Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Dewdrop Felted Ring





I am on a roll today - managed to finish this ring too! Mainly because this was the first day my son (who is 2-and-a-bit) started preschool. He will go 2 mornings a week and so give me a good few hours of daylight time to get some 'making stuff' done. Especially stuff involving hammering and sawing.

My little girl is still at home (just turned 5 last week) but she was on the sofa feeling ill quietly. She's looking a bit spotty and has a temp, so it may well be chickenpox.






The ring base is Faux bone with sterling silver tube rivets. Then I made a wire frame & needle felted and wet felted the wool fibers (with a bit of sari, silk, bamboo & glitzy stuff) in and around it.

After that I coated it in UV resin and then inspired by the Super Secret Stevie B technique (aka the S3) - the highly secret way of achieveing a gloss finish by spraying your piece with a can of 'Gloss Finish'.

Then to finish, I added some sterling wire wrapped spinel gemstones (and oxidised the silver).

Finally, a BIG thanks to Grand Purl Baa for the Blogger formatting tips. Updating my formatting settings worked a treat!



And now off for a cuppa!

10 comments:

Fresca said...

Looks good--the ring, the child (I hope she's feeling better now)... and the format!

Did you simply swap to a wide-format template?
I don't know why blogger's default template is so narrow: I find it annoying to read. (Though I hadn't even thought of how it affects the photo layout, as I didn't stick with it for long.)

Ginga Squid said...

Thanks Francesca.

Grand Purl Baa gave me these tips:
First you go to ‘settings’.
Scroll down to ‘global settings’ and
click on ‘updated editor’.
This gives you a 'Page break' icon, so you can do breaks before inserting photos.

Then to get the wider template Go into - Layout.
Then – Edit HTML

Scroll down until you find “outer-wrapper” and “main-wrapper”
The “width” will read 660px (or similar). Add 200. Change it to 860px.

The same with the “main wrapper”. Add 200.

For every single change you make ‘preview’ the edit to see if you are on the right track. DO NOT ‘save template’ until you are happy with the result.

ocasiocasa said...

Fantastic ring and very cool, lovely photos of it...so nice of your little girl to keep you company, too:)
Thank you, so much, for sharing your formatting tips; will have to try that out.

Shirley Cook - Jumping Jack Glass said...

Very cool ring - how fun!

I sure hope your little munchkin is feeling better. I remember getting chicken pox when I was 11. It was Christmas time - I was supposed to be an angel in a school play on Friday and Saturday night. I did it on Friday night, and when I woke up the next morning I had a huge itchy icky bump just below my left eyebrow. And a fever. So much for my role in Saturday night's performance. Not sure why that memory is so vivid...

Ginga Squid said...

Thanks Shirley!
Munchkin is now much better - she had actually been vaccinated for chickenpox when we were living quite remotely in South Africa. So she only had a very few spots and it was over quite quickly!

Maybe you wre really upset about missing out on being Saturday Night's Angel! Hmmmmm maybe you need some (retail) therapy to help you get over it!!!!!?

Jasmine said...

Your ring is lovely. I hope your little girl feels better soon. mine was very ill last week but is on the mend now.

Ginga Squid said...

Thanks Jasmine! She is much better - they can bounce back so quickly. Chicken pox seems to be doing the rounds at the moment. I was hoping my little boy would get it so he could get it over and done with, but he doesn't seem to - even with swapping spoons & stuff. Funny how that works!
Glad to hear your little girl is now better.

Diamonds Rings said...

Every thing is looking very pretty.

Thea Clark said...

Hooray for Mom time, keep up the bold new work!
Also, I just read those REALLY handy blog tips. Thanks.

Ginga Squid said...

Thanks Thea! I loved your latest piece on your blog - with the dipped plastic, very cool!