Week 44: Au Naturale

This week I decided to try and work with more "natural" materials; stone, shell, pearls and the like.  In do very much enjoy working with all types of materials but I noticed recently that I had fallen into a "polished gemstones and metal" rut.  So I challenged myself to come out of it, and here are the results:

Earrings with shell and freshwater stick pearl dangles.  I've had the shell dangles forever, and I'm so glad I finally got a chance to use them!

Wire wrapped natural stone and fancy jasper arrowhead.  The base arrowhead was a gift from my aunt, the fancy  jasper one on top was purchased at Fire Mountain.

Copper wire wrapped driftwood necklace.  I'm really happy with how this turned out, and can't wait to start using more driftwood in my designs!

Lake stone wire wrapped in steel on leather, with hand-wrapped steel beads.  Making wire wrapped beads was super fun, and I'm sure I'll be incorporating more of those into my future designs.

Shell and freshwater pearl dangle earrings.  I love the iridescence of the black coin pearls! 

Matte-finished stone stick necklace, in rainbow of course!  I'm falling in love with matte finishes on stones; it really does make them feel more raw and natural.

Empty watch face turned into a pendant!  I filled it up with this cool box of old animal teeth I had (don't ask...) and some text from an old book.    Then I added some raw quartz point dangles.  I'm sorry for the picture quality; for some reason this bad boy was really difficult to photograph!

It was really nice to get back to working with elements that had a more natural feel.  All in all I feel like the natural elements give the designs a softer feel, which is nice.  Thanks for checking us out this week, and I'll catch you next time!

Week 36: I Feel Special

It's been pointed out to me that while I make an awful lot of stuff, I don't normally make things with myself in mind.  So this week, I decided to only make things that I knew I would use, and use regularly.  It turns out that my aesthetic is mostly black and silver based.  Big surprise there!  But it's kind of neat; I feel like I have a cohesive "line" of accessories for my everyday use now.  So, uh, Merry Christmas to me?

Hat Pin!  Just not in the traditional sense.  I love adding a bit of extra flare to my hats.  The button was a super cool find at Joann's, and I  used epoxy clay for the first time to put the feathers and button together on the pin back.  For a first attempt I'm pretty pleased.  Plus, giant feather poof for my hat!

My second experiment with epoxy clay.  The ring base and spikes are both from Michael's;  the spikes appear to be some sort of plastic so the ring is really lightweight!  While this is totally not a work appropriate ring, I' think I'm going to end up wearing this a lot.  Plus I think it may double as a self-defense weapon in a pinch.  :)

WWTWW?  Or, What Would Tom Waits Wear?  If he was a girl, I think it'd be this necklace.  This bad boy is much fancier that I'd normally go with, but a girl's gotta play dress up sometime, right?  

I about peed myself when Michael's came out with their Art Nouveau  line of jewelry  components.  I was particularly taken with the fan-style wings.  Add a keyhole and skeleton key charm, and it's perfect!  I'm surprised at how much I wear this necklace.  It's pretty much a staple of my wardrobe now.

And if I don't feel like wearing the super sized version from above, here's a downsized version for more casual wear.  Keys and wings.  I don't think you can go wrong with that combo!

Once I got my box of keys out, I just couldn't stop!  These flat backed keys are from the scrapbooking isle at Joann's, and they're perfect for my favorite type of crafting; gluing things to other things!  I had this gunmetal finish filigree plate stashed away for a special project, I'm super happy I finally used it.

And my absolute favorite of the batch, my Get Smart earrings!  I had a box of these old bingo-style tokens, and once I saw these two tiles I just had to make something with them.  A bit of dremel work turned them into neat beads.  And I can't resist adding chain tassels to anything.  I wear these all the time now!  So far nobody has gotten the reference, but someday they will and that person will be my new friend FOREVER.

As much as I enjoyed designing for myself for a week, I'll be happy to go back to working with other inspirations.  My color palate for personal wear is super monochrome, and I really do enjoy working with colors!  Just not wearing them.  Expect a color explosion next week to compensate!  Thanks for checking in, and we'll catch you next time!

Week 35: Picture This!

I admit it, I've been a very very bad blogger.  It turns out I'm great at consistently making things, but not so much at posting them.  In fact, although this post is marked for the week of 12/9, and the items were created the week of 12/9, I'm actually posting this the week of 3/18.  It turns out a project, project blog, health problems, job, and new etsy store was a bit more to bite off than I could chew.  But I'm getting caught up, and we're almost at the end of the 52 weeks project!

This week I decided that I was going to start using the stockpile of images I've hoarded over the past few years.  Old bits of comic books, magazine pictures, and neat stuff I've printed from the internet takes up a full drawer in my craft room.  So I went ahead and picked my seven favorites and worked them into these nifty items:

I have this old beat up copy of  'The Kindly Ones' that has survived a house fire, a basement flood, and four moves to three different states.  Occasionally I'll take a picture out of it and make something suitably nerdy; this is my Morpheus cocktail ring.  : )  Disapproving Dream Lord Disapproves.

This fun guy was born of my getting sick of losing my keys in my purse.  I downsized my key-chain a few years ago, and now I can never find the damn things when I need them.  The bezel was a Michael's clearance special that I pried the sticker out of.  Add some Bela (Lugosi, that is) and some red glitter and boom!  You've got the only vampire sparkles I'll ever need.

My fascination with Tarot goes way, way back.  While I don't use it for readings, I have a serious love of the art style in the Rider Waite deck.  In particular, I've always been fond of The High Priestess; I think it's the crescent moon at her feet that really seals the deal for me.  The pendant base is made out of polymer clay, I use ModPodge to attach the image  and sealed it with Dimensional Magic.  

Yet more proof that I'm a horror nerd.  I don't know that I've ever seen someone more beautiful or regal than Elsa Lanchaster in her classic "Bride" pose.  The bezel is actually filigree pendant from Michael's that had a hollow back; I sealed it with a piece of scrapbook paper and liberal use of Liquid Urethane glue.  A little Dimensional Magic, the picture and some rhinestones and you've got 

Yet another ode to the awesomeness of Dimensional Magic.  The picture is a neat find from somewhere long forgotten on the interwebs.  But isn't she grand!?  My only complaint about this piece is that I should have done two layers of DM for curing; I tried to do it in one and it came out slightly opaque around the edges.

And to prove that Modpodge doesn't get all the fun, here's a pendant I made of Neil Gaiman's Destiny using Glossy Accents.  Woohoo!  The pendant is another Michael's find that I pried the original picture off of.  It was this funky bronze color that I wasn't super fond of, so I painted over it and then roughed it up a little bit to give it an old, battered look.

And last but not least, my Queen of Hearts earrings!  A scrapbooking punch and these earring bezels from the Industrial Chic line, an old playing card, plus some Crackle Accents = awesomeness.  It was pure serendipity that the punch and the bezels were the same size, but now that I know they are I see a lot of these types of earrings in my future.

This didn't even begin to make a dent in my ephemera stash, so I'm sure I'll be trotting out some more picture based pieces soon.  Thanks for reading!

Week 34: Altered Key Week

Recently, I've come into possession of a large stash of old door keys.  As anyone who has even glanced at this blog can tell, I love gluing things to other things.  I've made some altered keys in the past, but I've had a lot of designs that got put on hold because I ran out of old house keys of my own.  With my new bounty I finally got a chance to try out some of my new designs!

I have a lot of gears, and I really like gluing them to things.  This key uses a cluster of gears, along with a filigree heart adorned with a gear to create a neat key pendant.

No gears on this one!  I though it would be fun to add one of these lock charms I've been hoarding to a key.  Lock and key all in one! 

This cool filigree charm has been aching to go on a key for some time.  Once I glued it on, it looked a little out of balance, not to mention washed out and monochrome, so I added a pop of color with these cute metal flower charms I got from the scrapbooking section.

A clock charm, a brass charm, and a hex nut all come together to make a nifty steampunk style altered key pendant.  I softened the edge a little bit with another one of those metal scrapbooking flowers.

This key got the works!  I added filigree leaves, a flower charm, a keyhole charm, and some gears to this key.  I think it looks kind of like a dragonfly key.  But that might just be me.  The layering looked weird through the keyhole, so I added some enamel glaze to give it some coverage.  

Yet another keyhole and gear key pendant.  Are we beginning to notice a theme this week?  I didn't intend for most of my altered keys to turn out so steampunk-ish, but the keys themselves just match with that style so well.

And finally, more gears!  This time I layered some gears with a cameo and  filigree charm that I antiqued myself.  : )  I really like the pop of mint color on this one; it's unexpected and makes the overall piece seem kind of cheerful.

I have so many nifty keys that there is bound to be another round of altered key jewelry before the project is over.  I'll try to wait a few weeks before repeating a theme, but I'm so excited that the ideas are just overflowing.  Well, I'm off to glue my fingers together again.  See you next time!

Week 8: Washer Week!

Aaaaand now we come to the first week where I've run out of vaguely clever titles.  : )  Washers are a really cheap base for a lot of jewelry projects, and I wanted to see if I could come up with some different ways of using them that I haven't tried before.  I had mixed results; I think I'm only going to end up using a few of the techniques again, but trying them all out was pretty fun.

Wire-wrapped.  I think I can do better, but not bad for a first attempt on the idea.

Twine wrapped for a more rustic look.  Didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped, and was painful enough on the fingers to avoid doing again in the future.

Ribbon wrapped!  I like the final outcome, and want to try again with some different ribbons.

Manga paper / ModPodge covered.  Cute, but not really something I'd wear on a regular basis.  May try again with origami paper for a more sophisticated look.

Painted with gesso then colored with colored pencils.  While it certainly looks different, I don't know that I'll be replicating this project.  I did like the embroidery thread necklace piece though, so I'm sure I'll be using that again.

You can't see the back, but this is a pin I swear.  Using the washer as a base I glued a metal filigree, cameo, and some rhinestones to the front, and bunched and glued lace to the back. 

My favorite: Wrapped with embroidery thread.  I will definitely be  doing this again sometime, in many different colors.

I have about seven more ideas for how to alter washers in my notebook, so expect a return to washer week sometime in the near future.  : )