Natalie Dwyer Creative Studio

13/12/2024

Let me know if you’ve been out to Hungry Crow to sample their amazing hot chocolate and took a look at my window display ☺️

09/12/2024

Delighted to see my work featured with Yay Cork 🥰 I love their charming and positive Cork- related news stories.

If you’re in West Cork, do pop in to Hungry Crow for a look at my window display and treat yourself to a delicious hot chocolate with amazing homemade marshmallows, and choose one of Niamh’s decadent chocolate treats to enjoy with it 😉

This is absolutely adorable (AND their hot chocolate is 🤌😍) 👇👇

26/11/2024

I’m delighted to reveal my handcrafted Victorian miniature set which is now on display in the window of in The Pike, Clonakilty. It’s free to view during the chocolate shop’s opening hours, but I would highly recommend popping inside for a delicious hot chocolate with handcrafted marshmallows and some of Niamh’s decadent chocolates or enrobed dates while you’re there 🤤

My vision was to create a beautiful window display for all to enjoy during the festive season, capturing the nostalgic charm of a Victorian Christmas.

The model was created as a backdrop to illustrate the Victorian fairytale “Through the Fire” by Mary de Morgan, which was one of my favourites as a child. It is a story of love and miracles set in Victorian London, and occurs on the nights of Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve when many magical things are possible ✨

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19/11/2024

🥶 Brr it’s getting very chilly here in West Cork! Definitely time to light the fire if you have one. I don’t have a fireplace in my sitting room, but there’s a gorgeous one in this dollshouse-size model set I am rebuilding! And it is oh so cosy 🥰 I can’t wait to put the pieces back together and get the lights working 🔥

Those stunning tiles were designed by Arts & Crafts era ceramic artist William de Morgan. I would love to see them on a real fireplace!

31/10/2024

🧟 Since it’s Spooky Season, I thought I’d share some posters I created to advertise three classic horror movies for a pretend film festival while I was studying modelmaking in college!

Each poster features a photograph of a real model which I built, sculpted or cast. I think The Shining is my favourite, as I really enjoyed creating the typography for the title and fitting it into the centre of the actual maze design from the film.

23/10/2024

I get immense satisfaction from mending things, especially torn clothes. There’s something lovely about working with different types of fabrics and embellishments to restore an item of clothing back to wardrobe circulation. I enjoy the challenge of mending a piece to look like it was never ripped in the first place, and I also love the honesty that a visible mend presents in a slow, quiet rebellion against fast fashion. Some mends can only be seen if you really look for them. Our garments tell stories about the wearers. It was a joy to repair these clothes for a friend. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity and the time to learn the skills needed for this work, and to have been able to help a friend to extend the life of these lovely clothes.

18/10/2024

I really enjoyed this month’s Artist Shed meet-up at . We introduced ourselves and it was inspiring to hear what media other artists work in, what influences them, and where they sell their art, with some interesting discussions arising.

An exciting part of the meet-up for me was giving a quick demo in Gelli plate monoprinting 😀 I completed the first two circular prints, using image transfer and masking, with patterns and textures created with stencil shapes and cookie cutters.

I want to give a big shoutout to my amazingly creative friend who showed me the basics of Gelli plate printmaking. Back in college when I was studying graphic design (under the broaded heading of Design - Visual Communication) I fell in love with printmaking. In those four years, I spent as much time as I could down in the printmaking studio in the fine art building. I learned different types of screenprinting, etching, aquatint, woodcut, collagraph and much more. I adored the textures that I could manipulate during the printmaking process, and the layering of colours and graphics. It was very hands-on and I enjoyed the mixed pace of working quickly for some techniques and working slowly for others, letting the prints dry between layers.

After college, I realised that I did not have access to the sort of printmaking equipment I had used at college. There was no space for large, messy projects where I was living and working. Despite having notes about easier, smaller scale work like cutting stamps from erasers, making lino prints, drawing onto glass to create monoprints, I left printmaking to one side and concentrated on other types of art & craft work.

Thanks to social media, I have access to many tutorials about types of printmaking I can do at home with very little “equipment”. The Gelli plate is an incredible tool which gives me so much satisfaction in the creative printmaking process. Easy, accessible, fun! I’m looking forward to experimenting with it more and more.

09/10/2024

✨ New earrings! Handpainted onto wood using encaustic (melted!) wax, each pair is one of a kind. I love the textured sheen that the metallic silver pigment brings to the surface 🩶

I have used silver plated earring wires on these, and I would love to know which length you prefer?

09/10/2024

Can you believe it?! I have had these gorgeous pieces of sequined fabrics for 20 years 🫣😳😱 When I first got my hands on them in a charity shop, I’m sure I had lots of different projects in mind. They held so much potential. But I kept them and kept them and didn’t get around to using them. So I was delighted when I had a go at making pumpkins with them and they turned out great 😊

🎃 Now to sculpt some stems for them!

20/09/2024

This week I played with encaustic wax on surfaces I had never tried before, and I was pleasantly surprised with the results- deep, moody, matte layers of saturation on the grey mixed media 250gsm card, magical textures on 200gsm watercolour paper, beautiful softness on woven fabric through transfer print, other-worldly grainy depth on thin wooden cutouts, and the most beautiful winding paths and creases on tissue paper and canvas.

I’m so excited to work these pieces up further, maybe using collage and pens or pencils 😀

19/09/2024

Yesterday was wonderful. It began with the best coffee at with friends, followed by an inspiring Artist Members Shed meetup, sewing with a brilliant bunch of ladies at , the most amazing salad at for my lunch while I did some social media client work, and I completed three new encaustic wax mini landscape paintings ☺️ I had some fun experimenting with transferring a wax painting onto fabric and using tissue paper to create an interesting texture.

12/09/2024

🧶 Happy International Crochet Day to my crochet-loving friends! It’s only in the last couple of years that I have gotten the hang of crochet, thanks to the brilliant Textiles course in and a Ladybird book from the 1970s 😅

As a child, I learned how to knit, sew and embroider, but there’s something lovely about crochet and how fast a piece can come together. There is much I want to learn, but I am really enjoying doing a bit of crochet while watching tv these days.

I’ve tagged some of my skilled crochet friends in the hope that they will share some of their crochet work 😀

art fineart

09/09/2024

I love this time of year in the garden, in nature, in the countryside, everywhere!

23/08/2024

I’ve hung one of my encaustic wax paintings on the wall in the sitting room so I can enjoy it before I sell it ☺️ Or should I keep this one forever? 🤔 I love it with the colour scheme in here.

28/07/2024

Recently, I had two low level migraines within one week 😣 Crafting helps as a distraction from the migraine; something that’s keeps me busy using my hands without looking at a screen. I sorted through my beads, charms and collected treasures, and felt inspired to make some jewellery.

I think my favourites are the pink wings earrings- the wings had broken off one of the many unicorn toys in the house and I could not reattach them successfully. So I used my mini drill to make holes for jump rings and smoothed off the tops where they used to be attached to the toy.

These are all handmade by me from sustainable sources. Some of the earrings are upcycled/repurposed from broken jewellery. The cute little tassels on the pink & yellow earrings were rescued from birthday cards my kids received, before the cards went in the recycling bin!

I also found some scrappy scrunchies I made some time ago, from a gorgeous scrap piece of fabric with a chiffon and satin mix. I love the colours and the different textures. It was just big enough to make three scrunchies.

All of these are for sale, so DM me if you would like to purchase any of them ☺️ (Mini Elmo and Mini Spider-Man earrings are already sold)