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.

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.

Charms..

Belinda Spiwak over at Crazy Art Girl's Musings hosted a charm swap for those of us attending CREATE. I had so much fun designing my charms. My bird in a nest was assembled by twisting several strands of fine wire. Then I wove the wire into a nest, added some small seed beads for eggs and had this cute little bird bead to sit on her eggs. My flower is created with lucite flower beads that I purchased at this adorable bead shop I found in Downers Grove called Bead Heaven. If I ever get unpacked I will share what everyone created.