Up, up and away!

Next weekend I'm off to a hot air balloon festival. What should every girl wear to a hot air balloon festival? Why, balloon-themed earrings of course! I had this idea for some crazy earrings floating around in my head for the past week. As the weather was cold and wet this weekend, I stayed home and got making.

Fimo balloons, baskets and clouds, ready to bake

Now for the tedious bit - wet sanding!

Parts all smooth and ready to be varnished

Finished! I used silver findings and added some beads to assemble my earrings

With my little bird earring, it looks just right :)

I'm really chuffed with how these turned out. Even though they are quite big, they are very light. I feel in the mood for the hot air balloon festival already! I will tell you more about that next week on my other blog cernycaj.blogspot.cz.

♫ Wouldn't you like to ride in my beautiful, my beautiful ballooooon?! ♫

Fimo, coral and wooden bead necklace with charms

After a creative slump during the last week or so, I finally got myself into gear and made the long necklace I have been planning.

I found a really good bead shop in Brno and bought some charms which I customised with tassles for an ethnic vibe and also got a few coral and semi-precious stone beads.

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I also recycled some beads from old earrings and used up some wooden beads that I have had hanging around for at least 15 years in my bead box! The long tube beads I made myself out of Fimo. I followed the  faux bone technique in my polymer clay bead book that I got for Christmas. It took ages to make them and the polishing was hard work, but I like the final effect.

The necklace is just what I wanted to go with my jumper and a new brown top I got and better still it didn't cost me hardly anything :)

Christmas crafting bonanza

As some of you will know, this year I decided to do an entirely handmade selection of Christmas gifts for friends and family. This was partly because I haven't been working for a while and wanted to cut down on spending, but also because I wanted an excuse to try out lots of new crafts! I didn't blog about them at the time of making as I didn't want to spoil it for the recipients, but now that Christmas is over I thought I would show you some of my makes. I'm annoyed that I didn't get round to photographing all of them or getting pictures of them all wrapped up as I put a lot of effort in to the gift wrapping this year with handmade tags, paper and trimmings, but I was in the middle of an international move, so I think I can forgive myself :)

Let the Christmas present showcase commence!

Fabric covered notebook for my niece.

Fimo covered festive spoon and charms.

A joint effort with my boyf: pear vodka and winter spice liqueur for all the men folk.

Cross stitched card for my parents.

Decorated jar of handmade mincemeat for my French friend.

Handmade bracelet with charms for boyf's sister-in-law

Handmade earrings from recycled beads for boyf's sister.

Ribbon hairband for my niece.

Sewing case for my friend.

I really enjoyed doing all the hand sewing. This Russian doll kit was inspired
by  Flossie Teacakes needlecase tutorial.

Personalised cross stitch space invaders purse for another niece. Made from all recycled materials.

My friend Rob pointed me in the direction of this great idea for keeping track of what's in your freezer, which I made for my Mum. I used pictures of food cut out of French and German supermarket special offer brochures, then laminated them and added a self-adhesive magnet to the back. It was a fairly quick and easy make which I would recommend.

There are so many great tutorials and inspiring posts on the internet. Often my own ideas pop into my head, but it's always nice to know there is a range of practical help and projects that you can refer to or adapt whenever you want.

I really enjoyed making all my presents this year and will definitely do it again if I have the time.

Fimo skull earrings

With Halloween and Mexican Day of the Dead approaching, I thought I would share my Fimo skull earring set with you.

I recently had a second set of holes pierced in my ears (I know, late starter! But then I only had my ears first pierced when I was 18) and was looking for some nice little earrings. What I really wanted was a matching set of 4 earrings, but there didn't seem to be much available. I therefore thought I would make my own set.

I made the skulls out of glow in the dark Fimo for extra spookiness and then added the decoration. Here are the smaller pair. I glued a pair of earring backs onto them once they were baked.

I pierced holes in the larger skulls and added rings and earring findings. I also added a little Swarovski crystal to each one for added sparkle.

I will be wearing my earrings for Halloween, but I like to wear them most days :)

Roll it, bake it, wear it!

I  suddenly felt the need this week to make myself a necklace. I wear a lot of grey, but also really like bright colours and thought that a necklace with muted shades and a pop of colour could be just the thing to wear for work this winter. I'm getting a bit of an 80s vibe from this design ;)

Using Fimo, I made a selection of round beads in grey, black, black mixed with pearlescent, granite, marble and  two larger beads - one fuschia mixed with pearlescent and a bright yellow one. I also rolled a couple of beads in silver leaf. It sticks really well to the modelling clay and you can bake it no problems. Once the Fimo had been rolled into balls I pierced them with cocktail sticks and put them on a baking tray ready to go into the oven. I think they look like funny olives on sticks!

The great thing about Fimo is that it only takes 30 minutes to bake and not that long to cool down, so fairly soon after I could start stringing my beads.

I put small silver beads in between each Fimo bead and finished it off with a silver catch.

My finished necklace. Can't wait to wear it out somewhere! :D

Fimo à la Française

At the moment I am really into modelling with Fimo. I bought a new book last week: Créations en Fimo and there are some really great projects in there. Even if you don't understand French, the pictures are enough to give you a good idea. The author doesn't go into a lot of detail about technique anyway, so it's trial and error at first!


So far I've tried making the Russian dolls, but instead of making the bag charm as outlined in the book, I made them into small flat buttons. I'm going to sew them onto a plain blue cardigan I have that could do with brightening up.

I also had a go at some of the large buttons from that book. The black ones turned out well, but the transparent Fimo didn't really work as the pattern sort of blends in with the background. I'm thinking of sewing the black ones onto the front of some white trousers I bought recently.

My most recent creation is covered handles for dessert forks. Starting with 4 different colours (I chose Fimo Effect granite and marble with Fimo Soft 61 and 62) I rolled the Fimo out to make equally sized sheets. I then laid them on top of each other in a sandwich.

Using a sharp knife you cut 3mm wide strips across the sandwich and lay the strips next to each other to make a repeating stripey pattern. You can then wrap this around the handle of your cutlery and bake.

Here are my finished dessert forks with stripey handles:

I'd better make a cheese cake or something so I can try them out ;)