Use What You Have #2 & #3

Made these as Christmas gifts.

And made this for myself to match the bracelet

Visitors!

This is some of the mob of corellas that visit us every few days. Lots of flying, swooping, squabbling and eating too! A bit of seed and we have free entertainment with breakfast. 
They also have the most joyous calls

Using What You Have

We need beads and treasures so that other creations can be born. We have our stash to which we constantly add- busy jackdaws,  always on the look out for one more bead, one more ultimate prize. 

The stash/cache/treasure chest grows until it becomes a dragon's hoard and beware, lest we become like an ancient dragon ensconced in our remote, secret  lair, coil upon scaly coil curled around our hoard, guarding it, crooning to it, only ever adding to it, not creating.

There have been several posts about using what we have, not rushing out and buying more because what we have does not fit the vision of the inward eye and the inner eye is often what stops us from seeing the potential in what we have.

So I was cleaning up the debris which, by some mysterious process had manage to colonise every horizontal surface and returning beads to the appropriate colour group when I spotted these top drilled biwa pearls in irridescent olive green with flashes of emerald and gold ,nobbled and mis-shapen  gleaming and shining like pebbles in a rainforest stream. The holes were really too fine for 20g wire so I idly wrapped them with finer wire. Hmmmm interesting could be useful. In a compartment next to the pearls a czech glass round with a rusty spiral imbedded in a tawny picasso finish. Spirals like new growth or the eddies in a stream a perfect partner to the pearls.

I continued to clean and buried under my 'vertical filing system' came across a spiral of jump ring I had been making and had removed from the mandrel. They had been flattened and pushed out of shape an organic tangle like butress roots or vines. The rush to create came fast, but did I have anything else to go with these treasures? .There were these seed beads in metalic rust, ferny green and bronze - perfect!. Some rollo chain in my obsession - vintaj brass and this bracelet was born.

So here it is.
Turning off the inward eye, seeing the potential in what is on hand and a bit of serendipity.

I love it. 
I love the colours, the movement and how it drapes and I am going to keep it for myself!

. . . And then there were 20

You may remember I posted pictures of 3 orphaned Tawny Frogmouths a while back, well they have now become 20!

These are the latest two and one is just a little dot.

Here they are snuggle up with the big kids in the flight aviary

These birds are nocturnal and are fed at dusk, before we go to bed and early morning. I tried to get all 20 of them on the one branch, but they could see daddy with breakfast and wouldn't stay put. Another month and they most will be released back into the wild.

Brocade

This piece is inspired by Esther, from Mes Illusions Baroque.

A while ago she blogged about a necklace in which she used pieces of lace wire wrapped to a copper wire frame.

The fragments of coloured lace fit perfectly with the copper and create a great textural element.
She has posted a few pink themed designs and although I am not a pink person, I think Esther could convert me. 
So here's my version.

Textured aged brass frame, polymer clay focal, vintage german glass amethyst bi-cones, clear facetted czech glass, a fibre wrapped joiner (just to tickle your fancy) and 2 flavours of vintaj brass chain. The clasp is also textured to match the focal.
Had fun making this!

Hardware Challenge - Pivot Point

Erin from Treasures Found is having a challenge, which is to create a piece of jewellery using items from the hardware store.

Wooooo hooooo one of my fave places, along with tool shops, engineering supplies and anything that turns, clips together, unscrews or is beautifully machined.

I chose some cotter pins, also called split pins and joy of joys they came in brass!.

Heated them until dull red to give them an aged appearance and strung them with brass washers, seed beads spacers and some vintage brass (there's that word again). Not sure on the clasp may rework that. Pronounced 'cool' by number one daughter.

Blue Planet Earrings

Have these gorgeous czech glass beads with the most beautiful picasso finish which is more pronounced on one side. It reminds me of the sea and coral reefs seen from space. So the beauty would be lost in a necklace, but with earrings I was able to put the 'best side to London'

Fabricated and wrapped Vintaj brass with tiny czech glass cubes, a facetted metalic bead and a cute little square charm with a heart that has had an aged patina applied.
So, what do you think?