April Horse Theme Challenge

Is it really the END of April already? This horse theme really spoke to me. I just LOVE horses- they are such beautiful creatures.  There were so many ideas swirling in my head for this challenge, and I had such grandiose plans for this month but got a bit sidetracked with my FIRST EVER one woman exhibit of my fiber art. It had to be hung on Thursday April 26 with the opening night April 27 at the 'Last Friday' event.
So here is what happened with my horse themed designs--
My original idea for this theme was sparked by my fellow AE members-Jen & Claire who have been creating fabulous mono prints/gelli prints. Plus, I saw an article in Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine about creating a printing plate from a wood panel and using a dremel tool with carving bit to etch the lines. I was determined this would be my BIG horsey project. Lots of different mono prints of a horse using different colors. I even bought some lino sheets & carving tools to create mono prints using different printing plates. There was going to be lots and lots of horse prints!
Well, that didn't happen. I am not even showing you my first print....
But here's the beginning process.

Upper L-wood panel as well as lino sheets &carving tools. Bottom L-Horse sketched on wood panel. R-beginning the carving with the dremel.

 First mistake, didn't refer back to the Cloth, Paper, Scissors article and FORGOT to coat the wood AFTER carving and BEFORE applying paint to the surface for printing. Paint was absorbed into the wood leaving very minimal amount on the wood to transfer to the paper-duh. And of course the article suggested using Speedball ink specifically the block printing ink. I thought I could just wing it with my thick acrylic paint.
After I pulled the first print I had to go back and re-do some of the carved lines, they weren't deep enough. (and by the way, it takes a LOT of practice to do the carving without gouging the wood)

Here's the carved wood panel after attempting printing with the wrong medium.

I did go out and buy the proper ink, but haven't had a chance to play with any more printing.
I WILL revisit it next week. I am so determined to get some good prints out of this!

Since that project took me out of my comfort zone I turned to some smaller/quicker/easier (for me) projects.
I had this cute little horse bracelet charm/connector from Inviciti so I cut a piece of black leather and stitched the pewter horse on with some turquoise nugget beads and seed beads using waxed linen. I glued on some end caps, added a clasp and voila! Sweet little leather horse bracelet.

Leather bracelet with pewter horse charm & turquoise

Next I decided to make a landscape tapestry for a vintage copper horse pin that my mother-in-law had given my daughter when she first started riding horses. I have no idea where she got the copper pin but it appears quite old and it has been sitting on a shelf in my studio for a long time. (yes, I stole it from my daughter!) Maybe, I'll give her this weaving since it really is her horse;-)

I am still a newbie when it comes to weaving and trying to weave the circular sun into the sky was a tad challenging and then I ended the top portion of the sky with yarn that was much smaller weight than I should've used to finish it off. But I do like the colors. And the copper horse fits right in.
(note to self-keep: keep practicing and GET a LARGER loom)

I was itching to do something in embroidery. I have a couple of horse rubber stamps, so I used brown ink and stamped the 'wild horses' on gray linen. Then used a pen to write my text. This Rolling Stones song was stuck in my head for days so I had to stitch it. I want to do another one with the other line of lyrics "wild horses, we'll ride them someday".

 Using rubber stamps is pretty cool for getting your design on the fabric. I will definitely be trying more of my stamps with stitching.
My other horse stamp was the inspiration for the carving on the wood panel above. I grabbed a sheet of journal paper that I did some rust dyeing and eco printing on last fall. The leaves printed very faintly on this one but the rust colors are really nice. I stamped the horse stamp on the page with copper ink and then used some pan pastels and gel pens along with some walnut ink and now I have a finished journal page. I am working on a whole stack of these eco printed/rust dyed pages and plan to create a journal with these one day.

Horse stamped on eco printed/rust dyed journal page

I am so excited to venture out to everyone's blog and see what they created this month. These theme challenges are so much fun! Thanks to everyone who participated.
Go take a look at all our participants & their creations.

 Guests:

Alysen
Anita
Beth
Catherine
Jill
Paulette
Raven
Sarajo
Tammy

AE Team Members:

Caroline
Claire
Jen 
Laney 
Lesley 
Marsha 
Niky
Sue

Art Elements Nest Theme Challenge

If you follow our AE blog regularly you know that we have switched out the Component of the Month design challenge for a theme based challenge every month. I just happened to be on the schedule for this month's host and I chose a Nest theme. Perfect for springtime!
Before I even posted the original AE post announcing the theme I had a bazillion ideas for projects this month. I really wanted to try and complete as many as possible. Well, I managed three.

Here is my first piece-an assemblage loosely based on work by artist Joseph Cornell. I love creating assemblages but it has been a while since I played with this art form.

It can be a struggle trying to gather components together without looking like you just glued a bunch of stuff in a box.
 I used a cigar box which I painted with matte black chalk paint, then rubbed the edges with Gilder's Paste. Then I painted a wash of payne's gray to create the moon on the back of the box. I sketched a great horned owl on watercolor paper with a wash of burnt sienna. I backed the owl with a second piece of watercolor paper before cutting it out to stiffen it up and attached it to a stick so that the owl could float among the elements and create some dimension inside the box.

Then arranged and glued some seed pods, leaves, bark with lichen, twigs and finally my favorite little sparrow nest that I found in the yard. It had been vacated by the birds and the wind had blown it out of the tree.

Second next project has such a long, lengthy story behind it that I will probably create a blog post for this next week for my regular AE post. It is based on the quote- "You cannot stop the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can stop them nesting in your hair." by Eva Ibbotson.  The quote has also been attributed to a Chinese Proverb with slightly different wording.

I started with a styrofoam head, and she does have a nest in her hair but as you can see the bird was not allowed to nest there because the nest was filled with little scrolls that have some personal meaning for me. Stay tuned for more on this project over at AE in April.

And the last piece was just to see-what if?

I took some alpaca curls in various shades of brown and gray. Rather than felt them into the fabric I used heavy weight cotton thread to loosely stitch them down and build them up to create a 3-d nest sitting on fabric with a camouflaged print that resembles tree bark. After I coaxed the wool fibers up and around into the nest shape, I needle felted some little eggs to stitch down inside the nest.

although, I didn't complete ALL the projects I had floating around in my head, I am happy I was able to finish these three. I am looking forward to blog hopping and checking out all the creations of our guests and the AE team members.
Go have a look for yourself!

Guest Participants-
Alysen
Anita
Divya
Kathy
Kym
Mona
Rosantia
Sarajo
Tammy


 AE team members-
Caroline
Claire
Jenny
Laney
Leslie
Lindsay
Marsha
Niky

Thanks to you all for playing along this month!

February's Component of the Month-Runes

Over at Art Elements, the February Component of the Month's host was Niky. She made lovely runes in copper metal clay that you can see in the photo below. 

As soon as I saw these beauties I knew I wanted to participate in the challenge. My first idea was a talisman type necklace. Then when I received mine in the mail and saw which one I got I knew for sure that I was going to create a necklace for myself that resembled a collection of talismans or good luck charms. Per usual I failed to photograph mine until the beading was underway (below).

I received the rune above, marked with an M. 

Runes were the first system of writing developed and used by the Germanic people prior to the Latin alphabet.  They functioned as letters but have much more meaning. The word rune means both letter & secret or mystery. You can check this site out if you'd like to learn more about Norse mythology and runes.

I searched the Elder Futhark runic alphabet for the description of mine. The 'M' rune is Ehwaz, pronounced as 'E'. Its symbolic image is the horse because this rune represents movement or transportation. I searched for stones associated with it and came up with Iceland Spar also called Optical Calcite on one website. Agate and opal were listed on another site. Iceland Spar/Calcite stone seemed to work better for the plan I had in mind.

I beaded around the stone with an asymmetrical assortment of beads. I wanted the stone to look as though it was found among some ancient rocks and pebbles. I used some etched seed beads, copper beads and raku ceramic beads.

I had already planned to combine the beaded pendant with some copper wire so I could create a suspended bar to hang my charms/talismans from.

After attaching the copper wire to the beaded rune, I made some charms to dangle from the bottom wire. I found some rough Optical Calcite crystals on Etsy and pulled out my electroforming supplies to create a copper band around the crystal so I could hang it. I also found the cute little pewter horse charm from Inviciti. I think the horse charm fits perfectly with the ancient feel of this piece!
I also drilled some holes in small black & gray pebbles to hang from the bar. There are also some of the same raku beads and copper beads dangling in between the charms.

I debated about how to complete the necklace. A part of me wanted to go with leather deerskin lacing but I didn't have a dark brown and the black looked too harsh and new. I would prefer a distressed looking leather if I can find one.
In the meantime- I added a copper chain.

This challenge was so much fun. I loved doing the research for this as well as trying to find just the right components to compliment the ancient looking rune.
I can't wait to see what all the other participants have created with their runes.

Here's the list of guests and team members. Please go check them out & enjoy!

Guests:
Kelly Rodgers
Deb Fortin

Art Element Members:
Laney Mead
Lesley Watt
Caroline Dewison
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Susan Kennedy
Jennifer Stout Cameron
Claire Fabian
Lindsay Starr
Niky Sayers

December's Christmas Ornament Design Challenge

Over at the Art Elements site we are having a Christmas Ornament blog hop this month.
When Lesley first posted about the idea for December's design challenge I had a million ideas...
Well, as usual, life gets in the way of doing artsy things sometimes.
Since I am primarily a jewelry artist and secondarily a fiber artist I was going to do wire and bead ornaments. Didn't happen...
These happened instead-

Embroidered Felt Ornaments

This has been the year of my 1 Year of Stitches journey so I stayed with my stitching for most of my ornaments.  I got tons of ideas for felt ornaments on Pinterest and just ran with it. These felt ornaments are quick little stitchery pieces that can be completed in an hour or less. I just cut some templates from paper, then cut out the felt using the templates and started stitching. They are lightly stuffed with polyfil and then blanket stitched around the edge and tack on a ribbon for hanging. I have only made one snowman so far and I really need to make more. I think he's my favorite.

Woodburned ornaments

Then I happened to pick up some birch bark rounds and balsa wood stars at the craft store. So I decided to pull out my woodburning tool and play with that. Again, there is a ton of inspiration on Pinterest. It took me a while to get the pressure of the tool on the wood right and I also played with the different woodburning tips before I found the one I liked best. The above wooden pieces had to have holes drilled for adding the wire for hanging.

I really got into burning the trees onto the wood. The one on the right is supposed to have a heart in the center but it ended up looking like an almost sinister eye to me when I held it up. But I like it!

 Then I found these birch bark discs (above) that were packaged as 'ornament blanks' and they already had large holes with jute threaded in them for hanging. I may switch the jute out for some ribbon or wire?? Beware- the ones packaged as 'ornament blanks' were pricier than the birch bark rounds without the hole.

I love the wintry tree scenes. I have already given several of these as gifts.

A comparison of the plain birch bark rounds. The one on the left was just sold as birch bark blanks and the one on the right as 'ornament blanks'.  I used some acrylic paint to add the 'snow' on these pieces above.

 The balsa wood stars above were almost too soft. I kept presssing a little too hard with my tool and ended up gouging the wood in areas along with burning it. I used brown ink to sponge around the edges of the stars and added wire for hanging.

More birch bark rounds above with snowflakes and 'Peace' burned into the wood

A nice little colletion to give as hostess gifts, stocking stuffers, or even tie onto presents. Plus I am keeping a few for myself!

 After playing with woodburning tools and birch bark rounds I went back to stitching. This time I found some small 3" embroidery hoops to serve as the ornament. Just did some stitching, backed it with a piece of felt and now I will tie some ribbon around the top screw to serve as a hanger.

Felt stitched to back of embroidery hoop ornament, complete with cat hair!

Disclaimer--Don't look too closely at the photos of the felt ornaments. I have a cat who insists on sleeping in my lap while I stitch at night. The felt is basically velcro when it comes to latching onto cat hair. I thought I had lint-rolled all the hair off until I loaded the photos here-hahaha.  I plan to do a better job of removing the hair before I give them as gifts!

I can't wait to blog hop and see all the Christmas ornaments that everyone else has created. Happy blog hopping.

Here are all the participants:

Guest Designers

Kathy Lindemer

Hope Smitheram

Denise McCabe

Paisley Lizard

Samantha Westcott

Sarajo Wentling

Divya N

Linda Newnham

Melissa Trudinger

Art Elements Team

Susan Kennedy

 Caroline Dewison

Laney Mead

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Lesley Watt

LindsayStarr

Claire Fabian

Niky Sayers

Enjoy the creations by everyone!

October Component of the Month

This month over at Art Elements it was Niky's turn to host the design challenge. She created these
lovely coin clasps with a hare on them. Fortunately, I remembered to photograph it first but these little beauties are difficult to capture. My lighting was off in every photo and then this photo which I decided was the best is a bit out of focus. Ugh....

So here is Niky's photo of the clasps. Much better than the one above.

I knew when I received mine that I wanted to make it the centerpiece of the jewelry design rather than relegated to the back of your neck or the underside of your wrist. I am a beader but my experience lies mainly in bead embroidery and NOT bead weaving. I figured it was time to try and create a beadwoven necklace with this clasp at the front center. I mean how much harder can it be to do tubular peyote rather than a peyote bezel....haha
Well, I found out it is a tad more challenging. And of course you should never do something for the first time when you actually have to show it to people.  I searched my beading books to determine how many beads and what size beads I needed. I found a tubular peyote necklace that used 10gm of size 11 seed beads. I had the perfect beads for it. I had 10 gm exactly....Guess what, 10 gm got me about 2/3 the way around my neck.

At this point the tubular peyote looks pretty good, especially with the backdrop of my cat's fur. He was in my lap the entire time I beaded this.

So I decided to do a color blocked necklace with  coordinating solid color beads at each end. Okay, not too bad until I had to go back to the end I started beading and add the additional color at that end. It got very wonky, very quickly!?! What the heck did I do? First problem-when I wove in the ends adding the new thread I pulled WAY too tight which caused it to twist and become mishapen. But I persevered and was determined to finish.
So here is the necklace....

The original beads, which I ran out of are a really pretty silver lined matte amber AB. So they had tones of silver/gray, gold, and plum which I thought were perfect for the silver clasp with the copper hook/jump ring. The beads at each end are a dark matte plum. I used 14 gauge aluminum wire to insert into the tubular peyote and used silver bead caps to cover the ends of the tube. Then added copper jump rings to coordinate with the copper on the clasp. Initially I added a couple of extra beads between the ends of the aluminum wire and the clasp but it made the neckl too long for the clasp to sit properly at my neck. It kept flipping over and you couldn't see the hare. So this length is a choker but itis so light and flexible with the aluminum wire it's quite comfortable. BUT I hate the beading!
I am so unhappy with my attempt at this tubular peyote that I plan to rip it apart, order more beads and do it properly because this clasp is just too cool to not have a proper necklace attached! 

At the last minute before this post was scheduled to go live I decided to see if I could use this clasp to create something else until I have time to make a new tubular peyote necklace.
I came up with this bracelet... Using a piece of copper I had previously etched, paired with some copper jump rings, turquoise nuggets, copper bead and silver wire. The etched copper has a little verdigris patina on it.

I like it more than I like the wonky beaded necklace but I still WANT to bead a new necklace for this clasp.

Thanks to Niky for the lovely clasp! I enjoyed this 'test'.  It was definitely a learning experience for me. I intend to master the whole bead weaving thing;-)

Come join along in the blog hop and see what all the other team members and guests have created.
Linda Landig
Kathy Lindemer
Divya N

Art Element Team
Claire Fabian
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Susan Kennedy
Caroline Dewison
Lesley Watt
Diana Ptaszynski
Lindsay Starr
Laney Mead
Niky Sayers

September's Component of the Month

It was Laney's turn at hosting the Component of the Month design challenge over at Art Elements.
Laney makes the cutest whimsical lampwork beads you have ever seen. For this month's challenge she decided to make Zom-Bees!

Laney's Zom-Bees

I wanted to play along with this challenge but once I got the bead I had ZERO ideas about what to create. I decided a freeform peyote bracelet with the zom-bee as the focal would be perfect. Hmmmm. Didn't quite come together.


I make a commitment to myself at the beginning of the year that I would do some daily stitching with the groups 'A Year in Stitches' and '1 Year of Stitches' so I thought maybe I should create something using this cute little zom-bee as a centerpiece.

As soon as I decided to do some embroidery it all came together. This little bee needed a garden.
Sooooo, 'A Zom-Bee's Garden was born.

I thought black fabric as a background would make the bee stand out as well as the zombie flowers in the garden. 

Above you can see the adorable Zom-Bee Laney created much better. I used 2 howlite skull beads and the center skull is a ceramic charm I got from Lesley another team member.

The skulls make the perfect flowers for the zom-bee's garden, don't you think?
P.S. Please overlook the cat hair on the black background! My cat insists on laying in my lap at night when I stitch or bead. I was sure I had removed all the hair via lint roller but these close-ups prove otherwise.

I can't wait to blog hop and check out all the other participant's creations. Thank you Laney for creating these zom-bee beads.

Here's the list of participants:

Guests

http://fromthebeadboard.blogspot.co.uk/ - Linda

http://www.beadsforbusygals.com/  - Elisabeth Auld

Team

http://www.lesleywatt.com/ - Lesley  Watt

 

http://www.glassaddictions.com/blog  -  Jennifer Cameron

 

http://vintagebluestudio.typepad.com/vintage_blue_studio/- Diana Ptaszynski

https://jdaviesreazor.com/blog/  - Jenny Davis-Reazor

http://suebeads.blogspot.com - Susan Kennedy

http://blueberribeads.co.uk/ - Caroline Dewison

http://phantasmcreation.blogspot.com - Lindsay Starr

 http://cmendola.blogspot.com- Cathy Spivey Mendola

 http://saraccino.blogspot.co.uk/ - Claire Fabian

http://silverniknats.blogspot.co.uk/ - Niky Sayers

http://laneymead.co.uk/ - Laney Mead

Component of the Month Design Challenge

Over at Art Elements Caroline created the most beautiful starry bead sets for August's Component of the Month Design Challenge.
Below is the bed set that I received. The photo doesn't do them justice. The lustrous finish is just gorgeous and those stars on the central bead are brilliant.

I received these beads while I was working on a tuturial for etching brass bullet casings (you can see the dirty fingers in the above photo). As soon as my bullets were etched I knew the brass would look really good with these beads!
So I created a tassel of brass chains and seed beads to dangle from the bullet shell then added the starry bead at the top.

Once I create a pendant whether it's bead embroidered or a tassel type pendant, I am always torn about how to finish the necklace portion off... Of course I knew I would use the other 2 beads but I didn't know whether to use chain or more beads or leather etc etc etc.... Too many choices.
I ended up creating just a short beaded portion with some Beadalon wire crimped onto brass rings and then looped leather deerskin lacing into the brass rings to create a really long necklace.

Here's a close up image of the beaded portion.

I used some vintage glass coin shaped beads that are an antiqued golden color which worked well with Caroline's beads. I also used a few small brass cube beads and brass rondelle beads to complete the beaded section.

I was really happy with the way it turned out until I woke up at 4 am and started second guessing the leather portion! So I went back to the studio with the intention of taking the leather off and replacing it with brass chain. But you know what? When I looked at it I realized I really like the leather paired with it. So leather it is...
I really hate when I second guess myself. Sometimes when I step away from something that I'm not sure about & come back the next day, I can see it more objectively. This time I actually stuck with my first instincts and I'm glad.
I can't wait to see what all the team members and guests have created with these beads. Come join along in the blog hop and see all the creations.

Here's the list of participants-

Guests

Cheryl Zink

Kelly Rodgers

Art Elements Team

Diana Ptazynski

Cathy Spivey Mendola

Niky Sayers

Laney Mead

Susan Kennedy

Claire Fabian

Lesley Watt

Lindsay Starr

Caroline Dewison