Sad news...

Sniff...my camera has finally died. It's irrepairable. Well, it can be repaired, but the repairs would cost more than it would cost to buy a brand new one, so that's what I've decided to do. This is the one I have my beady little eyes on, waiting for payday. It's another Fuji, but at 12 megapixels is roughly 4 times better than my recently deceased model. It's about £150 otherwise I'd have ordered it by now *lol* I know that's not alot for a good camera, but it's more than we have in the pot at the moment. *Sigh*

Dragonflyducky received her 'Pay it Forward' gift from me, so I can now post a picture. This is Kerstins super picture borrowed from her blog (with her permission), because you don't even want to see the photos I ended up with. It's a felt heart brooch, hand embroidered and beaded, based on a heart felt ornament she had in her Wists.

I finished this during the week. It's a beaded CD cuff bracelet, elasticated for easy wear. I like the way the pink beads compliment the iridescent green of the CD. I nuked the CD, then chopped it up into wedge shaped pieces and baked them a little to create a more rounded 'bead'. Then I used my mini-drill to drill holes in to thread the elastic through and smoothed off the edges to make sure there weren't any sharp bits. I strung some clear beaded elastic through, alternating the CD pieces with pink and iridescent beads. I glued felt onto the back of the CD pieces to make it more comfortable to wear. It's so pretty and glittery to wear. This was my attempt at staging the piece. I had decided to try and make my photos a little better by using props and staging them; that is until my camera died. I'd been inspired by SusieJacks article on Etsy, go and check it out, she has some great tips.

And I finally finished the FBB! Yippee! I had to frog it practically right back to the beginning, but it went very smoothly the second time around, and I managed to find some silver glittery handles which went with the design perfectly. I have yet to decide on the decorative motif. Maybe a flowery button detail. And I will probably line it. Crocheted and knitted bags look wonderful, but are quite impractical as things tend to poke through. Apologies for the very bad picture quality, I've had to resort to the back up camera, my old one which M uses sometimes. I can't wait to get a new camera. I use my camera so much!

I've been trying to be a little more disciplined with my shop restocking too. It's easy to get lax over January because sales are traditionally quite sporadic during that month. People are busy recouperating financially after Christmas, but once February hits, they're starting to think about Valentines Day and gifts again. This is a little champagne glass I created for the purposes of treating your Beloved to Buck Fizz in bed on Valentines Day, or maybe a little champagne later on. Speaking of Beloveds, M and I have been together for 14 years this week. That makes me feel a little old *lol*

Today, I have mostly been playing with an iron. Okay, before I have to pick you up from the floor, I haven't bought a clothes iron (a personal policy, I hate ironing) but a soldering iron. I've been making soldered microscope slide pendants. I've been wanting to try this for a while. I decided that my stained glass lead iron was far too powerful for the job in hand (150watts of pure wicked heat) so I elected to try it with my little soldering iron. Remember to open a window if you're doing this at home, the solder fumes are toxic.

First choose your image and sandwich it between 2 microscope slides. Then you need to clean the glass and apply copper foil tape round the slides, smoothing it down. After that apply the flux to the copper and coat it with the lead free solder. Next you solder a ring on the top.

The last step is to give it a good clean.

Tada! My first soldered microscope slide pendants :-)