L'Air du Temps Redux

This tiny perfume sample bottle made a simply cool pendant for my 12-yr-old granddaughter. She picked out the bottle, a vintage L'Air du Temps bottle by Nina Ricci, and let me work it up… just for her. I loved this one so much, I need to make myself one just like it now!

Deep garnet red glass beads fill the bottle just part way… so they can move and shake. Making their presence known. The bottle is wrapped with aged copper wire and it hangs from a length of antique brass colored mini-ball chain. With the wire wrap, this pendant measures 1 & 1/2 inches tall.

All that's missing is a photo of my darling girl wearing her new pendant.

Perfume Bottle Pendants

What do you do when someone gives you a bucket load of tiny vintage sample perfume bottles?

And I do mean tiny...

If you're me, you start wire wrapping them into jewelry...

Which quickly becomes an obsession...

This one once contained Nina Ricci's scent, Capricci. I filled the empty bottle with gold seed beads and used black steel wire for the wrap.

This next one is called Odalisque, by Nettie Rosenstein. It still had a few drops of caramel colored syrupy scent inside, which I decided I liked the look of, so I glued the lid on tight and just wrapped the neck of the bottle to let the color and the oval shape of the bottle show.

The one above is an oddball, with a very faded unreadable label. It's filled with the same seed beads I threaded onto the wire as I did a messy abstract wrap in copper. Just under 1.75" tall.


Next, INTOXICATION, by D'Orsay. I can't help it... this one knocks me out.

I filled this little 1.5" bottle with crinkled up gold leaf foil.

Kept the wrap simple and used black steel again.

So, what's next? Stay tuned... I just bought twenty-one more vintage bottles on etsy!

Art & Soul 2011- Part Two

Had a wonderful time yesterday in Lisa Call's "Charm School" workshop at Art and Soul. Playing with PMC (stands for Precious Metal Clay) for the first time made me nervous at first. After much trepidation and doubt on my part, I did finally learn that I actually can push myself a little and end up with a lovely bling-y reward in the end! Yes, my friends... PMC + fire = nearly pure REAL silver charms that are uniquely your own!
My charms really show their organic handmade-ness... which doesn't bother me in the least. I'll admit that I hurried through the process of rolling, stamping and cutting out the clay bits, due to fear of not getting them finished, dried and into the kiln by our lunch break. I can see now that I'd have rather put more thought into choosing the rubber stamps and shapes that I used, but I still love the outcome.

Some of the other students had previous PMC experience and weren't quite so intimidated by the necessary careful handling... fear of having it stick to everything, drying out too soon, etc. I saw some really wonderful  textures and patterns in some of their charms!

You can see that many of our charms look to be sort of tarnished... and that is by design. They came out of the kiln looking a rather funky matte white, then were wire-brushed to a bright, gleaming silver which I didn't get photos of. These have all been dunked in a bath of liver of sulpher to give them a dark oxidized patina, then tumble polished.

These next shots are Janne's work... a woman who came to Art & Soul all the way from Norway, and turned out to be friends of another good friend of mine. Such a small world! Janne managed to get her bracelet assembled and it looks really wonderful.

We also learned how to make our own headpins from fine silver wire by melting the end in a torch flame to form a lovely little silver ball. I'm now asking Santa for my own Blazer butane torch.

I'm still working on polishing my coiled links and jump rings, then will get busy assembling my bracelet. This was a great class and reinforces my desire to take off in this direction and make more jewelry.

Valentine Treasures: Upcycled Hearts

 
For my own sweethearts, my two darling granddaughters... I invented these little upcycled love bundles. Each got an altered Altoid tin with treasures inside. These are painted and collaged with bits of vintage paper, then distressed and aged. The text on the big hearts is clipped from vintage sheet music lyrics.

Inside each tin... waxed paper stitched around heart-shaped pieces of a vintage sheet music love song... their names stamped on & rusty vintage keys tied on with pink satin ribbon.

Then, some wearable art... funky-chunky Valentine charm necklaces.

Little bits of this and that, salvaged from my boxes of buttons, beads and ephemera... wire-wrapped as charms, hanging on a glittery vintage plastic curtain ring.

Last, but not least... the sweetest Valentine treasures of them all... 

The very thought of them makes my heart smile!

Bazaars R Us

It's that time of year. Long tables end-to-end, covered with black cloth and wares of all kinds spread out for viewing, ooohing and aahing. Last weekend was the annual "Hometown Christmas" event in my small community, which for me involved sharing a table again with my good friend, watercolor artist Carolyn Sawyer. If neither of us sold a darned thing, we'd consider it a day well spent... as we've spent it together.

This was a one-day bazaar, December 4th, and was not quite as successful for me as Birdfest. I brought some of the same bamboo bird pendants I did for that event... and some new pendants that featured my own collage artwork. They're definitely unique... not for everyone... although I was sometimes surprised at how well received they were by people I would never have guessed would give them a second look!

I also had some bead crocheted necklaces this time. The bead and button strands drew the most interest and sales. Thanks indeed to that creative young lady in Stockholm that I borrowed inspiration and ideas from in making these fun pieces! (You know who you are!)












The pendant on the left (below) features a print of a collage I made a year ago for my sister's daughter (photo used for the face is from an ArtChix collage sheet). My original OOAK collage pendant on the right was purchased by the lovely Jenine.

Carolyn's phenomenal paintings in greeting card form... they were wildly popular this year!

It was great to see some old friends... and to make new ones. I bartered a pendant for a lovely little bag of old buttons, and another for a one of Carolyn's prints... her new "Spirit of Christmas", a snowman and a magical fairy gifting him with some sparkling fairy ju-ju!

Bird by Bird

Getting ready to share a vendor space with my good friend, Carolyn Sawyer, at Ridgefield's annual Birdfest and Bluegrass event, coming up October 9th & 10th. I wasn't quite sure what to do at first. Most of my work is not typically bird or wildlife oriented. But, I've been playing around with making Scrabble and bamboo tile pendants and charms using vintage bird images, and I think I might have found a winner.

I found a great vintage bird collage sheet on etsy and have been (pardon the pun) "winging it"... figuring out how to best stick the images down, seal and finish them. The trickiest part has been trying to remember my wire-wrapping techniques to make these pre-drilled tiles into pendants. I'm playing with different ideas, and think I have it worked out.

My personal favorite is the black annealed steel wire. It's a little stout, so I've got to hone my wrapping technique... but I think it looks great when burnished with a little steel wool. I may add beads and charms to the bottom loop, and am determined to use up what beads and wire I already have in order to keep my overhead very low for this event!

These Scrabble tile charms were fun. I had them lying around... already drilled and outfitted with wire loops from when Karl and I were doing jewelry forever ago.  I used a one-step crackle glaze by Ranger as a finish over these, then highlighted the cracks using Distress Ink.




Fooled around a little bit with some quickie bird-themed collage pieces. Here's one that's not quite finished yet...

It needs some added elements yet... a few border highlights and an aging treatment. I did decide, though, that the polar fleece & Keens-wearing, Subaru-driving Birdfest crowd probably isn't quite ready for my *ahem* more "eclectic" work.

Have I mentioned how much I love crows? Ravens and crows are my favorite birds of late, so I started with that and went off in a bit of a strange direction that I'm afraid only I can appreciate. Will keep working on some of these ideas, and do more crow-related things around Halloween. Stay tuned!

By the way, be sure to stop by my friend Carolyn's website and take a look at the gorgeous paintings in her gallery! She will have prints and greeting cards of many of these at Birdfest.