Luneville plates

I found these Luneville plates for 0.90€ at the second-hand shop last week. Luneville is best-known for lovely beadwork which was produced in this town in the 18th century. Pottery was also produced there and still is, apparently! I fell in love with the floral pattern which looks as though it was stenciled on. It's all around the edge and there were three plates, plus a dark blue one that was one of it's kind. Maybe the others in the set were broken, but I would have liked to find a whole stack of them, the deep blue is gorgeous!



And here's one of my birds, cut out from a terracotta slab, printed with lace, fired, colored and waxed, already glued to a board, soon to become part of my next mosaic.

In fact there are three birds on the board, and I was looking for the perfect printed plate tesserae to put under their little feet. I'll have to show you how it turns out!

Gifts & Swaps

Here are a few brooches I made for my sister and her daughter this weekend. I sent them off to the USA yesterday with about 50 of my brand new business cards enclosed! I thought since she's going to be passing them out, the least I could do was to make her a few little gifts.

This one is for my niece, Sarah, to whom I gave a big set of seed beads in lots of colors for Christmas. Perhaps this will inspire her to try felt too!

Speaking of business cards, I also sent out a few cards to another etsy seller, and she's sending me some of hers. If you would like to do a card swap, let me know in the comments. I would love to include them with my orders, in the USA or internationally!

Bird pillows or Soft Sculptures

So, I've made some pillows (or soft sculptures), still inspired by my drawings of African bird sculptures in bronze. This one is like one of my brooches, only bigger, of course, and 3D instead of 2D. This one sold two days after being listed on my etsy shop. This is the first one I tried, made of cotton decorator fabric I found in the remnant bin of my favorite fabric shop here in Lyon.


This one is made of a beautiful paisley cotton I bought from etsy seller, The Designers Touch. I used linen for his beak and felt for his legs and feet. My son loved him so much he hugged him!

I like the fish too. She's simple and would look good on a couch with lots of other fishes. I'll have to make a bunch more! My daughter thinks they would be the perfect pillows for a beach house. We don't have one though, so...

Blue and Golden Yellow

Ever-enamored of the blue and golden yellow color combination, I cut up the plates to give these birds a golden contrast.

I added some of the tiny flower patterned pieces along with touches of blue and black. I just need to cement it all together.

Ceramic Lace Bird

The idea is to use the same imagery in different materials. My blue cotton bird brooch was transformed into a ceramic lace bird (still blue!). He's been fired and colored with blue pigment.

Plushy Animals

Here's a plushy rooster I made today. He's not a brooch, a little too big. Also, he's not as flat as my brooches; I stuffed him with polyfil to round him out a bit. I also made him a wife, little red and brown hen, but it was far too dark to photograph her by the time I was finished. I'm working towards my bird pillows.