New Dishes Created

I love creating larger items that are functional but finding the time is always an issue.  I finally found some creative play time and decided to make some new dishes.  I discovered that once I started, it got my creative juices flowing and now I have more ideas.

Making items like these require more patience and take a little more time as they generally go through at least 2 bakings but the end product is so worth it!  All of these pieces went to the Shuswap Artisan Market in Sorrento and are already sold so we dropped off a few more pieces today.

Brilliant Rainbow Swirl Dish

Brilliant Rainbow Swirl Dish - Side view

Green Leaves with Lady Bugs Soap or Trinket Dish

Green Leaves with Lady Bugs Soap or Trinket Dish - Side view

Gigantic Bloom Dish in Pink and Lime

Flower Dish in Teal and Lime

Brilliant Bloom Flower Buttons for Spring

We introduced our little Brilliant Bloom buttons a few years ago to the yarn shops that sell our work and they were a huge hit.  We make the flowers in 10 different colors along with leaves and ladybugs.  The Brilliant Bloom buttons below are about 3/4" in size and have 2 holes for sewing where the ones below are our Mini Blooms that are only 1/2" and have a metal shank embedded in the back.

Brilliant Bloom Buttons

Brilliant Bloom Lady bug, pink flower and leaf buttons

Mini Bloom Buttons

This year we are introducing a much larger version -- our Gigantic Blooms.  These buttons are a concave shape and two inches in diameter and each one comes with one of our signature lady bugs.

Gigantic Bloom Buttons

Gigantic Bloom Button in Teal Blue

These buttons are already available at Fibre Expressions Quilt Shop, on the Sunshine Coast in Sechelt, BC.  They are also available in our online store in our handcrafted buttons section.

Tools for Sewing - Seam Rippers

Our shipment of seam ripper supplies arrived a few weeks ago but we had some orders to fill before finally getting around to making some to list in our online store.  We have a few listed right now (click on the photos to see) and working on listing more soon.

Double-ended Seam Ripper

In the meantime I was working on a new design where the seam ripper can clip to a bag or be worn as a necklace.  I love this idea as it is a great way to keep it handy.

Necklace Seam Ripper

Necklace Seam Ripper

Textured Flowers for Rearranging

These flowers are another type of texture we like to work with.  Each petal is individually sculpted, textured, colored with mica powder pigments to give the metallic jewel-tone colors and then arranged into a flower.  They have a special finding on the back to allow them to be interchanged and used in a variety of ways.  We are still working on more prototypes and getting everything in order for our spring shows coming up in April and May.

Here the three flowers are arranged in a necklace ...

The same flowers can be worn in other ways such as a single pendant ...

...  as a ring ...

... or on other findings like this hair clip ...

It can even be added to a large bail to wear on a scarf ...

We are still working on some bracelet designs as well as other accessories.

New Interchangeable Jewelry

Here is a sneak peak of what we have been working on for this spring.  It is a jewelry collection that is interchangeable.  These sculpted flowers have genuine Swarovski crystal centres and can be interchanged in various ways.

It can be worn as a pendant and hung on a chain or cord.

Or worn as a focal bead in this necklace:

Or wear the same flower on a ring for your finger.

Floral Pattern Crochet Hooks

We also have our crochet hooks in our popular flower pattern now for sale in our Etsy shop.  We spent most of January building up our inventory so customers will not have to wait for their favorite hook size to be made.  They are available in sizes 2.0 all the way up to 10.0.

These crochet hooks have the same ergonomic design as our others.  The size is also stamped at the end for easy identification and our signature logo for authenticity.

These are some of the canes we make ourselves to create the pattern on these crochet hooks.  The canes are reduced down to a small size and then thin slices are arranged onto a clay background.

Flowers and Lady Bugs

It feels like spring at our house with the snow outside melting and all the flowers and ladybugs inside.  We just finished off more of our Brilliant Bloom stitch markers for the local yarn stores and this time made extra to list in our Etsy shop.

This is our stitch marker set for knitting.  The rings will accommodate up to size 7mm (10 3/4 US) size knitting needles.  They are on a double clasp with one of our matching clay beads to attach to a bag.

This is our stitch marker set for crochet that are on a clasp to attach to a bag.

Brilliant Bloom Buttons Used

Our Brilliant Blooms buttons have really become a popular item and people are finding more uses for them which we love to see.  This hat was knit by Carla and she added a grouping of several Blooms buttons as an accent.  Carla works at Katja's Quilt Shoppe and is so talented.  She not only does some fabulous quilting, she is an avid knitter.  If you are into either of these, you might want to check out and follow her blog, Grace and Favour.

This baby snuggy vest was knit by Anne at Kelowna Yarn & Needlecrafts.  I love the color and how she used the Blooms buttons on it.  Anne's store specializes in yarn and patterns for children and babies and we have been working with her in creating some buttons for these items just for her shop.

Vintage Style Jewel-tone Flowers

We have been making lots of "Vintage Flowers" in a variety of jewel-tone colors.  We create the flowers and bake them so they are ready to be used when needed.

The "vintage-like" centres are not metal but polymer clay.  They were created from a mould we made from a vintage button.  A Swarovski crystal is embedded into the centre and they are then accented with mica powders and baked.  We will generally make up a whole batch in different colors at a time so they are ready to use.

We like to use our vintage style flowers in various ways:

Shawl/Hair Sticks:

Brooch Stick Shawl Pins:

Scarf Charms:

  And Jewelry: