About Me

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Clacton-on-Sea, North Essex, United Kingdom
Hello and welcome, I'm Diane and I am Mum to two lovely, lively and craft-minded children, Tayla and Arron. I love my crafts,especially knitting and crochet but my main passion is designing and making mosaics. I have been mosaicing since 2007, using a variety of different items. I suppose I should call myself a mixed-media mosaic artist. I also love the challenge of a commission!!! All my items (including those on Flickr) are for sale, just leave me a message for details. (I do have Paypal)

Monday 31 May 2010

Update on the dove angel poll

Just so that you know, the poll to find out if the dove angel should have a face has resulted in a majority asking for a face but in lighter colour inks, closely followed by leaving the face in black. So overall the opinions are that she needs a face but perhaps lighter.

Thank you to all those that voted.

Friday 28 May 2010

Angels, angels and more angels..

Thought I would show the last mosaics that I made some time ago, I've not made anything for a couple of weeks now as ill health has overtaken any creativeness. Hopefully, I will be back to making in the next month or so. I made the following angels after seeing something similar, but much larger. As they are all different I decided to name them:


First we have Flora, cream glass background with vintage cabochons, dyed pink shelll beads, green varigated glass and purple irridescent glass. She has gold teardrop beads for her hair.








Next we have Angeli, she is called this as it is Native American for "Spirit". She has turquoise glass with accents of red, gold glass and gold mirror for her wings and red crackle glass beads which has splashes of gold, green and red. Her hair is faceted glass teardrop beads.




Thirdly, is Victoria, she was given this name as, when I had finished her I thought she looked very Victorian in colour and design. She has pale pink/peach varigated glass for her dress with insets of silver mirror, there are also strings of old white beads and the accents in her wings are enamelled butterflies which came from a pair of earrings which had been broken. Her hair is made of silver teardrop beads




Fourth, is Nova, this name is Native American for "Chases butterflies". I know she doesn't look very Native American but whilst researching a name for Angeli I found the name Nova with it's meaning and thought it suited. She has accents of irridescent/silver butterflies together with silver mirror for her wings, skirt and squiggly line. The main body of her dress is varigated sky blue glass. Her hair is made of champagne colour teardrop beads.






Lastly, we have Cleo. I have used vintage black cabochons which have sparkly suns on them, together with white opaque glass, gold mirror and black opaque glass. Her hair is again faceted teardrop beads.


Thursday 20 May 2010

Crosses

These are some crosses I recently made:



The first is made using lilac varigated glass which is irridescent and actually shines in shades of pink, grey, green and lilac. I've used crackle mirror for the centre piece and plain silver mirror for the squiggles. The woards peace and love are some alphabet beads that I must have bought some time ago and forgot about, but as they are pastel coloured thought they went well with the colour combo. I think this is my favourite.


The next cross is all plain silver mirror accented with blue irridescent moons and yellow irridescent stars, these are glass nuggets, again bought some time ago and forgotten about until now.








This third cross is just simply vintage bone china with a honeysuckle pattern








Lastly, this cross is made using varigated gren glass with dark purple glass accent. The inspiration for this cross came from some polymer clay buttins that I had recently bought. I've used these as accents. I then found some purple dyed shell beads in my stash and added these for some extra purple. I grouted this piece in grey. I think this is probably my second favourite.

Monday 17 May 2010

Dove angel, first of two new angel designs


I saw a picture of this angel and fell in love with her, so decided to design her as a mosaic.
I have used silver mirror for her halo and her dress is made of irridescent lilac glass which shines in shades of pink, lilac and green. The dove that she is gently holding has a gold mirror beak.
I am undecided about the face, as I think this may over-power the piece, being in black when the rest is so delicate. My other larger angel does not have a face, so I'm not sure.
To this end I have decided to run a poll on http://www.craftsforum.co.uk/showthread.php?44203-new-design-dove-angel-help-needed and I will go with the majority decision. Please feel free to join the poll or add a comment here which I will add to the results.

Mrs Retro Owl, a partner for Retro Owl

This is Mrs. Retro Owl, a partner for my earlier Retro Owl, whom we all agreed was a definite "he".
This time I have used lighter brown glass for the main parts and instead of glass I have used seed beads in browns and golds for the chest. Well being a female, she deserves some bling!!
Her beak, feet and eyes are a different colour too.
I have also reversed the design so she faces towards (or away) from Mr. depending on her mood!!

Friday 14 May 2010

What's happening this weekend?

Come see me here: http://www.onesuffolk.co.uk/crowshallcountryfayre on Sunday!

I've made lots of new items for this event, all of which I have photographed and will add to the blog after Sunday.

Monday 10 May 2010

What should I do with a present?

As my present in the Crafts Forum Secret Easter Bunny event, I received two lovely fused heart coasters from Ann Noble. Beautiful as they were, I didn't like to leave them just laying around.
So after some thought I decided to make them into wall hangings, so I attached each one to a small mirror circle but, this was not enough, so I then gave them my button mania magic, edging them with buttons, beads, millefiori and coloured shell pieces.
Here is the finished results, which when I get around to hanging them, will catch the sunlight and really sparkle.


Wednesday 5 May 2010

Secret Easter Bunny 2010 (UK Crafts Forum)


Just thought I would let you see the mosaic I made and which was given as the Secret Easter Bunny present on the Uk Crafts Forum. My daughter, Tayla designed it and called it Sun Flower. It's made from different pieces of stained glass, with a circle of millefiori flowers. I have been working on a lot of other pieces but due to ill health, none of them have been grouted yet. I'm hoping to get them finished by the weekend in readiness for next week's fair at Debenham, Suffolk.