"Uliginous dreams" - Earrings

Uliginous dreams may sound strange, but seeing these earrings there are so many images coming up in my mind. The dark mood inside the swamps, all the lush growth of plants, the humid air, the air filled with natures own flavour, the strange mixture of flowers and decay, the water with all its life in between, overgrown and hidden. 

There is life everywhere. There seems to be movement around you, but as soon as you try to have a closer look, it is hidden again. 

The earrings jingle while moving, a light and playful sound. Something to lure you in, to tempt you to go deeper inside. 

The enamel metal pieces are tintins made by Kimberly Rogers from Numinosity beads. I love them and struggled a lot if I should really use them together with the brass toads. But nothing else seemed right, nothing except this combination. I oxidized the brass toads to get this dark brown to black surface. The earwires are made from oxidized copper.

And in case you are curious: Have a look at the back! You can see how all the little chains are attached. There are a lot of different chains, all of them upcycled from old jewelery (from the stash Rumpels mother gave me). 

Combined with czech glass bead drops. Julie (from uglibeads) send me some glass etching solutions to play with and see if I need it (the answer is yes! Thank you again soooo much Julie!) and I used it to get these matte glass drops. The clear ones would not have been fitting for my feeling of deep hidden swamps. 

I am just in love and enchanted by these earrings! The movement, the sound, the colours... and most of all, the hidden stories!

 If you want them, you can get them here in my shop :)

Inspiration: Critter (At night - meeting with a toad, Leipzig)

Here is the little one. 

I made this picture with flash light so you can see the toad.

Some impressions without flash light. 

I like the results. They have a certain feeling and colours :)

And yes, on every picture is the little toad :)

And you can see how good my eye is trained to find critters even at night. All thanks to my biology studies ^^

Toad - needle book

There is a lot of fabric stash owned by me. ^^ Leftovers from former projects or recycled fabric or or or... From such fabric scraps I made the top of the needlebook. Just one small stripe of red in the back as contrasting colour. The toad is made of different kinds of fabric paint. Normal one but also metallic effect paints or this fluffy-after-heating paint. I though that this would make the skin of the toad more suitable or to use another word. warty! ;) Blue ribbons for closure...

Inside a little bit of black nylon for elastic pockets and some grey felt to put the needles there. The opening of the pockets is to the inside so if they will be stuffed with thing the won't fall out if the needle book is closed. Hope it will function this way! You can see some of my batic dyed fabrics and some stamping with my carved tentacle or fish stamps.

There are a place for all kind of needles: Sewing needles, needles for small beads and of course dissection neddles (being a biologist, yes, this kind of needles also belongs in a needle book, just as a matter of principle!).

It is also with a thick layer of stuffing (like the one you use for quilts) so it is also useable as a pincushion. Oh, I forgot, there is also a place for pincushions in the book!

I already made it some days ago but it was a gift for a friend of mine :)