Actually I would have liked to post this on Friday because it's a real stash tackler, but I just didn't make it in time although I had started working on it weeks if not months ago.
Originally this was not supposed to be an entry for the Art Elements challenge. The challenge made me pick this neglected WIP up again, though.
Let's start at the beginning. I had ordered cabs, among them a carved labradorite cab. My order arrived, I had a look and noticed that the lab had a crack and the next thing was me having two pieces in my hands. Don't you just hate when things like that happen?
I didn't throw it away because I thought I could try something artsy with it. I know, I know, but I'm a Swabian, so I am bound by stereotype to not throwing things away until I'm really, really, 100% sure I can't use it in some way. In ten years maybe. Also, when I held the pieces together I was reminded of a fish of the kind we used to draw as children, with that one curved line separating the face from the body.
Every time I was at the cab drawer, I saw the little "fish", and finally I decided to give it a try with bead embroidery.
I glued the cab, beaded the bezel and gave it a bead eye. Then I put it in my box with the bugle beads that were leftover from the beaded sneakers and the Twin Beads from when I had ripped up a bead scarf the other day. I simply didn't have an idea for hiding the crack yet.
The box has a permanent spot on my bed, by the way, with my macrame board on top because a certain little cat loves to sit on it. Anything for my mistress!
When I saw that this month's topic for the AE challenge was blue, I had almost finished something else and I had found a blue/green bead soup baggie in my stash drawers. It had been a gift and you could tell that someone had made this soup on purpose as the colors were really pretty together. My motivation was back!
I also had an idea for the crack now, a simple beaded strip from size 15 seed beads that was stiff enough to hold the curve and hid the crack perfectly.
Then I embroidered an ocean for my little fish using the bead soup and some of my leftover bugles and last but not least I gave him fins - no idea why, but he looks like a Rudy to me.
Finally, to make his ocean a little more interesting I sewed on some button and potato pearls.
But now what? A brooch, a bracelet focal, a pendant?
I found it was too big for a brooch and I didn't have any pins that would have been big enough, anyway. So I finished off the back as I didn't have to prepare the Ultrasuede for a pin.
It looked kind of nice held against my wrist, but not nice enough to think of a solution for how to make this into a bracelet now.
It needed some kind of beaded rope, but the blue beads were much too irregular for a rope. There were the Twin Beads in my box, though, and I had a lot of the clear mix (clear, silver lined, AB) that I could use for a Herringbone chain with the "ocean" seed beads at the sides.
Here's the result. I have to confess that part of me thought about adding a fringe, but that would have been over the top. What do you think?
I should add that this piece is not going into my shop of course, after all there's a broken stone in this one. It will have to stay mine :-)
This is not a blog carnival anymore, but I will add links to other challenge blog posts later as they come in. So please check back at the end of the month!
Isn't it sweet how things sometimes come together even if you have not expected it at all?
This time it was the color blue that pulled it all together.
First of all I found this dyed blue agate slice in my stash. The other day I had made a brooch with a purple agate slice in a wire knit setting. The irregular shape of the agates is easier to set in wire knitting, so that's what I decided on again here.
From there my muse took things into her own hands. I remembered the blue pearls in my drawer and as I like to do, I strung my wire with a whole bunch of them. As you can tell, though, I didn't need that many after all. My plan had been to crochet an extra edge onto the bezel and to fill it with pearls, but the shape of the slice seemed to call for a freeform edge.
That's when I began to see the ocean theme. I don't know what you see in this pendant, but to me it became part of a coral reef and I knew I wanted to have something else on there. I wracked my brain to remember if I might have hidden a fish or maybe a crab charm somewhere, and I was almost ready to go and look for charms to order - which wouldn't have gone together that well with the goal of using my stash - when I remembered my fishes by Melissa Vess.
Among all of her beautiful beads of which I have not enough by far, Melissa's fishes have always been my favorites. I always felt her love of the ocean and diving made them even more special.
Unfortunately Melissa isn't a lampworker anymore which makes me think even more about how I use her beads in my work.
And there it was, a blue fish which matched the blue of the agate perfectly as if it was made to swim through this underwater world. Bingo!
This one of a kind pendant is available in my DaWanda shop now.
You have already seen a bunch of kitties and a bunny, but today please welcome Mr. Greenfish.
Mr. Greenfish was not easily born. Actually he had a predecessor that I had to flush down the toilet. Figuratively speaking. Experienced fisherman that the tall guy is he didn't give him any chances to survive. His fins were placed wrong, he had a very short head and - how I noticed myself then - no mouth. Don't worry, he didn't have to suffer.
Mr. Greenfish is looking much healthier, I hope you'll think so, too. It did take some labor, though.
You want to know why I stepped into the water now? I am trying to set up a little zoo. To offer at our little local zoo, with part of the earnings going to our club.
You can check out the website, it's listed on the side, but it's in German. Of course I can translate it if you are interested. It's not very up-to-date, we are waiting for the update at the moment, hopefully not too long anymore.
I have no ideas what else I may come up with. I am just trying things, they either survive like Mr. Greenfish or they ... *sniff* too sad, but you know what I mean.
Today it's so humid and damp here, I'll go outside now to get a little better air and take something to work on with me. Stay tuned!
