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.

I just love etching...

I love etching.. and on copper I am in heaven.  I have been looking through my stash of rubber stamps and decided to play and see what kind of etchings some of them would make..

As with all experiments some work and others not so much. I liked this one so much that I put it together as a gift for my mom. Hopefully by this posting it has arrived to her in Florida.

Cackling Witches and moon flowers

It's been a busy week. So busy that I forgot to share this project with you. Feels good to jump back in and play. My first project since my rotator cuff surgery in June. Still not at 100% but sure felt good to get my hands dirty again. I'm participating in a couple of swaps over at ArtCharms. One is a halloween and the second is the monthly color dangle which is, what else but black and orange with copper findings.

Our challenge for the Halloween swap was of course Halloween and copper findings. I chose this profile witch image stamp. I have been wanting to get the etching pot out for some time.

I created a moon flower dangle. Of course copper wrapped. I'm excited to get these back. I think I will have some wonderful additions to my halloween charm tree.

i spy a charm

It's been a very unusual winter here in Michigan. With a total snow fall of what we can get in one day. The middle of March is here and we are having mid to high 70 degree weather. Then today I wake up to fog.. fog so thick its scarey. Ok enough of that...

I love charms.. I look at things thinking that would be a cool charm. I have acquired quite a large collection of Art Charms. My UFO (unfinished object) project this week is related to this collection of charms. I put together a necklace.

I participate in several swaps a year. It's fun to see what others come up with for the theme or how they use a object.

Lets play a game of I SPY... see if you can find a charm you may have created for me.

I had received a cloth necklace in a swap. I wanted to use that as my base. I wove it through a length of oxidized silver link.

I mixed my metals. Using mostly silver, copper and black. But as you can see there are a couple of golds in there too.

I attached the chain to the cloth by sewing it and then tied knots. This served two purposes. One to hide the stitching and the other to adjust the overall length.

I'm not sure each charm has found its exact placement yet. I'm sure I will fuss budget around and move one or two.

I wore it to town yesterday and received great revues. I'm sure it will become one of my go to pieces.

Ancient Egypt

Here is a swap I jumped in last minute.. These charms are made from roof flashing, alcohol ink several layers of sealer with stampings in between.

Oddities and Lovelies.........

I participated in a Oddities & Lovelies cReAtIvE ChAlLeNgEs swap over at Mixed Media Art . I have been on pins and needle waiting for my creation to arrive at its new home. It finally arrived today and I can share with you.

I had so much fun creating my piece. The requirements were a heart and face in any medium you wish. I created the wire cage body with dangling heart out of copper wire. I applied a verdigris patina on the copper. The head is a vintage frozen charlotte doll. That took several attempts to drill a hole through. That was a lesson learned. My design went together with great success from beginning to end. I almost hated to send her on her way.

What I have been up to.....

It's been a busy month.. and with the holidays coming the pressure is on... lol. Well not really, my shopping is done and it's pretty much going to be me and play time. I hauled the torch out again and worked on making some ball ended wires. With some inspiration from the latest issue of Wire Jewelry and Kim St. Jean's book Mixed Metal Mania, this is what I came up with.. Enjoy...

Steampunk and charms.. what more could there be..

I love the whole process of working with metal. The hammering, layering and connections. This charm went through several upgrades til I came to a combination I really liked. Hammered copper hearts layered with several types of gears

Owl charm goes steampunk

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

Glass Journal ...

This was my ahhh hah class at CREATE, Chicago hosted by Interweaves, Cloth, Paper, Scissors. Our artist presenter was Thomas Ashman of Black Sheep Studios. It was amazing what we created with hardware supplies. Plumbers tape, screws, welding rod, little strip of copper and 2 beveled glass squares was our materials.

This was my first time ever having a torch in my hands.. well other than the one I use to light the grill... but that's a whole different thing. We worked steadily all morning cutting and creating the parts for our spine. I kept thinking right this is going to work... Thomas walked us through it passing on a story or two.

We broke for lunch. When we returned we assembled our spine.. That's where my ahhh hah moment happened.. I was like holy sh*&%t.. this really is going to work and I DID IT. Yes, I had my doubts. But at the point I was doing the happy dance!!!!! Next was to add our wire spines to hold our paper signatures. Then the glass covers. I had a couple of wire jewelry moments.. like wrap around the rod... not back on itself. After I got that out of my head I assembled a wonderful piece.

A transparency goes under the glass cover. I have not quite decided what I want there. So for at the moment I have placed this Arms of Bristol transparency I had at home. I have a chain attached and plan to add some beads and charms.

One more Retreat day left to share....

Another CREATE day

The inspiration and fun was contagious in Chicago. I could hardly wait for another day to come. Now I am working hard at holding back and showing you my creations one day at a time. I just want to post them up for you to see. In this workshop Uncle Charley has Left the Room Pendant, we cut copper and created a soldered bezel with a cold connection, added brass embellishments and made a wonder cloth necklace to hold our pendant. Our instructor Jean Van Brederode was so full of energy, she shared a wealth of information. The garage door clasp was fantastic. Each one of us left wearing our totally unique pendants.