Helen

Author's details

Name: Helen Kaut
Date registered: June 13, 2009
URL: http://www.hkpress.co.uk

Latest posts

  1. When polymer clay gets too hot…. — February 22, 2012
  2. The making of..wire wrapped heart pendants with Swarovski crystals. — February 3, 2012
  3. New year, new challenges — January 6, 2012
  4. Spotlight on…Four Paws Animal Rescue (South Wales) — November 5, 2011
  5. Spotlight on….Kirsty Sullivan from Ladybird Beads — October 26, 2011

Most commented posts

  1. Commission for a customer — 4 comments
  2. More from the diet front — 4 comments
  3. The making of…a bracelet woven on a beading loom — 4 comments
  4. Spotlight on…Four Paws Animal Rescue (South Wales) — 4 comments
  5. Cat Globetrotter – French couple travel the world with a super cute cat — 3 comments

Author's posts listings

Feb
22

When polymer clay gets too hot….

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Black Cat Bookmark- copyright Helen White

I only read about “spiking” in polymer clay books which advise you to regularly check the temperature during the curing process. As our normal oven in the kitchen takes ages to warm up and I don’t want to bake polymer clay in it,we bought a table top oven from Morphy Richards, which was on sale. I also have a professsional thermometer for the oven. However the oven is not super accurate and after warming up the temperature rises quickly and way over the required 110 C for Fimo (or 130 C for Premo) so normally when I bake I tend to check on the oven and keep changing the temperature. It also goes down quickly so I have to increase it again.

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Feb
03

The making of..wire wrapped heart pendants with Swarovski crystals.

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Wire wrapped heart pendant - Copper and silver wire - copyright Helen White

As it’s Valentine’s Day this month, hearts are obviously playing a part in my new designs and I decided to make two wire wrapped heart pendants – but not just with round wire. Instead I used square wire. I have a nifty little device from Beadalon with which I can twist the wire into a nice shape. So for the two hearts I made, I used two square wires of different colours (copper, silver plated for the first one and brass and silver plated) and twisted these together. Only downside is that the wire hardens using this method, which means it’s harder to manipulate into a nice shape.

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Jan
06

New year, new challenges

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Happy New Year - copyright Helen White

I hope you all had a good start to the New Year.

It has been a bit quiet since my last post, mainly because I have been busy in the run-up to Christmas, working on a proofreading assignment, making further improvements on the website (the shop layout is now horizontal instead of one long row) and my PTLLS course, which I have finished before Christmas. I am now waiting for my City & Guilds certificate to arrive. My tutor reckons it will take until about March. However I am happy to say that I passed my nerve wrecking micro teach – a teaching session of only 30 minutes, which is rather challenging for someone who is not keen on public speaking! And planning for only 30 minutes isn’t easy.

One of the reasons why I have done this course was simply to be able to teach jewellery courses on a 1-2-1 basis to people who are interested to learn but not keen on going to big classes. But I also hope to teach journalism courses for the NUJ. So these are already two things on my ever increasing list of things I’d like to do and achieve.

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Nov
05

Spotlight on…Four Paws Animal Rescue (South Wales)

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One of the many dogs up for adoption - copyright Four Paws Animal Rescue (SW)

The charity Four Paws Animal Rescue (South Wales) was founded by Kirsty Thomas in 2004 and officially registered in 2006. During her training as a vet nurse Kirsty noticed that many healthy animals were being needlessly euthanized in local pounds. Initially she tried to find homes for these animals with friends and family, but soon realised there were too many animals in need. She gave up her training to dedicate herself full-time to saving animals. Four Paws mainly rescues and re-homes dogs and due to the recession the number of dogs in need is steadily growing. I talked to Adoption Co-ordinator Seran Davies about the charity’s rescue work.

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Oct
26

Spotlight on….Kirsty Sullivan from Ladybird Beads

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Strawberry Fields bracelet - copyright Kirsty Sullivan

Kirsty Sullivan is the designer and owner of Ladybird Beads. She lives with her three small children and partner in a small town in Essex just north of Epping Forest, but is originally from Wales. Kirsty started making jewellery in 2009 and in her day job she works as a Programme Manager of the schools provision at the Museum of London Docklands

Do you have any pets?

Not any more, though I have a history of gerbils. I would love a Devon Rex cat!

When did you start making jewellery?

I started making jewellery in early 2009, when I wanted to make a bag charm to finish a cross stitch project and then got a bit carried away.

When did you start your business?

I sold my first pieces in June 2009, firstly to Facebook friends who were really supportive and then I set up my website about 6 weeks later – my first craft fairs were in December that year.

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Oct
05

Snnnnnnakes in the Studio.

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snake1detailonbust

Working with polymer clay is fun but also very time consuming. My latest pendants were originally planned as rings. I wanted to make snake rings, however on the day I couldn’t find my ring mandrel and had to improvise and because the snakes are not that thin they ended up being very small in diameter – mainly size I which is very small indeed. So I now sell them as pendants.

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Sep
21

Spotlight on…Jennifer Elizabeth Heap – Designer and owner of Jennifer Lizzy

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Jennie - copyright Jennifer Elizabeth Heap

My friend Jennifer Elizabeth Heap originally comes from Leicestershire but has moved to South Wales in 2006 to study drama at the University of Glamorgan. Jennie lives in the outskirts of Caerphilly with her gorgeous and mischievous black and white cats Reebok and Booful. When she’s not creating beautiful jewellery she is studying childcare at her local college.
Jennie: I first started making jewellery last year (2010), when I was unwell with depression. My mum bought me a load of beads and cord and I used to make threaded and knotted necklaces, because it kept my hands busy and gave me something to do. I found it really therapeutic and moved on to using headpins and eye pins and now I’m using resin and wirework and there’s no looking back!

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Sep
06

Mercuries – Freddie and prizes – (warning long post).

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Today the Mercury prize will be awarded to one of 12 nominees and Radio 6 has been promoting this event for weeks now. If you love music as much as I do, you’ll be interested to find out who will get the award this year and the ever excitable Jools Holland will as usual present the show. I always assumed the prize was named after either the record label Mercury Records or the great Freddie (who is also the inspiration for the name of my dear cat Freddy). So when checking I was surprised that it was actually named and created by the communications company Mercury – and that was before I lived in Britain so I have never heard of them. Since its demise the Mercury has changed its sponsors to Barclaycard but kept the name.

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Aug
10

A bit of a catch up

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Scotty dog pendant - copyright Helen White

I decided to create animal themed jewellery, mainly because I love animals esp. cats (no surprise there) and would wear these myself. So now you can find a lot of cute earrings – horses, dinosaurs, cats, flying horses, elephants, tortoises, turtles, owls, dragonflies, hummingbirds and howling wolves which you can all find here. I will add more earrings in the near future.

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Jul
06

How to make a DIY pendant display.

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Pendant display front - copyright Helen White

In the run-up for my stall at Roath Craft Market this coming Saturday I have been experimenting with displays. I have only a small table of approx 4feet x 2 feet available to use and therefore need to make the most of my space.

Obviously I won’t be taking all my stock but have not only to choose my items wisely, but also to decide on which displays to take. I have a few pendants I’d like to sell this Saturday (fingers crossed) and wasn’t happy with just laying them out on the table. My friend Pamela gave me an idea, as she’s very good at making her own displays out of photo frames. Her earring display is very nifty indeed as she can hook her earrings on them and close the whole display for transport and when she opens it, it can stand on its own.

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