It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas In The Diva Studio

I have been working like the Dickens, pun intended, to create my 2010 Holiday Jewelry and Ornament collection, after deciding the theme would be "Victorian Romance."



I probably have the largest collection of vintage Victorian Christmas and holiday images of anyone, even digital sellers. There is something about the vintage graphics and the color palettes that pull me in and immediately put me in the Christmas spirit.



Here are the first of the finalized design for Set 1 of the ornaments, predominantly featuring image transfers. Since I am known primarily for my image transfer work and my mica shift (no slicing or squishing!), I wanted to incorporate both techniques into the collection this year, so I "framed" each of these ornaments in a custom blended antique, burnished gold metallic clay on the sides and back; and added Swarovski and Jablonex crystals and lots of little antique brass components to achieve that Vintage Victorian look. I am very pleased with the results. This is one time when the execution exactly matched the plan. I think they are very romantic. My only problem is now I don't want to sell them, I want to keep them all for myself. Sigh...



Set 2 will be predominantly mica shift, and this is the prototype for the set. I had a few structural issues with such a large cutout, so I'm rethinking the size, but hope to have more of these to post by the weekend.







Set 3 will be the jewelry collection. I blended some antique silver and used the burnished gold for a few pieces, and I hope to post photos of those in the next day or two. All the pieces will incorporate the mica shift in silver or gold and image transfers.



I also have gotten back into making earrings. When I was making them 2-3 years ago, they didn't have any polymer components because I wasn't making small beads then. Well, I can't say that now, so I thought I would try a few in my signature antique copper metallic clay blend with various shades of turquoise. Now I need four hands, two to create Christmas ornaments and two to create earrings. Oh well, who needs sleep, right?