I got to spend this past weekend in in our nation's capital, and for the first time in a long time, I was travelling for pleasure rather than for work. I've always liked Canberra - there is a lot to see and do, and mostly it's free. You've gotta love that! We crammed in a visit to the Mint, Parliament House and also the War Memorial. But today's post is inspired by the Mint. It was fascinating to learn about the process of making coins and it inspired me to dig out my collection of old 1c and 2c coins to turn into jewellery........ specifically, resin jewellery. OK, let's stop there! It turns out that 1c and 2c coins are still legal tender in Australia. Who knew! They've been out of circulation since 1994 and it would be next to impossible to get anyone to accept them as payment but, by law, you can still use them! In my research, I discovered this page on the Royal Australian Mint's website which explains in quite clear terms that it is il......

How quickly this year is flying past! Everyone you talk to makes the same comment. Each and every year seems to fly past more quickly than the last. But I've been so busy lately, that I'm not even noticing time is passing. Days and weeks are now such a blur it's almost like there is no separation in time - no night, no day, no weeks or months - it's almost like it's one continuous day!! With very little spare time on my hands these days, I'm grateful that I made a New Year's Resolution back in January: " To procrastinate less". It's really helping to keep me on track . When I made that promise to myself (and said it out loud on my blog), I felt a little nervous because it meant having to be accountable and really striving to achieve that goal. I knew I would never have been able to completely stop procrastinating but by quantifying it in terms of procrastinating less , it has made this goal achievable. And here we are, three months into the y......

Not quite an Opal and not quite dichroic glass, but it's certainly eye catching! This is one of the techniques you learn in my Resin Jewellery Workshop . One of the fun things about working with resin is the myriad of items that you can embed. Whether they be found objects, charms or iridescent mylar as in the sample above, resin will allow you to create your own really unique focal pieces. This piece is made using Krafty Lady Art Mould AM282 . It's quite a large piece, measuring about 5.3cm x 4.0cm, so it gives you a lot of surface area to create a really interesting design. Such a stunning cabochon needs very little in the way of decorative elements so I've kept it simple and just wired it to a filigree stamping. Filigrees are wonderful decorative elements and despite their lacy and elaborate appearance, they can compliment even a busy piece. This one does a great job of holding the cabochon in place without detracting from it and yet, when you turn it over, the filigre......

Somehow, I haven't managed to move on from my fossicking adventures with the contents of the resin box yet. I know I said it was time to put it aside and get on with some crafting for the festive season but the resin bug has bitten me hard this week and it just won't let go. No matter how hard I fight it, I can't seem to get it out of my system. So rather than fight it, I gave in to it over the weekend. Here's what I got up to. Firstly, a jelly bean coloured button necklace...... .....featuring a sprinkling of Plaid Fresh leaf charms and resin beads tucked amongst the buttons. Nice and bright and in almost every colour of the rainbow. Those buttons look good enough to eat! How about this one for feeling summery and tropical. It might be cold and snowy in the northern hemisphere, but here in subtropical Brisbane, it's summer and what says summer more than frangipanis? Don't you love the silhouetted birds? It's a Plaid Fresh Pendant - and it goes perfectly ......

I'm still digging around in my box of undiscovered resin treasures. This container seems to be bottomless and I think I could keep digging forever.... there are so many of them that I wonder if I will ever use them all up! I have been giving them away at camps and retreats in place of ATCs for some time now - everyone seems to LOVE getting one - and yet my box is still overflowing. And every time I cast another bangle, the leftover resin gets poured into a Krafty Lady art mould or two because you just can't waste good resin. When the piece is cured it gets added to the box to become some future undiscovered treasure. It's become quite a collection! Anyway, here's another button piece - a sea-themed version of Vintage Buttons . This set of turquoise and green coloured resin pieces is a mix of glittered, translucent and opaque buttons in so many different shades of green. I've called it Tide Pools because there are lots of sea-themed silver charms tucked amongst the ......

After the wonderful transformation of the rather ordinary-looking cameo that I found in my box of resin casts on Sunday, I decided that I should see what else is hiding in that container. I'm sure there are some other treasures to be found in there if I dig deep enough. I have so many to select from - literally hundreds - and the box weighs over a kilo. That's a lot of potential! So dig I did! And what I noticed was all the button shapes I've cast over the years. They had never caught my attention before. I certainly hadn't realised that I'd cast SO many of them - there were blues, greens, pinks, corals, fluoro pink, creams, bright yellows, and glittery ones too. But this pile here caught my eye - colours which had a bit of a vintage look about them. I remembered having some lovely lucite flower beads in a similar tone in my stash. So that was my starting point. I picked out a nice mix of buttons in different colours and shapes and glued them onto the pads of a br......

You might have noticed in my sidebar that in November I will be demoing at the Papercrafts Festival in Sydney for Stamp Antics. Well, now I have an update to that: last week I got word that I will also be teaching classes so since then I've been busily working away on the class samples. These are all quick, 1 hour classes so if you're coming to the show for just the 1 day then you won't miss too much time from the show floor if you do a class. On the other hand, if you're coming for the 3 days of the show you might like to do all three of my classes as each one is different. And with Christmas not too far away, these classes will give you a head start on your Christmas card making. Class 1 is creating with Kutalicious mirrored Christmas shapes. You'll make a card and gift in one! The decorations on the front of the card are actually earrings so you'll also learn some basic jewellery making techniques. In Class 2 you'll get to play with Friendly Plastic. Don......

Just like a magpie, I am drawn to bright shiny things. I like precious jewels, so dazzling that they sparkle in the light. And the reflective shimmer of a CD as you tilt it causing a rainbow to dance around the disk. I like the lustre of shiny satin as it drapes in soft folds, and the crystals of a chandelier as the sunlight dances on them projecting a beautiful spectrum on whatever surface it falls. But I especially like Friendly Plastic with its vibrant, metallic foils so shiny and bright. It is hard not to be drawn to them. But today I want to share what happens when you alter that shiny, smooth surface by impressing a texture. Doesn't it look great?....... still shiny, but no longer smooth. So you CAN have the best of both worlds - texture and shine all in the one piece. With a stunning texture like this only a few simple embellishments are needed to create a lovely focal point on this card. By the way, this texture is from Krafty Lady . Being made of silicone it won'......

Just a quick post today to wish you all a Happy Easter.... I hope it is a day enjoyed with family and friends and that if you are travelling, that you arrive safely home after your journey. I've been working on a number of projects at once during the past couple of weeks. I can't share any of the completed pieces with you just yet but here's a little peek at one of them which features a clutch of handmade eggs - not of the chocolate variety I'm afraid, but there are no calories, either! This is a workshop project for the Stamp Antics Retreat in July and it uses a few of my favourite supplies and tools: Lumiere paint, the Cuttlebug and chipboard elements from Collections. I'll unveil the whole piece a little closer to the retreat. I hope that you find some time over this long weekend to craft. As for me, I've set aside my studio work for the weekend and I'm taking my crafting in front of the TV - I have some kits set aside for a day just like today and I can......

The most wonderful things happen when you make mistakes. Earlier in the week I was telling you about how one of my ugly duckling resin castings turned into a beautiful swan, in the form of a necklace that both my daughters now want to lay claim to. Today I want to tell you about another one of those less than perfect casting moments and how some creative thinking brought about a new colouring idea. Here's how the story goes: I was casting a resin bangle that I had coloured with Pearl pigment. It was really pretty in the bangle mould and I was very happy with the way it looked. But I had mixed a little more resin than I actually needed for the bangle and I had just enough left to pour a thin layer into each cavity of one of my favourite Krafty Lady art moulds , 5 Dominoes ( AM245) . I thought this beautiful pearl colour would make a great background with something embedded on top of it. But it was such a disappointment! The colour was so transparent that it completely lost its ef......

At the recent Brisbane Paper Crafts Festival show, I was demoing Friendly Plastic and I promised that I'd make up some of the samples I made into jewellery. So here's the first one: a stretchy bracelet featuring leaves cast from Friendly Plastic Designer Sticks. Regular readers will recognise the leaves from the tutorial I posted after the show. If you're not familiar with how I created them you can check out the tutorial here or on my website . Because the leaves are cast from Friendly Plastic sticks they are hollow and they needed to be filled with resin before I could drill holes sideways through them. I've strung them on Beadalon Elasticity to make it easy to stretch the bracelet over my knuckles. Drilling holes sideways was one heck of a challenge because the leaves are quite thin. Try as I might, I just didn't seem to be able to drill straight and I had to top them up with more resin where I'd accidentally drilled through to the back of the leaves. My or......