A Final Rainfall

It’s been a long time since I last wrote here.

This space began as a journal of my journey—into a new life, a new country, a new chapter of creativity and love. It holds joy and discovery. It also holds pain, loss, and things I couldn’t have seen coming.

I’ve grown so much since I last typed into this space. And while I’ll always honor what this blog captured—my art, my beginnings, my voice—it no longer reflects who I am now.

I’m leaving this blog here as an archive of what was. But if you’ve found your way here by accident or memory, and you’re wondering where I’ve gone—

I’m still creating, still mending, still becoming. You can find me, in time, under a new name:
RayneHollow.
It’s where I will be gathering the threads of who I am now.

Thank you, to whoever reads this.
For being part of the journey.
For honoring the silence that followed.
And for letting me move forward with love.

– CymberRain (Diane)
(now becoming someone else entirely)

Moved Again!

 Just a quick update to let everyone know that yes, I have moved again. How many times in a year? I have lost count but this one I think will stick. I am back in Seattle and I plan on staying. I opened a shop last month and I am slowly settling in. Customers are starting to trickle in and I am working on my website again. I have lost so many things during my moves, things have been left here and there in three different countries and I have only just started sorting what stock I have left of my pretties to put in the online shop. I am also setting up a small area in my reweaving shop to put pieces of my work. I am excited on what the future has in store and I am finally starting to feel a bit of stability again! 

Stay tuned for updates, I have my workspace set up now and hope to start making new pretties soon.

Wishing you a joyous season,

Stability

 I know this blog seems dead and gone but it isn't. I have been traveling...moving...for a year now. Actually more than a year. I started packing my house back in Jan 2022. Since then I have been moving from place to place, often with only two suitcases. Most of my things are scattered in three different countries. Some I will probably never see again.

Just this last month I moved into an apartment I hope to be in for the next year. I spent the last few weeks getting my area set up to create, and I started making things again this last week. I hope to have my shop up and running soon, within the next few weeks if possible.

I have been playing a lot with my acrylic drops as you can see from this photo. I love these little swirls of color and I have trays of them all around me to pick and choose from as I create. I invested in some nice jewelry trays back in France and made sure they were one of the things I packed to bring with me. I am not sure if I will be able to find replacements when they run out so these may be a limited item. I love how good my drops look in these.

I have also been experimenting with my resin wings, using different methods to make a variety of styles. Each time I make a new set of wings I feel I get closer to perfecting the process. I now feel very confident I can make good, solid pieces that are worthy to put into my shop. When I first made my wings for my flight-of-dreams collection I made so many duds I had a whole box full of them. Now I rarely make a mistake. 

I hope to write a post on the making of my wings soon. And I am not only making wings, I am also going to add other whimsical items.

Stay tuned!

Coming up for Air

       I have been lost in computer land lately. I don't see myself leaving anytime soon either. I do think I need to change a few things though. Let me explain. 

      About six months ago I embarked on a new adventure. Something I don't have any experience in at all. I started making graphics for a video game. I had a little experience with photoshop and by that I mean very little! I had no experience with blender which is another software that is even more complicated than photoshop if that is possible. So for the last six months I have been working hard trying to learn how to use these two software to accomplish what I need to do.

     It has been mind-bendingly hard. I am fairly good with technical things but blender makes me feel like what I thought was good is nothing. It deals with all things 3d. Modeling, animation, texturing, particles and so forth are what I play with most days now.  It has called into question my abilities as an artist. I am persisting though because I love it! I really do. Every time I make something it gets more exciting. The things I made 6 months ago look terrible to me now and I am sure the things I make now will look terrible in 6 months but I am continuing to improve. I don't plan on stopping with this project anytime soon. 

      BUT, and this is a big but, I miss my art. I know what I am doing is art but it isn't the same. The screen is great but I want to touch my art. I want to get my hands dirty and play with colors, splash paint, squish clay, bend wire. I'm not sure what, but I think I need to do some hands on art.

      I am thinking of giving myself a day each week where I do a project. Not anything to sell probably, maybe for the house or for me or gifts. I do think it is needed though. 

      I also want to write a few things about what has been going on with the house. We have continued to work on it. For quite awhile we were planning on selling so things halted but then we decided to stay. Now our plans are up in the air but the work goes on. I can definitely say though that this house has greatly improved and I am really starting to love it. 

      So all this to say I think I will start writing here again. I didn't see much use in writing about what I am doing now, although if there is anyone out there interested in my graphics work let me know and I can throw a post in now and then covering what I am doing there. So here I go again. I am quite excited *grin*

    Can't wait to talk with you all again. Hope you are having a great week!

And We're Back!

photo for attention. *grin*

Excuse all the hiccups while I get this blog back up and running again. I will sit down soon and try to catch ya'll up. 

How Life Gets in the Way

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Autumn Tree

Hello all, I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer despite the high temperatures in so many places. I have been fortunate with the house here on the mountain. Since it is built into the mountain the downstairs maintains a nice cool temperature even on the hottest of days. It’s like built-in air conditioning without the cost! Though I think we pay for it in the winter.

Kumihimo Beaded Bracelet

I am steadily working on my new collection but I must admit it has been hard. Though I had high aspirations of working on design ideas when I was on my trip to the US, that was not the case. But I don’t regret this. I enjoyed every minute of my trip and all the people that I was able to visit. Then when I arrived home I was sure I would be right back at it but jet lag reared its ugly head and I wasn’t functioning for a good two weeks if not more. When I finally had a clear head I hit on another problem. My muse had left the building. I could not come up with one good idea so I spent the last month frittering my time away on a bunch of disconnected pieces.

Finally, I feel like I have a theme going and ideas are starting to arrive. Of course, as soon as this happens I have to leave again. A week away in Bretagne to go to our dear friends’ wedding. It’s true that I am looking forward to seeing them and attending the wedding but once again I am off course. I am not sure how to solve this problem. Each time I leave, when I return it seems to take forever to find my place again. I told myself that I would release four collections this year. Right now I think I will be lucky to get three done. I know there is no way to do four. Who knows, there might only be two.

A row of mica resin leaves.

All of this to say…I am sorry for any delay. I am here. I am working daily to make new pieces. This is a whole new way of working for me so I guess it will take time for me to find my groove. Does anyone else have this problem when they go away?

New Experiments

I have been experimenting quite a bit the last few days. The final vestiges of my jetlag seem to be falling by the wayside and I feel my mind opening up and beginning to be creative again. I brought home a treasure trove of fun stuff to play with. New paints, micas, tools and mediums. Much fuel for a creative fire!

I have been tossing a few ideas around for my new collection. I had planned on fleshing it out more when I was on my trip but vacations really are another world aren’t they? I completely just let it all go and so I came home with not many more ideas than I left with. Loss of sleep further deterred me but finally, I am making some headway.

I learned a new technique this vacation from a dear friend. She makes awesome pieces and let me play with her tools. This dotting technique is just lovely in how it works up. It is a bit tricker than I expected and I am having to really work to get it right. I am pretty happy with the last few things I did though. I know I have to get more even and exact with those tiny little pinprick dots but I am working on it,

I also had a try at mixing my own paint! I bought some lovely pearlescent mica pigments and mixed this wonderful pearl white and gold paint myself. Although I am still not happy with my tiny dots I am getting the fluidity down and the dots are smoother. I have to wait for a few things before I can finish this experiment but I am happy with what I have made up so far.

What do you think of this method? Do you like it?

I have been experimenting quite a bit the last few days. The final vestiges of my jetlag seem to be falling by the wayside and I feel my mind opening up and beginning to be creative again. I brought home a treasure trove of fun stuff to play with. New paints, micas, tools and mediums. Much fuel for a creative fire!

I have been tossing a few ideas around for my new collection. I had planned on fleshing it out more when I was on my trip but vacations really are another world aren't they? I completely just let it all go and so I came home with not many more ideas than I left with. Loss of sleep further deterred me but finally, I am making some headway.

I learned a new technique this vacation from a dear friend. She makes awesome pieces and let me play with her tools. This dotting technique is just lovely in how it works up. It is a bit tricker than I expected and I am having to really work to get it right. I am pretty happy with the last few things I did though. I know I have to get more even and exact with those tiny little pinprick dots but I am working on it,

I also had a try at mixing my own paint! I bought some lovely pearlescent mica pigments and mixed this wonderful pearl white and gold paint myself. Although I am still not happy with my tiny dots I am getting the fluidity down and the dots are smoother. I have to wait for a few things before I can finish this experiment but I am happy with what I have made up so far.

What do you think of this method? Do you like it?

Finally

Another failureLast time I wrote here everything was still in upheaval. I was deep in the throes of unpacking and tying to settle into a life of living in two places. It took quite awhile to sort everything out and get to a point where I could create again. But time smooths most things and I fell into a rhythm. And finally, yes finally, I managed to complete my collection. The break-thru moment was when I was able to create the resin pieces I wanted. There are a lot of methods out there and I discarded them all. None satisfied me on their durability or looks. Now I am able to make pieces that I feel comfortable selling. Once this was accomplished I started to play 😉 I am constantly amazed at just what you can do with this amazing stuff! It’s like the strongest glue you can find. It is an amazing glass substitute. You can add things, build on it, just so much you can do!

sparkly, pink and bubbles. What's not to like?

So now my latest collection is finished and I publish it in two days. I am so excited to finally be here. I have learned so much along the way and gained much valuable experience. Making a collection is nothing like making one piece of jewelry. It involves a lot of planning and failure but now I feel confident to go forward with that knowledge and make another collection! And that is exactly what I am doing. I am already hard at work in my head, planning and designing a new collection. So I hope you enjoy my latest one “Flight of Dreams” and be sure to check back in the future for my newest creations. I will try to do better about posting my experiments along the way. I get so lost in the process that I often forget to take photos.os.

It's been a long road

The last time I wrote here was over seven months ago! At the time I was quite excitedly looking forward to moving into the city. Ready to start a new life among people. French classes were lined up, new adventures planned. I was so excited. Well. Life does not always turn out the way you expect it to. This time was no different. Over the course of the last 7 months, everything we had planned has changed EXCEPT that we are going to sell our house.

Within a month of moving into the apartment, we had turned in our notice to move back out. It was just not working out. There were problems with the apartment that could not be fixed and so instead of settling into a happy life right in the center of beautiful and exciting Colmar, I started packing things back into boxes.

We also had planned a long vacation in Georgia with our dear friends to celebrate their wedding and the christening of their son. Then shortly after our return from that trip, I had to go to the hospital unexpectedly with yet another problem that left me in the hospital during our move (poor Frenchie had to do that one on his own) So he moved everything back to our house and now…onward with the search for another apartment. I am dwelling in limbo.

I refuse to let this keep me down though. I am determined to finish my collection that has been lying dormant in my mind this entire time. Instead of staying in the house until the apartment is found, I am traveling each week with my husband to Switzerland. We have set up a temporary studio there where I am beginning to do my work again. It is still a bit chaotic and I am still finding my balance but it is coming. Slowly but surely it is coming!

One thing I have accomplished during this time is my website. I moved from my old shop platform to my very own site that I built on my own. I am not very tech-savvy so it was quite the endeavor but I ended up enjoying the process quite a bit. If you find anything too clunky there please forgive me and feel free to point it out to me.

I hope to be up and running in the studio this week and soon will be cranking out more experiments of course. I refuse to make anything to sell until I have a piece that I feel confident will make my clients as happy as it makes me.

This wing experiment has proved quite the challenge. Where it seems quite simple, resin is anything but that. It can be quite fickle and different types achieve different results. Add on top of that the fact that I am using it on my own artwork and it can be a bit tricky. I have had to play with different sealants and methods to try and create a good resin piece that will hold up to wear. I am learning a lot about this and have developed several processes that work for different items. I will continue to keep you updated as I go.

I am so excited about my new collection though. It takes everything I have learned so far and wraps it into one package. I really hope that you will find it as enchanting as I do. I hope you have a great week!

The End is in Sight

    So today marks one week until our move. Soon I will be back in a city. A new one for me and one that I love a lot. I will be living right in the middle of the beautiful and quaint city of Colmar. I will have a park for my front yard and another park for my back yard! I am hoping that the green will help me adjust to leaving here, where everything is green and the view from my window is breathtaking. 

I probably have a million photos of this view and it never grows old. It will be hard to leave it behind. This move will be good for me though and I try to remind myself of that when I grow sad about leaving.    

    Despite the move I have still been busy creating. This last week I worked hard creating over a dozen resin pendants with coral suspended inside as mementos for a friend from his father’s collection he had gathered in younger years.

 This was good practice for me. I have been slowly learning how to use resin properly and after this last bit of work I am feeling very confident with my abilities. This is a good thing because my new line of jewelry will involve a lot of resin. If you follow me in my facebook group you have been seeing a few peeks of what’s going on behind the scenes in the creation of my new line. I will be sharing more peeks there and soon hope to start an email newsletter sharing more. If you are interested in knowing what is coming up and when be sure to subscribe and join the group. I have plans for giveaways in the future and special discounts and if you want to be informed when the line will be released. Click here to join CymberRains Creations.

      This will probably be my last post until after the move. SO until then. See you on the flip side! 

Of Moving and Still Being Creative

   I have been quiet here since I finished my website, mainly because my life has been filled with things having nothing to do with my art. My husband and I have made a very big decision. We are selling our house and moving to the nearest big town here, Colmar. It is a much needed change but not done without some regret. I love this house up on the side of the mountain. I love the view, the quiet, being so close to nature. But I also crave the city, being close to what I need. I do not drive. This has been a true hardship for me. Since we are SO far out into the mountains we are the last stop on the bus line. It only comes to the town four times a day and makes running into town for a quick errand impossible. There is no post office of grocery store here. I am truly in the sticks! I am also alone most of the time since Frenchie works in Switzerland and stays there during the week. A change was needed.

   So we are finishing up our big remodeling projects. The bathroom is almost finished and the same with our new bedroom.  We will be moving in two weeks. There is still much to do so it is taking away from my creative time but I have not stopped at all! I live to create and so I find little times to sit and make. It keeps me going.

    I have changed my thinking on how I create and have decided that from now on I will create groups of things that run along a certain theme and release them all at once when they are finished. This is very exciting for me. It gives me a lot of room to brainstorm and come up with a great idea with lots of fun making more than just one piece. It is a great challenge also to make a group of pieces that are cohesive.  It is with this in mind that I have started working on my first themed set. My dear sweet daughter created a face group for me so I could discuss my upcoming lines. She is a great support for me and I think my biggest fan, haha! If you are truly interested in the work I am doing I suggest you join my group. I will be featuring giveaways and contests in the future once i get settled in my new home and things start rolling smoothly again. You can find my group here:  CymberRain’s Creations.

   I have been quiet here since I finished my website, mainly because my life has been filled with things having nothing to do with my art. My husband and I have made a very big decision. We are selling our house and moving to the nearest big town here, Colmar. It is a much needed change but not done without some regret. I love this house up on the side of the mountain. I love the view, the quiet, being so close to nature. But I also crave the city, being close to what I need. I do not drive. This has been a true hardship for me. Since we are SO far out into the mountains we are the last stop on the bus line. It only comes to the town four times a day and makes running into town for a quick errand impossible. There is no post office of grocery store here. I am truly in the sticks! I am also alone most of the time since Frenchie works in Switzerland and stays there during the week. A change was needed.

   So we are finishing up our big remodeling projects. The bathroom is almost finished and the same with our new bedroom.  We will be moving in two weeks. There is still much to do so it is taking away from my creative time but I have not stopped at all! I live to create and so I find little times to sit and make. It keeps me going.

    I have changed my thinking on how I create and have decided that from now on I will create groups of things that run along a certain theme and release them all at once when they are finished. This is very exciting for me. It gives me a lot of room to brainstorm and come up with a great idea with lots of fun making more than just one piece. It is a great challenge also to make a group of pieces that are cohesive.  It is with this in mind that I have started working on my first themed set. My dear sweet daughter created a face group for me so I could discuss my upcoming lines. She is a great support for me and I think my biggest fan, haha! If you are truly interested in the work I am doing I suggest you join my group. I will be featuring giveaways and contests in the future once i get settled in my new home and things start rolling smoothly again. You can find my group here:  CymberRain's Creations.

Lab Rat - Scientist Role Reversal Shrink Plastic Earrings

    I told you in my last post that my friend had made a request for some new shrink film pieces and I wanted ot show you what I came up with. She is a scientist and she had this idea for a fellow lab mate as a gift. She liked the role reversal with the alien and cow that she asked me to come up with something similar for a rat and scientist. This is what I drew.

    I told you in my last post that my friend had made a request for some new shrink film pieces and I wanted ot show you what I came up with. She is a scientist and she had this idea for a fellow lab mate as a gift. She liked the role reversal with the alien and cow that she asked me to come up with something similar for a rat and scientist. This is what I drew.

 I then inked them out on the shrink film and colored them in:

 And here is the finished pieces, also some cows and aliens as I had an order for a pair of them as earrings.

 Unfortunatly I forgot to get a picture of the pieces as finished earrings. It was a rush order and I had to mail them quickly. I had a lot of fun making these. It is way outside of my normal work and it is good to do something a little different occasionally.

Hope you are having a great week!

 I then inked them out on the shrink film and colored them in:

 And here is the finished pieces, also some cows and aliens as I had an order for a pair of them as earrings.

 Unfortunatly I forgot to get a picture of the pieces as finished earrings. It was a rush order and I had to mail them quickly. I had a lot of fun making these. It is way outside of my normal work and it is good to do something a little different occasionally.

Hope you are having a great week!

[ JEWELRY ]

ALIEN – COW ROLE REVERSAL SHRINK PLASTIC JEWELRY

November 29, 2017

 I have this friend, she is a little zany. She has a million ideas and they are all a little different and fun. She has long hair and always wears it up in a bun. She told me one day she would love some fun and silly hair sticks to wear in her hair, like an alien beaming up a cow. I thought it was a fun idea and worked on and off for well over a year with different ideas to make these hair sticks. I tried beads and fimo and wire. Nothing really seemed to catch it and I put it aside for awhile. Then I started working with the shrink plastic and one day *bing* the idea came into my head to make the alien and cow in shrink plastic. Why not?

So I sat down to draw it but realized that the regular alien and cow scenario just wasn’t doing it for me. I needed a twist and that is how the cow abducting the alien came to life!

I inked the pictures onto shrink plastic and came up with this. I then refined it a little, adding some shadows and such. I really love how these came out, they are so fun!

After I was finally satisfied with the piece, I made them into a nice set of hair sticks and gave them to my friend.

She loved them so much she came to me the next week and begged me to make her friend some earrings. I will show you what I made next time 🙂 

A Serious and All Encompassing Bug

So I caught a bug in October. It wasn’t your usual cold and flu thing, no fever and no cough. No, this was something completely different. I caught the knitting bug!

Not only did I catch it, I caught a very bad case of it. I have wanted to knit since I was a teenager. I have tried many times. Each time ending in disaster. I even got as far as making a scarf my last attempt but it was hard and long and I fought it the entire way. I was left with a wonky, sloppy mess that I still wore till it was wearing out but I was not happy with it.

 I joined a facebook group this last month and I am putting this bug squarely on their shoulders. It is a fiber group and suddenly there on my feed, day after day, were all these wonderful photos of the most beautiful work and a lot of it was knitted.   I started to get that itch again, that deep desire to surround myself with skeins of beautiful wool and knit something beautiful. I decided to try one last time. If it didn’t work this time well then, that was that. Only that wasn’t that. 

   I’m not sure what changed. I really don’t understand what happened but this time I picked up the needles and that big ball of squishy yarn and it came to life under my fingers. Suddenly I was knitting away row after row of beautiful stitches with hardly a wonky one among them. I did it!!!

  I started with a simple scarf, I didn’t know what I was doing but I was happy. About 18 inches into it I noticed it was curling and learned from the experts that I couldnt just knit and purl away like that, it would always curl. So I took my first piece apart and made this instead:

Once I finished my first scarf I went on to more colorful projects.  This is my second scarf and I adore it! It is warm and bright and fun. It has quickly become a favorite that I reach for time and time again.

    Now I was completely hooked. I was spending hours drooling over different patterns and yarns. THen I saw entralac. Oh My Goodness! What magic is this? I had to learn. So I set out to learn this elusive stitch and low and behold, I could do that too! 

     With the skills to do that beautiful stitch I made myself a pillow top. 

I just think it is scrumptious! I love it so much. I am really and truly hooked now. 

Next on my agenda was learning to make a hat, so I found a nice slouchy hat pattern and this happened:

 So you can see, I really am truly hooked on this. No telling what I will make next *grin*