stud earrings by

Jonquil Juice

 

Lightning gold wings by

Laurel Hill

leather loop earrings by

Tisk Tisk

 

Long (9inches!) leather tassel earrings by Maelle

Sexy Amazon feather earrings by

Cyclona Designs

Beautiful color and texture on these!

Once Again Sam

Leather is an interesting material both strong and flexible; like fabric that will not fray. It's relatively easy to cut into various shapes or to make long strips and fringes. You can even carve the thicker kind and burn designs on it. There is also an abundance of different colors and textures making it an especially interesting material for jewelry.  Make it even better by using readily available eco-friendly scrap leather on Etsy or from manufacturers of leather goods. You can also use vintage clothing, purses, wallets, belts etc.

Hopefully this has gotten your creative juices flowing! I think I'll dive back into that big bag of leather scraps I've had lying around forever:)

 

Contest Winner!

Congratulations to Sabrina, my December 1st giveaway winner!

Amazing deep salmon colored Italian coral beads from an old discarded necklace...The color is a beautiful deep salmon which look stunning with a tiny pale blue pearl.

The small linked dark brass chain lengths add a touch of industrial / steam punk goodness!

These were made to promote using eco-friendly alternatives to using new real coral which is critically endangered .

The next giveaway will skip a month as everyone will be enjoying the holidays - stay tuned for what will be up for grabs February 1st!