Showing posts with label Challenge. Show all posts

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Taking a Challenge...to get out of the house!

I'm excited! I need to reconnect to my blog friends and make a little jewelry. What better way than to join in a challenge...the 2nd Annual Challenge of Travel hosted by Erin of Tesori Trovati.

The challenge isn't so much about traveling far...instead we need to travel near in the spirit of a staycation. So, I get to focus on my recently-found home, Charleston.

Recently I've been feeling in a funk a bit because I'm just so focused on the job I haven't really been spending any energy on the rest of my life...my evenings are boring and my weekends are even worse. Luckily, my mom came to visit and got me out. Now, this week I'm hosting my sister and her girlfriend and all of their boys...four of them from ages 8 to 11. I had no idea the noise level and just overall confusion could go up within seconds of them walking through the door. It's awesome. Makes me appreciate the peace and quiet I normally have around here that I would generally assume is boring. We are doing all sorts of things around Charleston and the local towns, so I'm already embracing the spirit! Today, for instance, we toured a cypress swamp with a guide named Cowboy, rang the bell at the top of the climbing wall, played basketball (I watched and sweated), shopped at the Base Exchange for sunglasses, ate at a dive bar where the kids enjoyed reading vulgarity written on the table, and broke in my noodles in the neighborhood pool. The day isn't even over yet!

So, I'm going to take a lot more field trips, even if I'm on my own, and get some inspiration for this challenge!!

Check out this Hipstamatic shot of an amazing flower (which I just figured out is a lotus!!) from the huge selection at Cypress Gardens today:

I'll probably end up facing an over-inspiration problem by the end of the month...and that's a good thing!!

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Kiersten Giles Cone Challenge Reveal!

A few weeks ago I was selected to participate in a little blog challenge...and today's the big reveal day! The centerpieces for the adventure are these handmade copper cones from Kiersten Giles of The Cerebral Dilettante blog fame.

Prolific inspirer and fellow blogger, Lorelei, picked five of us, plus herself, to push the limits of cone creativity. They're a pretty standard component in jewelry, especially in multi-strand pieces. So, it was time to think about cones differently...the gauntlet she threw at us was all about unique!!!!

Well...here's my take...

I immediately noticed the gently folded edge along the top of the etched copper and thought of rolled paper. That led me to a cone reversal so that instead of something flowing out of the cone, I'd have something flow up...

ooooohhhh....like a farmer's market bouquet! You can see some of my sketches at an earlier post here.

This first piece isn't so much jewelry as it is a little decorative ornament that could hang somewhere to liven up a space with sweet little copper and brass flowers and tendrils in a perfect copper "vase."

I have somehow managed to accumulate a massive stash of tiny flower pieces so I went to town with them and a variety of brass and copper headpins and created a bunch of different flowers by layering the little components along with some metal spacers. I didn't want to create massive wire-wrapped stems, so I opted for some heavy duty glue to keep the flowers together at the ends of the headpins. Just in case you try this...open some windows when you work with glue or you'll have a mysterious headache for two days...haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I was digging through my "scrap" wire container looking for small pieces to make spirals and happened upon a bunch of copper and brass that I had used to practice "balling" with my microtorch. Because I was going for a rustic mix of metals, the odd fired finish at the ends was perfect for more tendril-looking spirals.

My second cone was destined for a similar treatment but with a little bit of a different finish....it became a pendant:

I used a silver pendant "blank" and glued the cone in place. I used some clear glue (less fumes, since I figured that drama out) to fill in and create a kind of resin background.

Then, I added the flower bouquet! A few sets of leaves from my "metal component" stash drawer rounded out the little nosegay.

With a simple little copper ball chain, it's a really pretty accent to a plain white t-shirt! The flower stems are all attached to a base wrapped loop, so they can actually be rearranged within the cone/vase.

Here's a shot of the working stems as I tried to decide how many to use and create the varied heights that would make the bouquet look balanced and unique.

And, there you have it! Cones on the up instead of the down!!!

I was thinking as I made this that I should do a tutorial...if you think that's a good idea, let me know in the comments and I'll work on some pictures of the in-construction piece so you can see how it all came together. :)

And, now to point you in the direction of my fellow cone-ites for today's challenge reveal:

The host:

Lorelei Eurto at her Blog

The Crazier Sister at Crazy Creative Corner

BeadBug at Copper Glass and Recycled Trash

Yay!Jewelry at the YaY! Jewelry blog

Lori Michaud at the Artfully Ornamental blog

Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday, May 5, 2012

One Color Crayon Challenge: My Purple Went Exotic

Here she is...my little tribute to the purple crayon:

I think it looks like some sort of tile or carpet from an exotic land. I created a kaleidoscope image in Photoshop Elements using an original painting and a Kim Klassen texture.Here's a little background on the hop...~Sally Russick decided to host a little monochromatic challenge on her Studio Sublime blog.

~ She invited 65 of us to pick one of eight basic crayon colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown or black.

~ Then, we had to create a monochromatic design with the color we picked...focusing on a few or a lot of that color's hues.

~ The cool part is that it's not just about jewelry...she opened it up to any medium! That's what got me started thinking about painting and mixed media

I pulled out everything I have in my arts and crafts supplies that could be anything close to purple. I posted about that earlier this week. I spent lot of time with ink and acrylics coming up with some cool designs. My favorite ended up being this one:

After studying it and thinking about using it as the background of a collage, I decided to go down a different path and try something I've been wanting to do for a while: make a kaleidoscope image. I used this tutorial from the Scrapper's Guide that I found a few months ago. I was scared to try it, but it ended up being pretty easy and I'm tickled with the end result.

There are 64 other blogs to check out today...see how many took the deep dive into just one color!