Postage Stamp Pendants

These pendants have been made with old, used postage stamps that I have cast in resin.

 

 

This one has a red postage stamp with the Queen's head and a face value of 4d.

 

A shire horse postage stamp.

 

An old English sheepdog postage stamp.

 

This stamp features the puppet from the old children's television programme Muffin the Mule.

 

All the stamps have been franked and vary in condition which I think gives them a lovely vintage appearance.

 

These pendants are for sale in my Etsy shop.

 

Resin Button Jewellery

My last blog post was about using real pressed flowers in resin to make botanical jewellery.  Another favourite inclusion from my early days of using resin was buttons.  In those days I was using old buttons salvaged from clothes that were destined for the dustbin and stored in an old tin - my buttons tin.  As I developed my skills in working with resin buttons were discarded for more unusual inclusions and experiments using paints and pigments.

Recently I fell out of love with resin and was considering stopping all together and taking my jewellery making in another direction.  I was asked to make a necklace with pressed flowers in resin and having enjoyed that decided to go back to the early days and "play" with some more of the original ideas.  I rediscovered buttons.  This time it has been more fun as I found you can buy bags of buttons already sorted by colour and size.

The jewellery below is just a taster of what I've been making.  If you want to see more photographs or find out more about the jewellery please click the description below the photograph.

brown buttons necklace on leather thong

cream buttons pendant

green & cream buttons pendant

grey button cufflinks

pink buttons pendant

purple buttons pendant

 

teal buttons earrings

teal buttons ring

The next thing is going to be buttons in resin bangles but I need to buy some moulds first.

Botanical Jewellery

I started making resin jewellery quite a few years ago now. In my first and experimental pieces I cast sweets, candy cake decorations, buttons and pressed flowers in resin. I was, and am still, curious to see what will work and look good captured inside resin.

I continued to use sweets and candy cake sprinkles (100's & 1,000's) as they proved popular as quirky and kitsch jewellery and keyrings. I didn't continue with pressed flowers as I was pressing flowers from my garden and they took way too long to be ready to cast in resin. When I have an idea I want to try in now, not wait a few weeks.

Fast forward a few years to the present day and I was asked to make a necklace with heather cast in a resin pendant. I bought the flowers already pressed online and made the necklace for my customer. I still had some heather left over so made some more pressed flower jewellery. I fell back in love with using real flowers in resin jewellery and bought more, different, flowers and leaves.

Recently I discovered you can press your own flowers in the microwave and they are ready to use almost immediately. I've been raiding my garden to see what will and won't work using this method and cannot wait for summer so I have a greater choice of flowers in my garden.

This pendant has some of the bought heather with blue coloured resin

 

this pendant uses more of the bought heather

this pendant has babies breath (also known as gypsophilia) cast in spring yellow resin

I found this skeleton leaf in my garden

I pressed this snowdrop from my garden and am not completely happy with the result.  I think snowdrops are still a WIP (work in progress)

All these pieces are listed for sale in my Etsy shop

I've started using buttons in resin jewellery again, but I think that will have to wait for a new blogpost

New Misi

 Misi has new owners who are breathing new life into the website. It's been great to see their enthusiasm and be part of the new Misi. I've started listing there again, especially after they offered all "old" sellers a free listing day.

For anyone who doesn't know Misi - it stands for Make It Sell It - and is a UK site for Crafters and Artisans to sell their handmade wares.

Misi has been through the wars recently as the previous owner and creator has been ill and not been able to give Misi the love and attention the website needed - resulting in lots of problems not being dealt with and sorted out promptly.

Not any more - the new owners have quickly and efficiently sorted out problems. Sellers are being asked what new features we would like and all ideas/suggestions are being taken onboard.

The photographs below show many of the items that are newly listed in my Misi shop

 

 

this is the link to find out more Just K Jewellery on Misi