garden in the void

🌈 pride sneks 🏳️‍🌈

Tonight at 7pm est!

1920 c. Just before the emergence of Art Deco, here is a last gasp of Art Nouveau design in this bracelet by Luis Masriera. It’s made of gold, colored glass, diamonds and cameo. From Art Deco, FB.

aaaaa ‘colored glass’ doesn’t even come CLOSE, my friend. This is not like leadlighting. That is plique-a-jour (light-of-day) enamelling, on a curve, with multiple colors, in tiny ‘cells’ made out of gold wire no thicker than your fingernail (which in and of themselves would have been a stone cold bitch to make aaa they are so tiny and those joints are so perfect HOW DID HE DO THAT).

Every. single. cell, has to be ‘hand-filled’ with wet enamel, which has a texture very much like watercolor paint, allowed to set, refilled until the surface tension holds, and then fired in a kiln at a very precise temperature and time, which is different for each color. And then the enamel shrinks back to the edges of the cell so you have to let it cool, refill, and then fire again. I’ve had to refill a single cell as many as four times to get color fill.

Blues and greens are the easiest, so you do them first. You take the kiln to a slightly higher temperature, have a few more seconds of leeway before they go horribly discolored on you. Oh, and this is using a modern kiln with a precise, digital temperature controller, not whatever this dude had back in the 1920s which would have involved a lot of guesswork and standing by the kiln counting under his breath because enamel fires in SECONDS.

Guess which colors are the hardest? That’s right, REDS. The colors this stunning bracelet is full of. I LOATHE working with reds. Ten seconds too long, five degrees too hot, and they’re ugly, black-flecked disasters that have to be dissolved out with acid, not incidentally trashing the other colours you’d spent forever on too. Yay.

And when you’ve finally finished, having spend probably hundreds of hours getting all those tiny cells fired and filled? Time to sit down with a bowl of water and a hard grinding stone and grind every single one of them flat, my friend, because the enamel when properly filled actually domes up slightly. Yes, this part is still best done by hand, even today.

Don’t forget to repolish your gold, making sure to get out all the scratches left by your glass-polishing stone, and set all those diamonds and the cameo!

What’s that, you say? One of your glass cells fractured because you used a tiny bit too much pressure setting a diamond?

Dear me. Time to UN-set all those stones and go back to the kiln again. Have a lovely time!

‘Colored glass’, indeed. Hmph.

Oh the Art Drama!!

Every time I see this I’m filled with SEETHING Skill Envy

Earrings // Greenas Beans

Flower Posm with baby bee Posms on its back! Happy late Mothers Day if you are a mother.

If you like this, you can request it from my via commission.

Elven Crowns // My Shiny Box

An ace pride mushroom in honor of International Asexuality Day. Happy Ace Day to my fellow aces!

As I was working on this I also spent some time reflecting. I've been out as ace for over 15 years now, known I was ace for over 20 years, and in that time I have definitely seen a change towards more acceptance and awareness of asexuality. 20 years ago it was pretty much a miracle that I stumbled onto a description of asexuality on a web forum. It was a very invisible and seldom talked about sexuality. In many of the years since it felt like all we ever got was invalidation an ridicule.

Even in more recent years a simple mention of asexuality by an lgbtq+ organisation or advocate would usually result in a storm of laugh reacts and general heckling. Plus the usual statement that aces don't belong in the lgbtq+ community... Don't see that as often now. So that's something to be happy about at least. It's slow but it is happening. Looking back I'm also really happy about the language that has developed for talking about asexuality. When I came out there wasn't as much nuance and it was hard to even explain to people what asexuality was, because I just didn't have the words to describe stuff like split attraction, or the differences between attraction and libido, etc...

Amethyst bracelet made by Faeriesjewels

trans & queer people make the springtime come faster 🌱

sold

Sugar Syrup, Moondust & Stardust! Three button witch dolls going up in my secret patreon shop this Monday! (March 4th, at 18:00 GMT) Unlockable to patrons at any tier, with worldwide tracked shipping. Paypal payments only, prices in my tags https://www.patreon.com/slocotion

“Before the Beginning” automata and electronic music box (not hand-crank)

These have been in the works for a *long* time; I’ve lost track of how many hours I’ve spent tweaking or redesigning parts, but they are finally ready! Made from wood, paint, resin, acrylic, and brass. Inspired by that beautiful opening scene of S2, and of course the Aziraphale and Crowley are from the Peter Anderson Studios title credits. Turn the handle and they spin in space; press the star button on the front to play the music box rendition of the Good Omens theme. The (electronic) music box is rechargeable via a port in the back (cable included).

I couldn’t decide whether to make this blue with gold or gold with blue, so I made one of each just for variety- I’ll post the gold one tomorrow!

I’m beyond excited for season 3!!

Moon Bright Miniatures on Etsy

Crowns // Ithuriell

Working on some chicken variations. Might be a little while till I get them in the shop, but if you have chicken breeds you desire let me know. It’s hard with my color palette, but I’ll try my darndest.

Mushroom Friends

First time posting my knitting to tumblr. Look at my Bug Son

He's just a baby boy...!