Winter is over and spring has sprung with lots of inspiration

Hello everyone… Welcome spring and new adventures.

I have been off the grid for a bit. Well, the blogging grid that is. It's been a busy winter. And what a winter it was. I'm going to do a quick catch me up.. so be prepared 6 months in a flash…..

******One quick disclaimer.. At this time I have no affiliation with any products or shared tutorials. Other than maybe belonging to a shared interest group. I simply share this information to pass on knowledge.

Give me a hammer, a flame and a piece of metal and I'm in heaven.

My latest project was been this air chased bracelet. The inspiration came from this tutorial video posted in a metals group I belong to. Kharisma is a wealth of inspiration and energy. It's fun to watch her videos and get all caught up in her enthusiasm . This was so much fun that I have made a few more.

My Mule Team earrings. I am addicted to this process. Sarah Boo's Musing shared her process here. As you can see I did not get the red but love the purple and coral tones I did achieve. I have my notebook out and taking notes. Will be changing up the water (used tap here) to bottled and distilled. I used my MAP torch. Going to try it with butane and propane. Sounds like a whole blog post dedicated to the process.

In my Charming world.. I participated in a bird, a caged bead, game piece, watch parts and a gift card swaps. At one point this was sitting on my bench.

Up close and personal… charms, charms, charms…. Fabulous swaps and so much fun.

Lucky Squirrel white shrink plastic,  sharpie pen and rubbing alcohol. I created a faux bone effect with my chick in a dress by Invoke Arts. I wish I could remember what die the bird cut out is. Its a set of two and a fairly new die.. like released the last 6 months.

Bird pendant using Spellbinder/SLK Media Mixage  house die cut out of some 30 gauge copper and then embossed with Vintaj's India Archway and Woodland birds dies .

Caged bead swap. I made these brass cages first. Then reread the instructions to realize they needed to be made of silver..  No hurt feelings here. I was really debating on sending them any way. I like them so much. They are created with brass beads, bead caps and jump rings. I colored the center bead with Vintajs Opalite patina.

Caged beads that were the result of following the rules.. lol. Don't you hate it when you are so excited about a project and skim the rules.. Lampwork bead, wire, bead caps and balled heads pins.. Simple as that.

I hosted this swap in a charm group I belong to. Actually all these charms are for ArtCharms yahoo group. The rules for this was to create something from those pretty gift cards we all get. Here was my contribution.. Steak and Shake. It was hard to get a good picture. They are metallic and holographic. Plus of I loved that 50's feel.

 This was such an amazing swap. I will have to ask if I can share some of the others creations. I was totally amazed and what others created.

Game piece swap. Above in the tray is a pile of space ships. Those came from a game my boys had and I just couldn't get rid of them. Below monopoly. I used wooden house shapes and covered them with monopoly chance and community chest cards and then sealed them. Each one is different. Again another fun swap.

Last but not least.. watch parts. I just finished these up. This one was a struggle for me. I have many prototypes. Shrink plastic which I ran through my printer and then used watch gears.

Well folks that does it for now. Many, many more things to share and on the bench. But this turned out to be a long post. I just couldn't stop and or decide what to share.. so went for it all. Enjoy.

Let's get the season started…...

Here is the first of my Christmas creations… I had so much fun making these.

They are for a swap I am participating in over at ArtCharms yahoo group.

They are made from goodies from my local reuse/recycle factory recycle store Learning from Scratch. I used metal caps, bead snowmen from a necklace and rubber caps. Put some scrapbook paper in the back, punched a hole in the top to create a loop with a head pin and covered the inside edges with snow paint and some glitter. I filled the cavity partially with ice resin after it hardened added some white mica flakes and watch gears. Then added another layer of resin to seal the parts in. Added some ribbon and a curled ornament hook to finish them off.

It's all in the numbers..

I recently hosted a swap with a yahoo group I belong to ArtCharms owned by Christine and Peg coauthors of Making Mixed Media Art Charms. I had a amazing response to this swap. I had hoped to get one group of 10 players and ended up with five groups of 10.  I played in four of the 5 groups and here are my charms. The theme I choose for the swap was altered numbers. Every charm needed to have a number or numbers on it.

My first charm is a altered casino dice. From a local casino here in Michigan. After so many rolls they are discarded. The nice part is they came with a hole already drilled through them.  Easy peasy...

My second charms I created from a engineers ruler. You know the ones that are triangle shaped. After cutting the ruler into pieces I then painted the cut edge to match the color of the ruler.. in this case raw sienna. I applied some silver and copper leafing to give it some bling and a little copper wire wrapping for a loop. The silver numbers are a scrapbooking embellishment.. a snap kinda thing. I attached it to the cut surface.

Basic expandable wooden ruler was used for this charm. Cut into segments on the chop saw and drilled to add a eyelet to hold a jump ring.

This charm is a mini domino from a local dollar store. I drilled a hole for a jump ring and also to hang a vintage number. The numbers were from a signage display I purchased from a local meat market. You remember those... the weekly specials spelled out in letters and price.

A vintage white button with another numbered button stacked and then wire wrapped.

Here are some of the other fantastic charms from the participants. This was such a fun swap. And it had such a great turnout of players.

House charm

I am lucky enough to have a upcycle store near me called Learning from Scratch. I purchase all sorts of items from there. In this project it was wooden square beads used as the base of my house.

This project had been in the back of my head for some time. Recently a article in the special issue of handcrafted jewelry inspired me to to pull out my tub of gathered items and create..

These charms will be swapped out at a charm swap I am hosting at my Michigan Altered Book Association (MIABA) meeting on Saturday in Kalamazoo.

Owl charm goes steampunk

I have been working on this charm for a steampunk swap. I'm addicted to metal and the torch.