"The whole universe - inside my hand" - Art Elements Component of the Month [August]

Edit: I am sorry for the late blog post. I had problems with my login. :(

Time just seems to fly. I am not sure where the year went by, let alone summer...

Everything is okay but I need more time to actually stop and realize this. I try to find some time in between, to have a day without any plans, to just sit on our balcony, drink some coffee and do nothing.

Still, I am at unease and realize now more than ever, that I have to take care to stop more often. To make it a habit and not the last safety line. I tend to overthink, to worry, to panic... and then to freeze. I work hard to differentiate what I can do and influence and what I just have to left to chance because I can't do anything about it. It sounds easier than it is especially if your heart is in it.

*sighs*

I don't want autumn and winter to come. Every year I like them less. Trust me, I have no problems being cozy in summer time! ;) But I hate the dark times more and more, I hate the cold and even more the dirty snow and ice in a city, and even more that the days seem always to be too short. Yes, there are a few beautiful days and it is nice when I am on holidays and maybe in the country side. But a few nice days... in contrast to a lot of wonderful days in summer? No comparison.

So here I am contemplating and rambling and whatever while it should be about the gorgeous beads from Caroline (you can find more of her beds here). She send them to us for the august "Component of the Month" (COM) challenge over at Art Elements (AE). They are little treasures and I played with them a lot, just looking at them (yeah... reading this again, it sounds a little bit strange? But I do love the tactile quality of beads).

Choosing what would go along is a quite meditative process and this time it got me thinking. Maybe it were the stars, maybe it was reminding me of the nightsky you can see during summer time on Formentera (we didn't manage to go there this year, one of the reasons I am a little bit down)...

I went with the combination of earth and sky. The more rustic beads combined with the shiny nightsky. I tried to link it all together by adding these small amber glass beads as spacer to repeat in a more subtle way the gold. I wanted to tie it together without overwhelming everything.

I also repeated the blue and gold using the same amber glass beads and some blue glass beads at the end. For me it holds everything together. While there are a lot of different colours, surfaces and textures used, I always try to get them coherent by the general shape of the work (here the bead sizes along the necklace) and like these repeating colours. By the way, the necklace can be worn as a choker or as a long necklace. Both works very well because of the nice weight of all the beads (you need some weight for a necklace to have a good fall).

Since Caroline send three beads, I used the big one for the necklace and the smaller ones for earrings. No, they are not meant to be worn together but of course can be! While the creation of the necklace was a nice flow as soon as I knew which beads I wanted to use and what kind of feeling it will represent (for me at least ;) ), the earrings were another story. I took them apart several times. Too much, to big, too.... I don't know. Often just not right. One version was combined with some gorgeous silk and it looked really good, but way too loud.

I love big and strange and weird and loud jewelery, don't get me wrong. But it has to be coherent. With the silk added, it seemed like two different stories. So it was a no again. In the end I used a very simple design. I turned the ends of copper wire so they would not go through the beads, wrapped it on top and finished. Let me tell you, simple as they are, they look stunning when worn! The pictures just don't give them justice.

Thank you so much Caroline! I really enjoyed working with your little galaxies!

And now please have a look what all the others made!

Guests
Cheryl Zink
Kelly Rodgers

Art Elements Team
Diana Ptazynski
Cathy Spivey Mendola
Niky Sayers
Laney Mead
Susan Kennedy
Claire Fabian (you are here)
Lesley Watt
Lindsay Starr
Caroline Dewison

Inside her head... there was a whole universe (January AE COM)

Usually I love showing you some pictures of the different creation steps of the "stuff" I create. In between being still ill myself, my husband still recovering from his operation, work, work and more work and my general winter induced low energy levels.... I simply forgot to take pictures.

This time we got a leather cabochon from Lindsay Star for our component of the month (COM) challenge over at Art Elements. If you are curious how she made them, have a look here (I also had to "steal" one of her pictures since I also forgot to take a good picture of the leather cab before I used it).

Don't you think that the all look like little galaxies? The idea of a nightsky was never leaving my mind when I pondered what I should do. Lindsay also send a lot of other little surprised along with the leather cabochon; beads, leather, fabric.... and a little wooden queen (nope, no princess, she has a scepter and the real crown on her head). Although she also reminds me of Alice somehow... maybe the style?

Seeing both together I knew I also wanted to use them together.

My table is always full of other materials and ongoing projects (nobody should visit me without a warning in advance ;)). There was the lid of one of those cheap and ugly little treasure boxes people buy as gift wrappings (to put a gift coupon or something inside). I couldn't get myself to throw them away (had two), instead I opted to take them apart... and let the parts lay around.

But the little queen and the leather cab universe were a perfect fit for the box lid. I added pages from an old book, painted all over the lid, drilled holes in the leather cab (that was scary!), added some glass drops (these were also send by Lindsay, aren't they lovely?), painted over the queen (I wanted to add my own touch and enhance the colours), added a layer of resin on her, cut the the labels from card board.... and finally wrapped and glued all together!

"Inside her head... there was a whole universe"

Please have a look what all the other participants made with the leather cab!

And thank you again Lindsay, I hope you like what I made with your treasures :)

PS: I am sorry that I am late with my blog post... I had troubles with my camera (still have).

Guests:

Ann 

Renetha 

Patty

Sherri

Kelly 

Linda

AE Writers:

Lesley

Laney

Lindsay

Caroline 

Cathy

Cooky

Claire (<-- you are here)

Diana

Jenny

Susan

Niky

"Moment" - Artist Trading Card

One of my favorites I ever made. Maybe even THE favorite ATC. It started quite randomly and gained shaped and contour, feeling and texture step by step.

I know it is an ATC but no, I will keep it with me! ;)