peace and love charm swap

Finished my Peace and Love charms for another swap and put them in the mail today. I decided to practice some wiring techniques for this one. I got in the groove by bending, twisting, hammering and adding a few "love" beads.

round robin necklace ~ for Gena

This is my offering for Gena's "Ju-Ju" themed charm necklace. My little amulet addition, which I've called "Hidden Visions", is an old flattened bottle cap with the the word "VISIONS" nearly obscured under layers of mica. I've attached an additional charm that I made from a deep blue feather and silver spacer bead. Close up of the nearly obscured word "VISIONS" on the charm. I cut the word from a vintage 1865 book and glued in under the mica with diamond glaze.
Below is my charm on the thus far completed necklace. Only two my necklaces to go and this swap will be complete.

round robin necklace ~ for Eunice

I was able to work on my charm for Eunice's necklace today. Her theme is "Old things made new". I had this old key with red on it that seemed to fit right in with her necklace. The red beads were passed on from the player before me so I used them to jazz the key up a bit and attached it with a little ball chain. Below is how it looks on her necklace. Lighting isn't very good in these pictures, but I wanted to get this one packaged back up and ready to mail.

new summer look for blog

This summer I will be working on a Round Robin Book Project centered around Marie Antoinette. I thought it might be fun to change my blog to go along with that theme. I found this cute background and banner here. Of course I will be posting pictures from the project as I go along.



This RR book project will be a little different than the norm. We won't be sending around entire books...we just send out our own pages to all the participates, they work on them and send them back to us. It is really more like a fatbook exchange of pages, but still should be fun. I've already received my first page to work on, but first I have to get mine ready to mail out!

round robin necklace ~ for Darlene

Here is my offering for Darlene's Necklace with a theme of "anything goes". I loved her pendant focal piece and wanted to do something that tied in with it.I made a little wire heart and hammered it flat then made a little staple to hold the key on with. I decided not to polish the wire, but to just keep the dark feel going. Below is her necklace so far, I was the 4th person to work on it.

round robin necklace ~ for Suzanne

This is my charm addition to Suzanne's "Natural Beauty" Necklace. Copper wire, a few feathers and two odd shaped little pearls.Here are all the additions to her necklace so far.

text charm

My daughter got married! I finished my Text Charms! These are displayed on her wedding dress.

heart of the sound

Trying hard to finish up all my commitments this month so that I can get ready for ArtFest. This little charm was done for my Charmsters group...it is an exchange between the 12 Charmsters that will be attending ArtFest this year. I got mine sent off yesterday. The ArtFest theme this year is Sea Monsters...not really my thing...so for this little swap I took my inspiration (after coming across this already wired glass bead in my stash), from the movie Titanic. My take on the "Heart of the Ocean" necklace from the movie. Here is my little offering...Heart of the Sound...as in Puget Sound.

round robin necklace ~ for Amy

The second necklace in my Round Robin went in the mail yesterday. Amy's theme was "Royalty", loved that one. I just had to use a photo of Marie Antoinette and give her a key to the kingdom.

windows ~ Lori's round robin book

The last book from our Round Robin swap goes in the mail to Lori today. Her theme was windows and the work in this book is absolutely beautiful! Wish I could show you all the pages...here is my offering for the last page of her book. My window inspiration centered around Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution. Around my window I wrote "Outside her window a revolution raged". I only had one window to work with, which peeked into the lovely artwork of Laurel on the previous page.
This was my first round robin and it was so much fun. I really enjoyed seeing all the books arrive and looking at everyone's artwork. I'm hopeful that we will do another one so that the creativity can continue!

round robin necklace ~ for Donna

This is the first of 8 necklaces that will be coming my way for me to work on this year. The above necklace belongs to Donna and her neclace theme is "Treasure". My contribution to her necklace is the set of fused glass hearts. On the back of the blue one I've written "Where your heart is so is your treasure". I wrote it with a sharpie, but I don't know if it will eventually wear off. These necklaces also come with a book to write in so I've written the words there as well, so she will always know the meaning behind my "heart treasure".

oh well...

Sigh...here is an example of artwork that doesn't even remotely resemble the original vision I had in my head. It is just one of those cases where things don't work out and you still have to go with it. This ended up being my ATC for the ArtFest ATC Book hosted by Bee Shay. I had wanted to do some type of specimen collection, but didn't get started on this project soon enough to really create my vision. Therefore I ended up with this version that doesn't look like a "collection", but instead looks like some freaky sea creature snowman! However, the theme for this year's ArtFest IS Sea Monsters, so maybe this little creation will fit in after all...it's just not my usual style! The image is printed on a transparency and embedded into paint. The jelly fish are stamped into the paint. This photo looks really flat...the texture and shine show up much better in person. Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes.

valentine mini banner swap

This is my offering for the Valentine Mini Banner Swap that I just hosted in my 'In This House' Yahoo group. It was so much fun having all the lovely little banners arrive in my mail. Lots of wonderful art!
I mailed out all the little packages to the participants this morning so that they will arrive by valentines day. Below is a "sneak peek" of some little goodies every player will be receiving. Hope everyone enjoyed playing!

round robin necklace travel case

I finally finished sewing the case for my necklace to travel in! I used some vintage velvet drapery fabric from my stash to create the case and used more of my old metal buttons for part of my closures. I also used up the left over odd beads I had from making the necklace.
As you open it..........
then just a peek....................
and finally the necklace is revealed.
This little tied up bundle travels with the necklace too.
I made ATCs for my fellow participants to embellish and to indicate at what location on the necklace their particular charm hangs. These are my "artist sign in" pages where I've asked each person to attach a photo of their charm and sign their names.
Here is a glimpse of my own ATC showing the pendant part I created.
I can't wait to see all the lovely artwork that will be coming my way as these necklaces start to arrive!

natures bounty ~ Dolores' round robin book

This is the page spread I just finished for Dolores' round robin book. Her theme was "Natures Bounty".

handfull of hearts

Quick little Valentie Heart Inchie Swap out the door today. Made tiny little transparencies of a portion of the artwork I did for Tejae's book...then embeded them in white acrylic paint that had been stamped with text...painted that with pink and bordered with crimson...touch of bling in the center. Done.

round robin necklace

Sometimes I wonder what I get myself into! In this case it was making a necklace for a round robin exchange...I have never really made a neclace before so it was a good thing I started early and didn't wait till the last minute! The part that gave/is giving me the most trouble is where I've tried to put tiny eyelets into the mica and wire it to my button. Two of the eyelets separated from the mica and I ended up using liquid nails to try and glue them back in...so much for "cold connections". The necklace is probably going to be a fragile piece during its travels and will most likely need further repair when it returns home, but I'm sending it on anyway.

For this round robin I created the necklace itself and the main focal piece pendant. There will be 8 other players working on my necklace as it goes along. Each person will add an element (Charm) designed to my theme which is ~All things vintage and sepia~. I've added little jump rings (you can see them below) where they can attach their creations to my necklace at the proper place. In 9 months my necklace will return home to me all finished.
Detail of the vintage metal buttons for my pendant dangle.
Beading deatils.

Close-up of the necklace clasp and dangle.
All in all I'm pleased with how it turned out. I loved getting to use some of the vintage treasures from my button jar, especially the beautiful sepia brown velvet hand covered button. The velvet button measures 1 1/4 inches across, to give you a little perspective, since all the photos are close up to show detail.
Now that the necklace is finished I'm off to make some sort of carrying case to put it in for safe keeping during its travels.

cocoon beads

Finally got these pictures posted from my last project of 2008. Cocoon Beads for my Charm group. I decided they were not my most favorite thing to do...or maybe it was just because I waited till the last minute and had to make 36 of them!

completed banner garland

Just had to post a quick photo of all the wonderful little holiday banners I received in this swap. I strung them all together on silk ribbon and hung them on the mirror in my living room...a perfect spot to show them off! I love how the banner backs are reflected in the mirror in this photo.

wishes and dreams ~ Kim's round robin book

This is the page spread I completed for Kim's round robin book titled Wishes and Dreams. I have finally finished working on it and will have it on its way home to her for Christmas. There has been much going on here at home for me and squeezing in art is nearly impossible right now. Hopefully after the holidays...?
Detail pictures of the words, tiny stars and jewels. I tried writing the words with a white pen but it was really difficult writing over wrinkled paper and then the ink didn't show up so well. I ended up painting over the writing with white paint so that the words are more legible. In case you still can't read the words it says..."In her pale moonlit dreams she becomes the Fairy Queen...Dancing in the moonlight and granting wishes to all her fairy realm.

One more little project ready to go on its way. These are for a holiday mini banner swap. Each little banner piece is 3 inches wide at the top and 5 five inches long at the point. We send in 6 and get back 5 to string together for our holiday decorating. Now...I just have to decide where to hang my little banner when it comes home to me.
Banner pieces are made of double sided cardstock. I attached an image of a vintage Christmas postcard with 3-D foam squares to give it that raised dimensional look as you can see below.

I had so much fun playing with my waxy winter theme for the "Have a Seat" swap that I decided to just carry it over into this next project. (Hey...the supplies were already handy!) These are "ornament charms" for an exchange I'm doing in my Charmsters Group. They're charms on a larger scale than you would normally wear and ment to be used as ornamentation. Mine are 1 inch wide by 2 1/2 inches tall. Perfect little dangelies to hang somewhere special...just don't put them too near the fireplace or they might melt!

have a seat

I was finally able to steal a few moments to do some artwork again...actually I HAD to steal those moments because projects I signed up for are now due. This one is for a 3 dimensional ATC with the theme of "Have a Seat". I created this little winter "sculpted ice chair" in honor of my daughter who lives in Alaska and calls me daily with reports of falling snow and freezing weather. I used vellum for my chair to create the look of ice. I love how you can see through it to the background.
This view from the top allows you to see the layered texture of the ATC background that is a base of paper with layers of impressed wax mounted onto sturdy mat board
Side view of chair.
Detail of the snowflake embraced by downy feathers nestled on the chairs seat.
Detail of intricately "sculpted" back of the chair.
It was a fun little project to do and my little chairs will be on their way out of here tomorrow. Next on to some little banners!

passionate heart ~ Tejae's round robin book

This months round robin book belongs to Tejae and it is actually a very small little book, about 4x4 inches. I had fun with paper, paint and beeswax doing this book.
Close-up of the words.
I created an embossed beeswax heart to cover the little secret door and gave the heart feather wings..."give love wings".
Close-up of heart detail.
Once you open the heart door it reveals another heart with butterfly wings and the word Soar, "and your heart will soar". I love how the open door also looks like a butterfly.
Finally a close-up of the Soaring Heart.

secrets and hidden layers ~ Kara's round robin book

This is the artwork I did in the second round robin book to come my way. As you can see the title of Kara's book is Secrets and Hidden Layers. This was a busy month for me, as noted by the lack of postings, and I worked on this at the last minute, nothing like the pressure of a deadline!
Close up of the words I wrote.
Secrets revealed.

Closeup of paint texture and layers.