Mermaid Brooches

The Poems Underwater project, already responsible for two mermaid cakes, tempted me into making some new brooches for its zine and craft fair in Deptford today. They were just pure fun to work on -- I'm planning to do some more, with slightly less classic looking mermaids/more narrative schemes. Originally, these were meant to be mermaids raiding shipwrecks, hence the nets made from thread and matchstick timber, but the skulls I bought to litter the sand with turned out to be too big, and I was on a deadline...next time.

They are the size of conventional badges, and about half an inch thick in clear resin, with embedded drawings, paint, beads, and couscous impersonating sand. Getting the shine/clarity in photos is none too easy, especially on dark evenings, but they're pretty sparkly.

Then I realised, as I went through the battered biscuit tin that houses years worth of resin experiments, that I've actually got quite a big sea creature inventory. This is a sea monster from a 13th century illumination...

Here's a mermaid cribbed from a medieval bestiary, in ring form.

This is a flying fish -- based on an 18th century naturalist's engraving, so apparently, unlike everything else here, it's real, though frankly I have my doubts.

These things can be got through my Etsy shop -- just message me if they're not listed -- or hopefully at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern Christmas Fayre in December.