Illustrated Cufflinks

 These are my new range of shrink plastic cufflinks! I'm so in love with them!

I've been meaning to make more men's pieces for a while now, especically in the run up to Christmas. I got the parts ages ago, but between one thing and another I only got around to making them last week. At the moment I only have 10 sets of them,but I suspect they will be popular at Christmas so I really need to order more parts. It was fun coming up with more masculine designs, and I've had loads more ideas since I finished these.

They are €10 per pair and they come in a little presentation box. I will be selling these in Limerick Craft & Design when we open shortly,and when I get more stock I'll post them on Etsy and put them on my stall too.
To see a full album of images head over to this Facebook album here.

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Illustrated Wine Charms

I don't know why I didn't think to make shrink plastic wine charms before, the very fact that they are illustrated means that they are perfectly suited for making matching sets. These are the first four sets that I've made but I plan on making loads more of them. The only thing I've yet to figure out is how to display them. I tried using a card for the button ones that I made but they don't do them any justice. I think I might get bracelet boxes to match the other ones that I got, it would make them more substantial.

I've listed them here in my etsy shop at €15 per set, I was in two minds about the price. Looking at other handmade charms on Etsy they are much more expensive, but I know I won't sell that many if I price them any higher. I'll have to see how they go and adjust accordingly.

Update: My bracelet boxes arrived sooner than I expected and they work perfectly. I'm much happier with them displayed like this and they would make a really nice gift for someone in this cute presentation box.

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Shrink Plastic Sweat Shop

I spent a long sweaty day in my glass house studio yesterday drawing and colouring in loads of shrink plastic. I made 2 of each of my earring designs, 1 each on my rings, and 1 each of the necklaces. This still doesn't even include brooches, bookmarks and cuff links! I got around to colouring about 40 odd of them but I still have another 140 or so to go. It will be another long day in the studio I think. It's a good thing I have the last book of Tad Williams Memory Sorrow and Thorn to keep me company on audio book, I was working last night til 1.30am and I didn't even notice the time because the book is so good!

I switched over from using the frosted plastic to the white for all of my designs, as in the Limerick rain blurred the earrings a little bit. Whereas you can use varnish on the white plastic and totally protect it from the elements.

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Shrinky Dink Bookmarks

I just finished my most recent addition to my Shrink Plastic collection. These are bookmarks, but the fancy variety that are harder to lose than a scrap of paper. I only saw these for the first time last year and I really like the shepherd hook design, it's so simple. I've only ever seen them embellished with beads before, or spiral wrap gemstones, but the first time I saw them I thought they would be perfect for my illustrated work. This week I made up 50 different designs, using the templates I had previously designed. But I think I'll expand the range to include some more bookish themed images, like characters from books or specific motifs, I already have a Harry Potter design. I thought these Olde Worlde images suited the bookmarks quite well too.

I'll be selling them in the craft shop at €6 per bookmark, and I might try a few at the stall this weekend too and see how they go. I just have to figure out how to package them nicely, and also to show what they are. Most people are not very familiar with shepherd hook bookmarks.

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Supplies For New Projects

I love when the postman arrives with exciting new crafty things in the post. I ordered this bunch of goodies only last week from Karens Craft Supplies, and I'm, delighted at how fast they arrived. I had ordered ball chain a couple of times before from other shops but I got what I paid for by buying cheap supplies, so third time lucky I got a good quality chain at a reasonable price. I'll definitely be going to her again.

I also thought I would expand my ever growing shrink plastic range, I already make earrings, necklaces, brooches, and rings. I ordered 60 shepherd hook bookmarks which I'll attach my illustrations too. I also ordered 10 pairs of cuff links, I don't have that many products for men. I thought it would be fun to make hipster cartoon cuff links, for guys in their 20's and 30's.

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Illustrated Necklaces

I started making a whole new range of shrink plastic necklaces. Here are just a selection of some of the images, but if you want to see all 50 designs go to my facebook album here. They come with a ball chain necklace, and they are a perfect stocking filler at only €6 a pop. If anyone has a special request for custom drawn pictures just let me know. I listed a few of them in my etsy shop, and the Bowie necklace sold just after 5 minutes after listing it...very exciting!

Shrink Plastic Brooches: How-To

I've been making shrink plastic earrings for several months now, they've been really popular at the stall You can read here about my first adventures in shrink plastic, but since then I think I've moved in a bit. I've been meaning to expand my range for a while now, and when I discovered this white shrink plastic it meant that I could make brooches and necklaces. Because of the nature of the clear one you can't pin a brooch on the back, and I found that necklaces the design rubbed off a bit. Whereas with the white plastic the image is on the front, it is not reversed, and the back remains plain.

Here is a quick guide to how I make my brooches:

1. As you can see here I use the whole A6 sheet for my brooch image, where as with the earrings I cut it in half horizontally. I use a black sharpie market for my outline, but with the white plastic a pencil works well too, but the maker makes it pop a bit more. I'm comfortable drawing my designs out freehand with a marker, but you could pencil draw it first, then use marker, and after it has dried use an eraser to take away your pencil drawing.
Because I'm making these to sell them I build up a catalogue of my drawings, which I can then use as a template, this make production a little faster, and if I'm having a creative block it's handy just to refer to my templates. Because the white plastic is not transparent I used John's light box to help me see my template drawing underneath.

 2. After you have finished your drawing then use some colouring pencils to colour in your image. I noticed with the white plastic that you must colour in quite lightly as the image can get blurry/fuzzy if you colour too heavily at this point. Don't worry if they look a little pale at this point, I promise they will be bright when you're done.

 3. Cut around your image leaving a 3mm boarder, you don't have to be too fiddly at this point, just get the basic shape. Any regular scissors will do the job just fine. If you are making them as a pendant or earring use a paper punch at this point as you won't be able to cut a hole after you shrink it down.

4. I didn't take any pictures of the shrinking process. There are two ways of doing it either in the oven, or with a embossing heat gun, which is what I use. Below is a quick video tutorial on how to use the heat gun. Two things to note: I have no idea what this ladies fingers are made of but DO NOT hold your plastic while using the gun,it's incredibly hot. Secondly sometimes the plastic folds and sticks to itself, give it a few seconds to see if it will flatten by itself. If it doesn't you'll have to pick it up and quickly but carefully pry it apart, you will burn your fingers, but hey you gotta suffer for your art sometimes.

5. See how much the pieces have shrunk down? They get seven times smaller and seven times thicker, it's magic. You'll also notice how much brighter they are too. Use a good silicone glue to attach your brooch backs and leave to dry. If you are making a necklace or earrings attach a jump ring and earwire/necklace.

6. Brooches and necklaces are open to the elements a lot, so to protect them from the never ending Limerick rain I used a coat of varnish that I got it the hardware. You'll know at this point if you over coloured your image in the initial stages as it will blur when you put on your varnish. I tried using clear nail varnish but it disrupted the image, so this water based varnish worked way better. Leave them to dry over night.

I will be adding my brooches to my etsy shop over the next week or so, in the meantime I have them for sale at my stall for €7 each (bragaintastic I think, now that you can see how much work goes into them!). I can also take commissions if you want a particular image drawn. To see a full gallery of images go to my facebook album here.

R2D2 and Some Other Earrings

I made a whole new batch of Shrinky Dink earrings. They've gotten really popular at the stall and I think people are intrigued by the fact that they are buying hand drawn earrings. I've even gotten some custom orders lately including these really cute R2D2 earrings for Froodie. I really want to continue expanding my range, at the moment I have 24 designs listed in my shop, but I'll add a few new ones every month and eventually I'll have a bit collection. If any of you would like specific once off pieces like R2 above then don't hesitate in contacting me.

New Shrinky Dink Earrings

You may remember from this post when I first fell in love with Shrinkles(shrinky dinks) and I've been meaning to do more interesting things with them. Last week I got a few earring hooks off a friend and experimented with making some illustration jewellery. I only had a few earring hooks so I've ordered more from these lovely people and hopefully they arrive pretty soon.

Design template.

The shrinkle drawings before they were put in the oven.

In the meantime I've made a bunch of new designs, the hard part is thinking up new pictures, but I'm having loads of fun drawing them. I've decided to keep a design dairy, with the template for the image, so that if I sell a pair I can repeat the design easily enough. This will mostly come into play when I'm selling them on Etsy, as I means I don't have to take new shots and write new descriptions; if they sell, I'll just relist them.

I've also ordered some ball chains so I can make some pendants too, which will be fun as I can do larger images and maybe link some together. I didn't really mean to start making jewellery ,but I love trying out new things and I also wanted to use the shrinkles for something that I could charge a little bit more money for. I was only charging €4 for the handmade cards and it really wasn't worth my while making them. Whereas I'm charging €10 for a pair of earrings, which I think is still very reasonable since they are hand drawn.

Recession...what recession?...My Confession of a Supplies Splurge

This is the scary time of year for me when insane amounts of money are being spend on supplies but most customers are saving for Christmas and not spending very much. In my mind I know it will be busy and that I'll be glad I bought and organised all this stuff early..it's just kinda hard to remember that when I look at the bundle of receipts. Recession...what's that? My inner craft nerd doesn't seem to have heard of it. Here are just a few of the supplies I've been stocking up on...Yesterday I went to Cork to go to Cork Art Supplies, I was there earlier this year and was really impressed with their paper selection. I really had to restrain myself in the shop this morning,and make myself just buy Christmas papers. But in the blink of an eye I spent 80 quid, having said that I'm delighted with what I picked up, and I know I'll make that stretch really far, saving every scrap of unused paper for a later project.

I then popped into Vibes and Scribes to pick up some material, they didn't have exactly what I was looking for but I picked up these fat quarters at 2 for €5 and a couple of meters of this super cute stars and polka dot material.

Also the post man has been very busy lately, my delivery of 500 velvet bags for my pocket mirrors arrived. I was really worried that they wouldn't get here on time for the Christmas rush as last time the took 2 months to arrive! I ordered in a large amount as I think I might be selling them in my shop for people who order custom made mirrors. I have looked into selling them in larger quantities but it would mean ordering them in the thousands per colour, an investment that I may have to forgo until the new year.

Lastly I was really surprised to arrive home to see that my Shrinkles had arrived already, I only ordered them a few days ago so I was chuffed to see them here so soon. Since my last post on Shrinkles I've expanded my line to include Shrinkles brooches, hence the fact that I bought 200 sheets. I'll be posting some photos of these later in the week.

Ps: on a personal note, last night for the first time I got to use all my letters in a scrabble move, I've always wanted to do this! It was a word score of 81 and the word was stringy...so satisfying