Next Up In The 2011 Holiday Collection - A Bit O' The Plaid



Highland Heather Tartan

What a weekend!   I have been hunkered down in the studio for two days.  Yesterday, I received the shipment of chain and clasps I was waiting for, so I worked on finishing up more of the holiday collection, including these gorgeous (if I do say so myself) Scottish Tartan Necklaces.  worked on the Faux Bone and Ivory tutorial.  The publish date is near, though, my patient friends.

The tutorial was a whopping 30MB in size, and I have been paring it down by reshooting some of the photos at a lower resolution.  I also had to delete the gallery of finished pieces, which is a bummer, because I know all of you look forward to those at the end of the tuts.  

The projects for the tutorial are all done, though; and it is just a matter of resizing some more photos and rearranging some text and it will be ready to go.

Black Watch Tartan



I had an idea for one more set of pendants and necklaces for the holiday collection and went to hunting some Scottish and Irish clan tartan images I could transfer to polymer. 

I found a very nice man at Etsy who had some just the right size.   I chose two Stuart patterns, one I'm calling Highland Heather because I couldn't identify the clan it is associated with, and one Black Watch, which is my favorite, even though it isn't my clan's pattern. 

Oh, yes, I have some Scotch in me, as well as Irish.  My Scots were Border Reiver Forresters and Armstrongs.  I haven't researched all my Scottish connections, but those are the ones I know of so far.

I listed the first two in the Etsy shop today, and I must say, I am having a hard time with some of the changes they are implementing.  I used to be able to put in pretty long tag names, but now "image transfer jewelry" is too long, and apparently "romantic" isn't an official style.  Romantic and ultra-feminine is what I was going for in creating these.  I think they are really dreamy.

Stuart and ??? Tartans

I need to check and see which clan the plaid on the lower right belongs to, so pardon my ??? in the caption.   I have a nifty little book, The Scottish Clans & Their Tartans, by W. and A.K. Johnston which was published in 1946, a 32nd edition, that has been most helpful, but it doesn't have that one.

Now I am off to research some Irish clan tartans, and I still want to do a few which reflect holiday traditions in other countries. I also have my eye on some new Asian snow scenes.

Suggestions are welcome, too, so if you have any ideas of what you'd like to see framed in brass or antique silver, let me know.