Funky Unique Handmade Resin Jewelry

Random Facts About You?

I'm an awesome mother of one young boy, and a loving wife to my amazing husband who is an electrician and photographer.

I sometimes get to help second shoot some of his photography sessions, most recently a wedding.

We're a fun and loving family that loves to travel up north to our second home in the Adirondack mountains where we discover lots of great vintage finds, and photo locations. It's a quiet area off season. We like to go on photo walks together, and hike through the foot hills, go river rafting, and just in general spend time together looking out over our beautiful lake.

We tend to our little garden that helps teach our son not everything has to be store bought, and tastes just as good, if not better!!

I love finding a little quiet spot in our home to curl up with a good book. I enjoy the sound of the pages curling under my fingers, and the faint smell of book glue that bounds the pages together. I hope to one day complete the book I'm working on. It's a secret tho, so shhhhhh. ;]

I keep a lot of my little mistakes in a desk drawer, that I've made when trying out new ideas for my projects. I like to go back and look through them to see where I went wrong, and this way I can often avoid doing that in the future. It's also a reminder that I'm only human, not a machine pumping out mass produced items. I make each of my creations with my two hands, and even though I can recreate some of my jewelry pieces, no two will ever be exactly the same. That's also the beauty of handmade.

What got you started crafting?

I've been creating things since I was able to hold a crayon in my hand.
At an early age my parents took notice and always encouraged me in the arts. I had lots of tutoring and took many after programs. During my last years of High School I was apart of the Honors Art Society, where I explored many different mediums of art. I throughly enjoyed working with clay, and learning how to process the clay, stack the kiln, work with the wheel. I hope to revisit this field of interest one day soon!
Upon graduation I attended CIA for fine arts, where I learned about the human anatomy, elements of light, photography, etc.. and to further my education I enrolled into GIBBS for Visual Communications, and Graphic Design. I've always had a love for photography, and find the beauty in objects that are often over looked.

What is your source of inspiration?

I reflect on the very items that captured my imagination and attention as a child. Things that were brightly colored, and magical. When I was a little girl my parents often took me to a toy store in the mall, F.A.O schwartz where the song, "welcome to our world," was repetitively played. I always wanted a little world of my own and that was reminiscent to those times. It was a wonderful happy place that I feel we often don't get to see in today's world. I've based my items in my shop to be a little slice of heaven, and escape from violence.
I get inspired by the very idea of being a little kid again in a fairy tale world, and I feel each of my pieces speak that. My son is a wonderful source of energy and really enjoys giving Mommy advice. He even helps invent a few of my pieces with his personal touch. He has a great respect that the area I work in is not, "child friendly," because of the chemicals I work in, but he is allowed to help me in other ares of my studio, such as picking out what colors of glitter, stickers to embed.

What have you made recently?

Each of my pieces are carefully mixed with a 1:1 ration of epoxy resin and hardener. When working with these chemicals, I have to be careful not to get any on my skin and most importantly my eyes. I work in a well ventilated area, with a sheet of wax paper to cover my desk. After carefully mixing, I hand cast each of my items and work in layers, which are usually done backwards. I love adding all kinds of little trinkets, charms, and even real candies to my designs. Some times, I'm working on more than one stage of this processes and have a million different projects going on at once, that are at different curing stages.
All of my items are loving handmade with care. Each are hand sanded, and also touched up with my dremel drill to help further refine the edges. I also hand polish them so they're super shiny and sparkly.
I'm currently working on a new line titled, "Crystal Clear." I've decided to with hold some of the glitter, sparkles, and candies as the background and just keep it simple. There's a certain elegance to it that is very captivating.
I have a few items posted on my www.flickr.com/photos/sugarraindrops_ but soon they will be readily available in my shop.

Where do you sell your crafts presently?

I'm always creating little pieces of jewelry to give to people as gifts, and decided to take it to the next level. I eventually began to sell my items locally, and happened to discover a handmade community online one afternoon and decided to give it a try. For two years I sold on their site, and decided to move forward and create my own website, www.sugarraindrops.com

Why are handmade crafts important to you?

It's a wonderful accomplished feeling I get once my beautifully handmade resin cabs are completed and ready for bails and chains. It's one thing to go to the store and pick out readily made beads, and such, but to actually hand make, sand and invent a focal bead..it's the next best thing since slice bread!
I love sharing what I create with others, and purchasing hand crafted items by those who appreciate handmade.

Find Me

Location
Connecticut, USA

Email Address
Laura Thivierge

Personal Website
http://www.sugarraindrops.com

Store Website
http://www.sugarraindrops.com

Twitter
@sugarraindrops

Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/sugar.raindrops