Brilliant Aether & Always Coming Home

So what’s been keeping me busy these days, so busy that I’ve neglected this blog horrendously and my blogging friends even more than usual? Well, I’ve been frantically making new stock, but I’m always doing that.  The truth is, I’ve also been building another website, and it’s just recently gone “live”.

Brilliant Aether is going to be a bit of a departure from The Birds In The Meadow, but I like to think the two sites will complement each other nicely.  There’s been an element to my creativity that’s gone unexpressed here – the part that loves living in a city, that wants to run with ideas that would not fit on a nature blog, and wants to make things to sell that would be out of place in The Birds In The Meadow’s shop. For instance, there’s been a Steampunk section in The Birds In The Meadow ever since it opened and it’s been one of the most popular sections in the shop, but to fully explore the more fantastical and costume like aspects of my craft I really have to take it elsewhere; thus the Brilliant Aether shop was born. There isn’t a huge amount of stock just yet and the blog has barely started but I hope it’s going to gather momentum nicely. And I’d love it if you dropped in and said hi!

The Birds In The Meadow may have been a little slower than usual while I worked on the new site, but the making never stopped and the arrival of summer (a chilly summer, but summer nonetheless) galvanised me to make some new summery stuff. I’ve been hanging on to a pair of absolutely gorgeous vintage clip on earrings for a while now and I’ve wanted to give them a new life as cocktail rings but the right ring backs just never came my way. Until now that is, and here’s what they look like now (excuse my horrid dishpan hand)

The arrival of swallows after their gruelling migration from Africa a month ago filled me as ever with happiness and awe… so much better than shock and awe, don’t you think? I have a whole blog post to write about that in fact… but not now.  To celebrate I made these necklaces; I called them “Always Coming Home”  after the book by Ursula K LeGuin…

…and to celebrate the first rose appearing in our front yard, I made this necklace

And there is more to come! But not now, as I think you’ve probably had enough to read as it is, so I’ll thank you for reading this far down and take my leave.

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Rock Around The Clock…

“…When the working day is done, girls – they want to have fun, Oh girls just want to have fun!”

There’s something about old vinyl that makes me want to start jumping around, singing into my hairbrush – perhaps it dates me but those shiny black discs make me come over all nostalgic.  Sigh. In my search for scratched records to cut up and recycle into jewellery I’ve found many 45′s that I couldn’t bear to break up, and until now they’ve sat there in a forlorn pile, gathering dust. There just had to be a use for them, and now I’ve found it! I’ve been making them into clocks.

What could be more appropriate? As a way of listening to music they may have been overtaken by other formats but as objects they are deliciously evocative of time. Where were you when the above record was released – were you even born then?

I still listen to my old vinyl and cherish it as I’m sure many do, and I would never recycle a record that is still playable – to someone, I know, that record is an old friend and I’ll leave it in the second hand shop so that they can find it. But any distressed beauties come home with me -  a pretty centre, a great title, a cool band or song or just something that’s funny or seems evocative, because these lovely, scuffed old relics deserve a second chance.

Want to buy a record clock? Just click on the pictures above and you will be taken to the appropriate part of the shop, or click here… Rock Around The Clock

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New Vintage and Steampunk

At last I got my tool box out this week and actually made some new things! It felt good to have my pliers in my hands again. Here’s a couple of new jewellery pieces… I just got them uploaded to the shop.

The above necklace is called “Open the Garden Gate” and is made of vintage and salvaged materials. It’s a one off!

My favorite though is this bracelet, which I called Temporal Anomoly. Again, it’s made mainly with salvaged and vintage parts, including a lovely champagne watch dial and little bits of mechanical gubbins from inside the watch.

I’m so tempted to keep it for myself… but I wont. If I kept all the things I make for the shop and then don’t want to part with, our poor little flat would be even more of a magpies nest than it is right now.

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New Work Added

Dress up Autumn with vintage lovelies!

Find them now… at The Birds In The Meadow!

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You spin me

…right round baby, right round!

I’ve been working in vinyl again, and this time I think I’ve cracked the perfect design! These earrings are made from old vinyl records – even the cardboard mount they are sent on is made from the record cover, so nothing gets wasted at all. They look kind of like mini records themselves with that central hole, and the hoop shape makes them timeless yet on-trend. Does the thought of cutting up perfectly good records to make jewellery make you want to cry? Me too! I only use unplayable records as my material – I’m a bit of a vinyl junkie and will never part with my cherished record collection, so I’d never chop up a rare or playable disc. Find these babies in my shop; something tells me they will be very popular!

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