Friday, May 22, 2009

A Very Special Order!

I was contacted several months ago by a sweet customer whose friend showed her my jewelry on the computer. The customer doesn't have a computer (or even a cell phone), but asked her friend to send me an e-mail and request a catalog. Well, I didn't have a catalog, but I printed out several designs and mailed my little "catalog" to her.

Several months later, I received a call and she was ready to place an order. We discussed the details and she ordered four pendants to be made from her grandmother's china. She mailed two little saucers (one is pictured below) and I went to work!

I was a little apprehensive because the saucers had very little design to them ~ just the white ridges along the edge. My customer asked that each of the pendants have the rim design on them. So, this was quite a challenge!

Here is a picture of my designs drawn on the saucers. As you can see, I was able to get quite a few pendants from just one little saucer! The big circle in the middle reminded me that there was a great back stamp on the bottom of the plate and I needed to preserve that area.


After I cut up that tiny little plate, I ended up with 21 pendants! Here are the finished pieces!

The little pendants without any design were just scraps leftover after cutting out the back stamp and edge pieces. As you can see, with very careful cutting, you can get a lot of pendants from one tiny little plate!









Thursday, January 22, 2009

More Poland Pottery Pieces

I have been working on more of the Poland pottery pieces and here is a sneak preview of some of the pieces I will be posting to my Etsy shop shortly:




I'm also working on a beautiful business card holder made from black and white china - I plan to post that before the end of the week.
Keep checking back to see what's new!!








Saturday, January 10, 2009

The Poland Pottery Accident - A Whole Kitchen Cabinet???

As I promised in my previous post, here is the story about the Poland Pottery.

A wonderful customer contacted me about a special order. She said that a kitchen cabinet fell off her wall resulting in much of her wedding pottery handmade in Poland crashing to the floor. (Thoughts running through my mind are: What do you mean the cabinet fell off the wall? How does that happen? Do I need to check all my cabinets for possible wall detachment?") Can you imagine walking into your kitchen and seeing this on your floor? What a heartbreaking sight!! If you want to see her blog about the incident, take a look here: http://www.xanga.com/pinkgigglepants/678357208/one-way-to-remodel/

Well, have no fear ~ Broken China Treasures can (almost) make everything right (or at least turn that trash into treasure). Although you would rather have your china or pottery in one piece, once it is broken, there's not a whole lot you can do except ~ call in a professional!


That's exactly what she did!! We worked out an agreement and I made a special souvenir of her precious pottery and got to keep the leftover shards (which was a lot)! To the left is a picture of what I made for her ~ a 5 tile bracelet (plus an extra little trinket)! With a few of the leftover pieces, I have made a business card holder, several pairs of earrings and some pendants. There's plenty of pottery left to make many, many more items and they will be showing up in my Etsy shop very soon.


Wait, there's more to this story!! As I was looking for some props to take photos of the finished jewelry, I opened a cabinet door and pulled out a piece that a friend had given to me years ago. This particular piece is called a "cheese lady". I had forgotten I had it and suddenly a feeling of deja vu washed over me. I mean the chills kind of deja vu!! I turned the piece over and guess what was on the back stamp ~ yep ~ "Handmade in Poland". My cheese lady is the same pottery that I had just cut up and made into a bracelet!! Here she is and, amazingly, she has the same expression on her face as I did when I re-discovered her!!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Happy New Year and Happy New Beginnings!!!

Well, I've decided to get back into blogging. Maybe it's the New Year and the start of a new half century (for me) ~ I really don't like those birthdays that end in "0"....but I have resolved to be more diligent in my blogging efforts. So.....here goes!


November and December were extremely busy months for me. A last minute special order for angels for Christmas gifts put me somewhat behind, but I was able to finish everything that needed to be done and all is well.

I was contacted by a very sweet lady who had her Grandmother's collectible plates (which were beautiful, by the way). These plates were blue with white winter and Christmas scenes depicted on them. She wanted to present her family members with angels made from the plates. As I normally do with a special order, I asked her to outline with tape or paper the areas that she wanted for the angel dresses. After receiving the plates, what she had outlined was larger than I normally make for my angel dresses. This only presented a problem because the nuggets I use for the heads usually come in one general size. After I scrounged around in my supplies, I found slightly larger nuggets and made the dresses the approximate size the customer requested. I was glad because smaller dresses would not have done the china justice.

So, here is just a sampling of the 10 finished angels. The customer was quite pleased with the outcome and told me that when her husband saw them he was quite impressed. (When a man is impressed with a project like this, what better compliment could I get)?




I also had some personal projects to complete: For my step daughter, who lives in NYC, I designed and created a stained glass panel of the New York City Skyline including the Twin Towers. I haven't done many design/create projects, so I think this turned out ok. Of course, I would make some changes if I were to make it again. (I'm always tweaking and not quite pleased with the finished product).




A fish sculpture: In my family, among my brothers, their wives and the adult "kids", we draw names for Christmas. I drew my sister-in-law, Deb, and she knew exactly what I would give her. During the summer, she had traveled down south and visited a street fair. She saw a "fish sculpture" that she fell in love with. I couldn't quite duplicate it, but this is my interpretation. Yes, that's real driftwood. My mother and I went to the St. Marks Lighthouse on a balmy and dreary day (actually the Saturday before Christmas) to search for driftwood and we picked up some great treasures. I plan to make some other items with the leftover driftwood.



I had been to the St. Marks Lighthouse only once in the 30 odd years I've lived in Tallahassee. It's only about a 45 minute drive. I don't know why we sometimes travel hundreds of miles to see beautiful sites across this country when most of it is right here in our own backyards. (Oops, that sounded a little like Dorothy, didn't it?) Anyway, while we were at St. Marks, there was a flock of birds sitting on some old pilings and I thought they were quite photogenic. No, I didn't take any pics of the lighthouse - that will be another day ~ preferably a sunny one!!





I made one other very special project for my new granddaughter, Alyx. Another one of my own designs. Unfortunately, I didn't snap a picture of it before it made it's way home to Ohio. But, to give you an idea of what it looked like, here's one I made for a good friend for her son. Of course, the one for Alyx was not blue, but a gorgeous dark fuschia. As soon as the new parents have time, I'll have them send a pic of it in her room and add it to the blog.



So, as you can see, I was very, very busy during December! I think all these projects allow me to excuse myself from blogging for a month!!


OK. From the looks of this post, it must appear I have plenty of time to write. Not so. A very nice Etsian had a whole cabinet fall off her wall and, unfortunately, the cabinet contained her special hand made pottery from Poland that she received for her wedding.


Stay tuned for the results from this atrocious accident.......

Saturday, November 29, 2008

New Items!!

I've been busy creating ~ obviously, since I definitely haven't been blogging ~ and I just wanted to show a few things here. First, some broken china items:



I've also been making some glass art pendants - these are a lot of fun, double sided and go with everything!


I've also added some very inexpensive glass bead earrings to my Etsy site, $7 and Free U.S. Shipping!


So, stop by my Etsy shop and take a look around at all the new items! http://www.brokenchinatreasures.etsy.com/

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Eco Chic Artist and Crafters

I was featured on a wonderful blog today:
http://inspirationturndesign.blogspot.com/

Stop by and take a look at Pam's beautiful artwork, invitations and announcements.

I want to thank Pam again for featuring me. In anticipation of the feature spot, Iadded quite a few more items to my shop. Be sure to stop in and take a look!

www.BrokenChinaTreasures.etsy.com

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Blog Block!!

Sorry I haven't stayed up to date on my blogging, but sometimes I just don't know what to write....or maybe I've just been distracted by college football!!! Yes, I follow my home team and we go to all the home games or watch the away games (Go 'Noles!!!).
I have been updating my Etsy store with a few items. I've added another angel:
A few pendants:



And a business card holder:

A little survey here: How many of you would be interested in learning to make your own broken china jewelry?


I'm also toying with the idea of offering supplies so people can make their own jewelry. (I've already posted a few broken china blanks to test the waters). I've had an e-book in the works on how to make broken china jewelry and hope to get that finished real soon (just a few legal things I need to research).

Also, I would love to hear from you if you have any ideas about what you would like to see - more jewelry, more angels, different shapes for the jewelry - let me hear your thoughts!!