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.

It has been forever since I made a post. Lots have been going on. Lots that I thought I was going to share and now have to put in the hold file.. hehe.. But all is good. I don't get too personally sentimental here on my blog. But with the New Year knocking on our door, thought I would share. My dads side of the family is a interesting mix for me. For the most part they are the village that made me the person I am today. This last year I lost one of my favorite Aunts. She encouraged me to think out of the box. The major part of this learning spirit happened the summer of 1974 (age 15) when I went to spend a few weeks with them to help out with my little cousins as my aunt had just had a new baby. As they lived in northern Michigan in the middle of no where, my aunt had signed me up for ceramics class as time away from my babysitting duties. I remember butting heads with the ceramics instructor.. I had picked out this chicken cookie jar to make.. I wanted to color it with chalks. The instructor was set on that was not how you should do it. I went home voicing to my aunt that I didn't want to paint it like the everyone else did. I had a different look for my jar.. I'm sure it was a phone call or a stop by the shop before the next week when I went back I was allowed to do what I wanted to do without any negative instruction. To this day that silly chicken is one of my favorite pieces I have made. I wouldn't change a thing I did.

In my adult life I did not see her as much as I should have... more like the usual gatherings.. weddings, funerals and a baby shower here and there.. But it was always a joy to see her and catch up. My Aunt Ruthie loved antiques.. the more unusual the better. It was always exciting to hear what new item she had acquired. And loved to see the expression of one of my cousins faces as they would roll their eyes in that what you going to do with that look. This fall was her estate sale. I took this opportunity to make the 2 and half hour drive north to wander around the property and reminisce. I didn't go up with any intention of really purchasing anything. But to my surprise the above cabinet was in the sale. It was one of her favorite pieces, the other being this awesome buffet with marble top. It needs a little bit of work.. With the help of my husband we will fix it without changing any of the outside look. The paint patina is just awesome. I am pretty sure my aunt hadn't done anything with it since she purchased it. I acquired the dust bunnies and spider goobers, probably a good thing I hadn't looked inside the drawers before I loaded it up to bring it home... lol.

Most of the drawer bottoms are made from what appears to be a stock market recording chalkboard. I love the reuse of items. Make it or fix it with materials on hand. The drawers are broken up into little compartments, with a couple full drawers. At some point in time someone decided the drawers needed to be numbered.. Adds so much character to the piece. In one of the drawers I found a baggie of linograph press letters. Could that been the use for this.. held letters in a print shop?? Wish I could get a picture of them.. but they are so small I couldn't get anything that you could see what they were. Its fun to just imagine what it might have been used for. With the little cubbies it must have had a definite purpose. The color is closer to the picture below.. much more green tone than whitish.

This piece has quickly become one of my cherished pieces. For now it will be in my living room while we do some work to sturdy it up. I think at some point it will end up in my studio. It has to be a useful piece for me.. if I can't use it to store items.. it's not much use. My aunt encouraged self expression. As long as it did not hurt others and was respectful. This lesson I have tried to follow in my life. Happy New Year everyone.

Junque Jewelry Charms

I recently participated in a Junque jewelry swap over at ArtCharms. I completed 2 sets. One was using a green beaded necklace.

You can see the bundle of beads from the necklace after I had disassembled it here.

The other set was created with some 1996 Atlanta Olympic Pins that I was lucky enough to run across a stash of them at a local recycle store I shop at called Learning from Scratch.

Here is a short pictorial overview of how they were created. Here are the components I started with.

Some of the steps I took in coloring and assembling. First time I used Ranger Vintaj dye patina. It has some interesting effects. To get the full color you really need to let it sit over night. It does change from the initial look of first application. Overall I am happy with the coloring.

This swap has gotten me interested in what else I can create from unwanted pieces of jewelry. Has me looking at sales for more.

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.

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.

Metal Deck.... final project from CREATE

Be prepared this is a long one. I just couldn't decide what to share. I feel that you need to see the whole thing to get the real feel of the deck. The Vintage Metal deck was a awesome class taught by Leighanna Light. This class was from 9 am to 9 pm and chucked full of information. We worked on 10 blackplate cards. We each worked in our own theme. I chose a theme familiar to me. I enjoyed watching others eyeballing my deck throughout the day..

This is my cover. It started out as a simple robin. I collaged images added a nest and eggs.. it was sealed with Bullseye Amber Shellac. I added the Porkchop Show doll eyes to put some creep on.

On this set of pages... I used my creepy dolls from Alphastamps. On the back I painted some blue metallic paint them covered it in a light coating of Ultrecht gesso, then stamped with a number rubber stamp.

I started this page with a gesso back ground that I used a circle stamp to remove some of the gesso. Collage and added a doo dad or two. The back is blue metallic under coat with the same gesso stamp removal.

My he/she image was given a eyelet for a eye piece. Collage, blending of paints, some cheese cloth... ring of keys for the keyhole. A vintage rook card is the focal point for the back. I tried a patina effect and it came out with a rusted look. Which I am very happy with.

Some more collage work with another one of my skellie guys, old playing card. The background is a page from a book. The back is gesso applied through a stencil. At some point I probably will paint it and see what I get.

Another patina that turned out looking like rust. It looks great with my calavera, some grungeboard heart with some wings finishes out this Day of the Dead theme. The back some of the blue patina took. I like just looking at it so I probably will leave it.

My ghost guys. The were created doing a image transfer with Ultrecht gesso. This technique is awesome. I love transfers and do several. And I can't wait to play with this one some more. I colored in my guys inked the edges. Added a TH doo dad. The star charm hanging on the side was created by my friend Rhea for a charm swap we participated in while at CREATE. It just fit in with my guys. The back more collage and continuation of my ladies, gesso stamping and a piece leave piece that I did some patina on.

This page was a gesso stamp them punched bubble with a doming tool.. It was created purely because I was playing with all the option Leighanna showed us. The back is another attempt to patina.. good thing I like the look of rust.. lol

Another gesso image transfer. I love image transfers. I then tried to patina it and got.. well you got it.. I then rubberstamped wordage around the image. Added a skull with glasses.. Inked it up.. The back is the start of collaged images.. my lady again.. I will add more at a later time

I love this owl image.. he is both cool looking and creepy. Basic page.. image, inked up page, rubber stamped with gesso. The back and the back cover of my deck is image, inked.. cheese cloth for texture, some more gesso stamping and a flip off button.

I will add more I'm sure. At the moment its more charms and texture. As you flip through it you will get a hint at my inner personality. Enjoy.. this was a blast to do.