Butterfly Car Dangly!

Okay, so this isn't for sale, really it's a "spoil myself project" but someone's got to do it...however. If interest is shown in the design concept I'll be happy to make more (though each one will be different because I want to keep them all "original")

But, as anyone who knows me can tell you, I'm madly in love with butterflies, particularly monarchs and so voila!

<3 Handmade!

Hey you guys! I just entered a contest on Etsy for a "Handmade Moment" promotional video!

Come by and watch mine and show your support (vote for me! :D)

Thanks for all of your support!

Naware

of

Faith Works

Faith Works & Cottage Crafts Collaboration

As sometimes happens, arts from different mediums will get together to work on group projects. Each adding "their little something" to the whole and thereby making something that neither could do alone.

This hanging platter, (though finished posthumously of one of the artists) is something that I have finally gotten off of my "to do list" as an artist. Ever a fan of eclectic home decor I thought it would look nice suspended from a ceiling (though not outside because it's only so durable). I used a 48 lb, 3 ply black jute fiber to suspend it and worked in a variety of half knots and over hand knots. The platter itself is white stoneware, with a flower, root, and various other shapes pressed into it. It is glazed on the top only with a red glaze with white splotches.

Aradia Goseling did the knotwork and Stephanie Wheeler made the platter.

Long & Awaited # 2

This is a second necklace order I am working on, though the focus of this piece is on the 2 beads with writing that was woodburned onto the beads by yours truly.

No easy task, the order called for a sentence in Russian. Due to the language set up and the fact that words like "is" "the" and "a" are not used in Russian, the sentence was "dumbed down" into 2 simple verbs in their _ form.

What's more is that the original design is actually a bracelet, so calculations had to be done to account for the lack of fiber and of course various other modifications to the pattern, like taking off danglies, removing extra beads and adding another decorative knot as the centerpiece...

Custom Order...

And voila, or ta-da! (Whichever you prefer...) Here we have a necklace that has been just short of 4 months in the making. Between nailing down specific beads and for what and why, finding various other supplies, such as the fiber and clasp options, to attaching the beads and the physical making of the necklace it's been quite an adventure!

Jewelry making isn't something I would call difficult or necessarily skilled (as most things improve with practice and the use of the right tools). However, working up a pattern or altering one, be it a substitution or just a concept is a wholly different can of worms, so to speak. But for all the time and effort spent, I think it turned out great and not at all what I had first envisioned, but something far better, for this is the version that made it to reality!