I made this! - Silver Tree, Silver Pear, Silver Speech Bubble and Silver Cat brooches

I've been so inspired of late to create several new designs to sell in my Not on the High Street store that I could be making jewellery at any spare minute, which with a 16 week old baby in tow I am actually doing. I foolishly believed that whilst I was on Maternity Leave I would have so much time to dedicate to my craft, but what I have realised is how much I love making these crazy little things and love the idea of potentially making this into a full time career for me (a little way off that at the moment!) Here are four more new designs that I added to my store today -

Using Art Clay Silver allows me to create my own moulds. I start off by designing the original, sometimes using Sculpey Mold Maker, but more recently I've been using erasers which I carve my design into using lino cutting tools and scalpels. I then make a cast using a two part silicone putty which becomes the mould then for the silver clay. I love the way I can keep a sketchy look to my designs and how each carved line can become a feature. The main appeal to making these pieces is how every time each one is slightly different depending on how I cast the clay and how I sand and smooth the clay once dry before firing. I personally love the wonky, imperfect look it creates and think this is a feature and that perfection is not always the aim!

I've also tried to incorporate my brand name into my pieces which I've achieved by designing some tiny rubber stamps in varying shapes and sizes which I can press into the back of each piece (if they are big enough). I'm quite pleased with how these look - here's a photo of the back of my latest snoozy cat brooch -

Packaging is another area I am trying to improve on. I often use my Moo Mini Cards as backing cards to my brooches and earrings before I tissue wrap them, but I've started to offer a Gift Box option which has really proven a tricky exercise in finding a nice quality and colour gift box in the right size. There are so many gift boxes available but they all were either funny colours or had sateen ribbon glued to them. May have found some finally that I like and am looking into getting my logo embossed onto the lid which should look lovely. For now though, here are some of my lines on my new Moo backing cards -