She's done it to me again at Dior!

Now it's not actually that often that I yearn for great wealth, usually I'm pretty happy that I live by the sea, and I take little pleasures in beautiful trinkets that I find at the car boot and recycle into new beautiful things, simple life for a simple kinda person....

But jeeesus, sometimes whilst I'm looking back at my favourite 'well-out-of-the-price-bracket' inspirations something stops me in my tracks, and for the second time running it's the beautifully insane designer Victoire de Castellane with the new Milly Carnivora collection for Dior...

Yeah, just going out to buy a few lottery tickets...

The Tarot Garden

Today I had the unexpected pleasure of discovering Niki de Saint Phalle. After one small thing my dad said today I realised I had always been aware of the name but didn't know what she did, turns out (among many other things) she created this incredible sculpture garden in Tuscany. Why is it that everything I discover lately seems to make me need a holiday?!

Anyway, the thing that really struck me was that the garden depicts the 21 Tarot Cards of the Major Arcana, you know the drill - the Empress, The Devil, Death, all that stuff. I've been fascinated by tarot since my early teens and I don't think my mind will ever be peaceful until I have created my own design of cards, even though my many attempts over the last 10 years or so haven't ever seen the light of day! Niki's artistic interpretation of the cards is amazing, and I love the simplicity and every day language of the personal notes which accompany each one - too many writers get all ethereal when writing up the meanings of the cards!

I think I would be pretty happy to also explore Queen Califia's Magical Circle which Niki created in Escondido, California, but I would be like a kid in a sweet shop going around the beautiful Tuscan Tarot - Il Giardino Dei Tarrochi - bellissimo!!! Ooh, it's like Salvation Mountain but more pagan, ace!

Mission Impossible: Never!

Nothing is Impossible, and with some polyfillering in the old holes, and my very sexy handles (despite ebay saga and giving in to much more expensive but ultimately more satisfying B&Q versions), my vision is complete! It actually looks exactly as I had hoped... and that never happens with anything!!!

Chuffed to bits! Hence having the urge to tell the world!

Mission Impossible: Phase 3

Getting the pink paint on cheered me up a bit, although I still had a few reservations about whether this cabinet is really gonna be as cool as I'd hoped, or would it end up like an extremely naff seventies blancmange... I have reserved the right all along to relegate it to the firewood pile if my vision is not realised!


When I put the bugger back together, there was then a considerable delay, as I have never applied wallpaper to anything and was a bit on the nervous side...

...And also I'm really anal and the pattern had to line up vertically and horizontally, and the joins had to be evenly spaced, so I didn't really relish the challenge I'd given myself! I have to say though, I have made myself proud with this attempt, if you look mega-close there's one tiny gap, but you'd have to be as finickity as me to find it!

Mission Impossible: Phase 2

Ok, so the primer was a bit of a problem. Well, not so much the primer itself but the hideous wee wee yellow stain which kept coming through from the previous varnish, despite 3 coats.

Fortunately I remembered a couple of years ago using a specific stain block paint to cover a damp stain in my folks' French house, and one coat of that sorted out that problem!

And because that stuff takes a little longer to dry, and I'm ridiculously impatient, and the insides didn't need treating, I made a womb-like effort to start on the final coat...

Mission Impossible, Codename: cabinet

When I brought this ace seventies sideboard home it was not particularly well received at home, earning itself comments like 'firewood' and 'smells like a charity shop'. Well I can see potential so I don't care if nobody else can!

So I am defiantly determined to make it cool for as little money as possible, and considering I got the thing for 4 quid, and paper to line the inside for free, and already had some sandpaper and primer in stock, I'm doing rather well so far!

Guest List-tastic!

I feel like a proper lucky git to have been invited to the opening night of the Banksy Versus Bristol Museum exhibition this weekend! Ace! (I wore my Mixko ceramic skull ring just to make sure I was cool enough!)

All White Everyone?!

I'm feeling quite fixated with white things at the moment, i like to create in colour, dress in lots of colours and have bright orange hair, so I think I find a sense of calm in objects which are purely white, especially some of these clever designs which are not necessarily supposed to be made from white ceramic! The milk carton jugs from Ricochet Studio are amazing, and I'm definitely getting myself some of Rob Brandt's crushed coffee and espresso cups...
And offerings from the ever fabulous Etsy include Yogagoat's cool as mustard bunch of fortune cookies and The Automatic Crystal's strangely beautiful porcelain peanut necklace!

Finally, last but by no means least, uber cool design studio Mixko create brilliantly unusual items, including my favourites - their lovely ceramic rings. Models include 'Barby' and 'Baby' below...

Whilst researching this post I have totally fallen in love with their ice-cream cone light fittings too, what an ace way to make a feature of energy efficient bulbs! I had a spooky moment actually, as I was in the middle of chomping through a Cornetto when I came accross the picture! The final ring below is the one I decided on for myself, and the funky chunky dude always gets a great reaction when plonked on my tiny little finger!

Freaky Ring Hand-Stands!!!

I love making jewellery. I love selling jewellery. I especially love selling my jewellery face to face and chatting to people at craft fairs and festivals.
I hate the fact that I keep trying really hard but never quite find the perfect ways of displaying my goods. Every time I come up with something new I love it, until I think of another, better, more practical way later on! So for the moment, I LOVE my new hand-stands for displaying my rings!


One pair of rubber gloves - I like yellow and pink best but it's really surprising how many colours you can get, saw some very suave black ones today.

Fill with flour, sand, whatever you have to hand (pun totally accidental!), make sure you fill the fingers right up or they'll go floppy. Add a pebble or similar when you have finished filling the glove, to act as a weight when you turn it over. Secure the end VERY TIGHTLY with an elasitic band/hairband/whatever.


Turn the hand over and squeeze into shape so it stands up on it's own.


Hey Presto, freaky hands!

More making moments!

I'm trying to build up some stock for the next couple of months, stall holding season is nearly upon us and the unsuspecting Cornish public need some Foundlings in their lives!!! First event is at Jubilee Pool opening day, Saturday 23rd of May, Yippee!

Salvation Mountain

I've always been a fan of religious iconography but I have never seen anything quite like the phenomenon of Salvation Mountain in California! The 50ft high by 150 ft wide creation of Leonard Knight's is an evolving entity, which he continues to work on to convey his devotional message that 'God is Love'. It's not that I'm particularly religious myself but it's difficult not to be moved by the effort which has clearly been worked into every inch of this beautiful construction, even more so when you read his story and find out that his first mountain collapsed after many years of work, and he simply started building all over again! Although he is shy to be described as an artist as such there is no doubt that this is an incredible piece of inspirational artwork (however you choose to define those terms!).

See Salvation Mountain and thanks to Unusual Life and hoveringdog for bringing it into my life with their amazing photos, I'll definitely be marking Salvation Mountain on my US map for the travelling i'm sure i'll get round to some day!

Narcissistic Gingerness...

Narcissistic Gingerness..., originally uploaded by foundlings.jewellery.

Hmmm, things I love the most.... apparently myself!

The 365 Phenomenon

Who'd have thunk it, that taking a self-portrait every day for a year could be so challenging on the creative juices! And also extremely popular, the main project 365 group on flickr currently having 13,436 members worldwide, so here's just a tiny fragment of faves from fellow photographers on the same timescale as me (personally day 80 today!).




My day 77, part of the "saturday haturday" project I set myself, although I only own 3 hats, so have now moved onto random items such as this fruit bowl for the Geisha effect!



My sister's lovely day 7



toaster.cat's awesome day 85



Diamond Farah's beautiful day 50

and a couple more so lovely but I couldn't get html for...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tenderlove/3183372933/in/set-72157612381236564/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eleinx/3426801753/

Chocolates for Easter!

My latest Foundlings Jewellery creation, and absolutely my favourite so far... ever! The choccy box is weeny, only an inch and a half long!

Been busy making!

Just a snippet of the manic making I've been doing the last few days, to try and get enough stock for a new shop in Penryn and a huge retail fair in London! Eeek!

New Art Idol

Following a recent exhibition in Penzance, I have finally found an artist of enviable repute who shares my fondness for discarded toys...

Adopted Cornishman Robert Bradford creates these amazing sculptures from all my favourite bits of junk - it took all my willpower not to sneakily prise off a few childhood faves! He also has a very cool Bee installed at the Eden Project.

Despite my fascination for these objects, I was equally enamoured with his Rocking Horse (below), which featured at an auction in the Exchange Gallery - where, incidentally, one of my uncle's amazing nudey lady on surfboard paintings was also sold (Pop back later for that one!).

Obviously, this is what would happen if the Stones and Pat Butcher had had a late night interlude, and in the wee small hours the pile of clothes decided to get up and walk off... or is that just me?!

Acceptable in the 80's

When I was a teenager everything was 60's, from tie-dye to motown, I noticed a progression through 70's trends as I got older and thought the 80's would never come back, they were far too naff ever to re-emerge... and yet here I find myself loving the newest form of retro, as if shell-suits never happened! These are my fave Etsy 80's goodies...

From wildcatdesigns, the space invaders scarf.

LoveLeeSoaps (one of my favourite soapiers) designed this fantastic banana scented pacman.

The groovy mixtape pouch from BraveMoonman is uber cool, think it probably has some Billy Joel recorded on it, and maybe a few Pixies tracks (was that not a normal mixture?!).

Looks like lego from goodkarmasoaps, these make me giggle lots! Love them!

And last (but of course not least!) my own FoundlingsJewellery contribution to 80's fever - hypoallergenic Pacman and Blinky earrings!

Happy 80's revival!