Pay-What-You-Want Jewellery and Original Art (or Commission Me!)

For all the info you need to take part is this rare and unusual giant sale of pretty much all my work, please see this post.

Copper Printing Plate Jewellery
These pieces are all hand cut with a jeweller's saw out of recycled copper intaglio plates from my own designs. Most of the skulls are about an inch wide or a wee bit more, so you can kind of judge the size from there. If you need more photos or info, just ask. The feathers are cut from a fairly light copper plate, while the others are much heavier (I don't know the gauge but I can try to figure it out if you need to know).

Usually these retail for $30 for feathers and $35 for skulls. The two scarabs are $75 and $95. I almost never mark them down, so you have a chance to get them as cheap as you'd like.

As shown, the copper is starting to age and tarnish a little. It's really easy to brighten it up to a super shine, or you can let it age and take on different hues as it gets older. I can spray on a clear matte finish if you like, but usually I just put a little renaissance wax on.

Here's what they are (click the image to make it bigger):
1. finch feather
2. white tail deer
3.great horned owl
4. pileated woodpecker
5. mountain goat
6. peacock feather
7. scarab beetle
8. fancy spiral scarab
9. red fox
10. bottlenose dolphin
11. snowshoe hare
12. american badger
13. domestic cat
14. north american porcupine
15. striped skunk
16. harbour seal
17. platypus
18. horse
19. black bear

Miniature Book Jewellery

Yes, these really are tiny books with actual turnable pages. The larger books are just over an inch tall, so that should give you an idea of their size. They retail for $20 for a Japanese stab-stitch necklace, $25 for Japanese earrings or European leather-and-marbled-paper hardcover necklace, and $35 for European-style earrings. Again, I almost never put these on sale, so now's your chance. (They make good gifts!)

European-style earrings (click the image to make it bigger):

European-style pendants (click the image to make it bigger):

Japanese-style earrings (click the image to make it bigger):

Japanese-style pendants (click the image to make it bigger):

Original Art

I don't have a whole lot of original art sitting around, that isn't in the form of prints or books, but I do have a couple of things. If I happen across more, I'll add it, but I think this is really it at the moment. I can however, do something new just for you, but see below for that.

This piece was made to go on the cover of my YA novel A Madness of Kentaurs, hence the centaur on it. Shipping on it could be higher than on the prints, because it's cut/torn paper adhered to fairly heavy card and can't be rolled. It measures 12 by 15 inches.

Then there's this little raven skull pen & ink with watercolour. It's 4 by 6 inches on watercolour paper and was going to be the first of a series showing a raven skull from various angles. I'll finish the series eventually. I'm tempted to just keep it, but...

Commission Me (or Otherwise Hire Me)

I'm not offering commissions on a pay-what-you-want basis, but if you ask for something now I'll charge less than I usually would. Plus I hardly ever offer to do commissions (I'm always open to being asked, I just rarely have time what with all my own projects).

Aside from various sorts of illustration, I also do digital re-touch and custom letterpress, as well as editing of both fiction and non-fiction. If you have something in mind, get in touch, and we'll see about agreeing on a cost and a timeframe. For this kind of job, I will require partial payment up front, with the balance due when the job is completed.

Card Sale

If you've managed to read this far, I have one more thing to add to this sale. Again, it's not pay-what-want, and I'm too headachey right now to post pictures, but all of my die-cut and letterpress cards -- normally selling for $6 or 5 for $25 -- will be 5 for $20 if you buy them directly from me. I'm not sure how long I'll keep them on sale. Maybe a week or two. I'll see about posting images of what I currently have in stock later on so anyone who doesn't know my work can see what I have.

Finally, if there was something you were hoping to see but didn't, please leave a comment or send me an email (anagramforink at gmail) -- I might have missed a few things.

September Giveaway: Pretty, Shiny Thing Plus Secret, Mysterious Extra Thing

OK, it's time for my September giveaway! This month I'm going to send a copper pendant to one lucky winner, plus their choice of any story or novel of mine from Smashwords, and some other mysterious item I will decide on at the last possible minute.

The winner can choose an OsteoSophy animal skull pendant, either one I've already made, or a custom one of their choice (or they can opt to have a bracelet or brooch or keychain instead).

See more of these in my Etsy shop.

 OR

The winner may choose a copper feather pendant instead -- again, either an existing one, or a custom-made one. These are larger than the skulls and made from thinner copper.

More are currently in my other Etsy shop (it made sense at the time).

To enter, just comment on this post with your choice of pendant--tell me which you'd like and what animal or bird. Tweets and Facebook posts and the like are much appreciated, too, but not required.

New Copper Shiny Thing

Totally not book related, except it's made from an old intaglio printing plate:

This, and others like it, will be available in my Etsy shop once the Canada Post situation is resolved. Oh, and it's a thylacine skull (the pendant, that is; the actual skull it's sitting on is a whitetail deer).

Making Progress Slowly

 
The Halifax Crafters Winter . . . um, I can't remember what it's called this year, but it's the funkiest craft fair in town, and it's coming up very soon (next weekend) so I am in a mad frenzy to get everything done. I've spent the last couple of days working on a big batch of book jewellery, and it's still not done!

Here's what it looks like so far:

Those are the Japanese bindings, all done and ready for their hardware. It looks like such a tiny pile, now, but there are 26 pendant size and 34 earring size tiny books in there. Here are the English bindings, not done:

I'll be changing gears a little bit today, to print some more gift tags on my Kelsey parlour press here at home, and getting paper ready to print business cards and book jewellery cards in the Dawson Printshop tomorrow before the Letterpress Gang meeting.

As for cards, I've printed all I'm going to get done this year, and am just waiting on envelopes and polybags (fingers crossed that they will make their way swiftly from Ontario to here, or else I will be stealing bags and envelopes from other, non-holiday, cards). The calendars are printed and just need their final trim and hole-punch, which will happen tomorrow. They need polybags, too, which are also on order.

The other task this week is to build some kind of card display for my table, probably out of foam core (they make a nice black with black core that won't even need covering if I cut it well). I used to borrow the spinner rack from the Dawson Printshop, but I find that most people only look at what's in front of them, and don't actually turn the rack.

So that's what I've been doing. Phew! If I make it through this week, and next weekend, then I just have the Letterpress Gang Holiday Printers' Bazaar to prep for, but I'll mostly be using the same inventory I already have. I may try to print one more quick card in the intervening week, but I also have an xmas present for a friend that I want to get done so I can deliver it before I take off for the west coast on the 21st, leaving boy and cat to fend for themselves (well, technically boy will also fend for cat, but you know what I mean).