Ouch, has it really been over a month that I have been here last time?
Granted, I did spend a lot of time with a personal project, bead loomed portraits of my siblings and me (one still missing) which I am not allowed to show.
I did find the time for a small stash tackler, though.
This mix of little semiprecious drops had been in my stash for about ten years. I had used a few of them, but forgot about the rest until I happened to find in a drawer - yes, I know, me and my drawers - just a few days ago. That baggie had been wandering from here to there, and now it ended up on the little table next to my computer chair (that was supposed to hold only my old laptop, but also became a spot for things that wait to be moved to their final destination, books, DVDs, CDs etc.).
Ten years of travelling are enough ;-) I spontaneously decided to wrap the stones up in copper which I gave a light patina and to put them on a chain.
I love dangly earrings!
Both Hugo and his beloved ball have been around for a while, one being glass, the other being a shimmering Polaris bead, and they got tired of having to wait for their favorite napping spot.
The basket had been around for a while as well, waiting to be filled up.
So what has been keeping me, you ask? That's easy to say. I can't sew.
My plan for this had been to give Hugo a nice cushion to sit on. I scrounged some fabric off my sewing neighbor and - failed. Oh, so miserably. I can't sew. I never learned it, but you should think I would be able to make a little pillow? Maybe I gave up too early, I don't know.
In the end, however, I did one of the things I do best. I simply crocheted a little afghan in two shades of blue. Hugo seems to be okay with that, he's snuggled up in it right away as you can see. Blue seems to be his favorite color, anyway. I mean, look at his ball, it fits right in!
Once again the Northern Hemisphere is longing for spring. No matter if winter was all snow or a lot of rain, people want to see colors again, blue skies, hear bees buzz, birds sing and feel that rush of spring in their veins.
It is kind of ironic that when I'm looking out of my window, I see a rainy day, but I've said before that I love rain, so that's okay with me.
Nevertheless it is nice to breathe a different air, to see flowers return, tiny violets, spring snowflakes (which we call Märzenbecher here, March cups), bluebells and to hear birds singing when I walk to the train early in the morning.
Not that April may not have its surprises in stores for us ;-)
Today the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge is all about spring colors. I hope you'll like my picks.
What is the weather like in your area now? Are you already feeling the spring?
1 and 8 MC Stoneworks
2 and 4 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 and 5 Cat's Wire
6 and 7 RioRita
I have a tiny stash of Cantera opals which are Mexican opals still in their matrix of pinkish rhyolite, and I love them. I can't say how often I took them out and put them back to keep them safe from the outside world ;-) My two favorite ones have gone to good homes and I still miss them. Silly, I know.
It was time to take a deep breath and start letting see them - well, one of them at least - what's outside of the stash drawer - only to go into the finished jewelry drawer afterwards, that is, unless someone takes this little beauty home.
This Cantera opal is almost clear. It looks like a drop of water on a crackled ground, but if you move it, you can see some tiny specks of color, green, yellow, and red. Unfortunately I didn't manage to take a really good picture of them, it seems the stone wants to keep its secret!
As it is not very big - those opals often aren't - I kept the woven bezel rather simple, but added a bigger bail to balance it out and of course I couldn't resist a small embellishment, a very light pink pearl.
Three more opals left ...
Birds of prey, what a great topic for the new Art Elements Design Challenge! I had no idea what to make, but I've always loved those birds, so nothing could go wrong, right? Thank you, Cathy!
I was even brave enough to post on the AE Facebook page that I was well on the way this time. Yay!
That yay turned into a nooooo pretty quickly. Let me explain.
I happened to have a "paint cabochon" (like a Fordite, but not a real one and not as colorful) already set in woven wire. The drop shape seemed perfect for an owl body. I love owls although I don't get the chance to see them often even though I don't live that far from the woods. I remember once coming home late at night, however, and hearing a soft sound from a tree standing in the yard of the daycare center down the road. When we looked up we saw it was a huge owl sitting there. I don't know if he was trying to warn us off or if he had seen prey, but we decided we wouldn't disturb him for too long although I could have stood there staring at him forever. He was gorgeous!
Back to my paint cab. I had the body and now all I needed was a branch for it to sit on, large wings and a head. I put on some wings that I was not completely happy with.
People who know me also know that I tend not to take WIP pictures. That has several reasons. I'm too lazy, I don't want the flow of creativity to be disturbed, I don't want to jinx the piece, and I'm too lazy, oops, already said that.
So I'm sorry, but I can't show you the wings or the body. Or the branch that I started making, but that I gave up on because I didn't see a good way to attach the owl to it without it falling over constantly. The wings did look, hmm, okay at best, the head was pretty good. Then the bead for the beak broke right after the last wire was snipped. Call it destiny.
You don't want to know what happened next. It wasn't a full blown tantrum, but it did come pretty close. There may have been some light or less light cursing, and when the wire cutter came out .... enough to say that I actually apologized to the poor critter before I cut it up because I'm crazy that way. In such a case when I have fiddled around for too long and finally decide this has to end here and now, I cut. I don't even try to save anything. There's a time for saving and there's a time for "destroy this thing or it will come back forever to haunt your soul".
Excuse me while I'm taking a deep breath. Okay. On to the next chapter.
I had liked the idea in general and, most important, now time had started running out again. So I went through my cab stash and found some labradorite in a drop shape, carved to make it look like a leaf. Or - haHA!! - like feathers.
As if the owl in the tree from so many years ago came to me in spirit as an inspiration, things went a lot more smoothly this time. I wove my bezel, shaped some branches (similarities with tentacles are purely coincidental, cough cough) and added some Czech glass leaves. I made a little face consisting of eyes - looking a bit like a pince-nez now that I'm thinking about it - that I "filled" with two yellow bicones, and a beak. The plan had been to attach that to the bezel, but it looked wrong on the stone, so instead I made a little head around the face which made me much happier, especially because I find the weaving in the face reminds of feathers as well now.
Last but not least I oxidized the copper. As I had to take some breaks for the sake of my wrist and thumb joint, I finished this one the evening before the reveal once again, but I made it. So now I can really say it, YAY!
This pendant gives me great pleasure, I have to admit, and I have to hold back not to make another one right away while I still remember how I did it! ;-)
This is not just a challenge, but also a blog hop, so please have a look at all the other hoppers' posts as well!
Guests
Tammy - Beth - Cat (that's me!) - Anita - Kathy - Alysen - Linda - Rozantia - Jennifer - Hope - Sarajo - Melissa - Sarah
AE Team
Caroline - Cathy - Claire - Jen - Jenny - Karen - Laney - Lesley - Lindsay - Marsha - Niky - Sue
In September last year I told you about my new logo seal and some memories about my first seal and my pen pals, and a few weeks ago I mentioned going back to using a fountain pen and ink.
That didn't just have nostalgic reasons.
My handwriting has never been beautiful. In elementary school when we still had tests in penmanship I never made a 1 (our marks went from 1 to 6), no matter how hard I tried. Over the years my handwriting kept changing. I tried this and that, had my letters lean to the left and to the right, I changed single letters and changed back (to this day my capital E looks like that of my first boss at work because I liked how it looked, and my capital M comes from American handwriting). There was even a short time back when when I drew little circles over my "i"s, never little hearts, though.
Of course we also loved to try colored inks. I remember I had several inks in very small glasses at one time, but I don't remember if I ever used them or if I just liked to look at them. We definitely tried cartridges other than blue or black, however, purple, turquoise, light blue, green. Red was out of bounds because the teachers used that for corrections ... although there was one teacher who used green, but he was different in more than one ways, wearing bib overalls to school for example.
I didn't keep a diary for very long, but when I did, I also wrote in it in ink.
When my brother gave me a fountain pen for a gift, I had a hard time choosing colors for the ink. Finally I went with the old favorites, purple and black, but am only using the purple at the moment which you can also tell by my desk and sometimes my fingers. Isn't it so pretty?
Well, my handwriting hasn't improved with time for which I mostly blame the computer. I never thought it could be such a strain on my hand to write a letter when, as mentioned before, I used to write ten page letters each day. Yes, that was a long time ago, but suddenly it was just a few lines that made my hand cramp up.
I decided I didn't want that. I didn't want to lose cursive writing which is hardly taught nowadays, I didn't want to lose the ability to write something without a computer, I didn't want to write it in a way not even I could read myself! So I started by doing all of my lists with pen and ink.
What I first learned from it was, to say it nicely, that calligraphy is still not for me. I admire it, I think it's wonderful to look at, but it's definitely not a talent I have, not even if I practice very much.
Instead I got out my old stationery. Not all of the paper I have is as old as this one. I have been protecting this for decades, literally. It's from the 70s and I still remember when I bought it. The shop is long gone. In its place came several more shops and now it's just a storage room with a display window.
Back in the 70s you could get silver rings there, knick knacks, the cotton scarves we loved so much (except for the light blue one with the lurex that never stopped dyeing my neck even after being washed a zillion times), and there was a wooden shelf with WWF items, notebooks, stationery, folders etc. from recycled paper. I couldn't resist the tiger. I will definitely not use this paper up completely, but keep at least a sheet for myself.
I still do have some cat stationery from the 90s, so I doubt I'm going to run out of paper that quickly.
Then the times of pen pals were over. We grew up, starting growing apart and didn't feel the need to share every bit of information (which is kind of sad/funny if you look at social media today, and I do feel the irony in me writing this post).
I know I won't bring those times back, I'm not intending to. All I want is to get a tiny sliver of it back for myself. With stained fingers and all *grin*
So watch out, who knows who will get a letter from me next? ;-)
