Flight of the Dragonfly Challenge

I love dragonflies, they are so amazing to watch and a little scary when they buzz by your head if you are not expecting it.  I decided to join in on the Dragonfly challenge presented by KraftyMax on the Bead Soup Cafe Facebook group I belong to.  Not one design is the same in this challenge.  I decided to paint up my dragonfly.  I have 2 paintings, one I actually was able to finish before the cut off date. So here are the examples of my creation..This is a Blog/No Blog Hop, so those who have a blog to share I have listed them below my images..

I found these awesome beads at Beads On Main, its one of our local bead stores and she has some amazing stuff there...I also got the square link/connector which is beautiful!

I started to make the bead-work on the sides and didn't like how it was turning out, maybe 3 times I had to tear up the pieces I started to make.  I ended up using the glass cylinder beads and just love how it finally fit into place.

Before I put the bead work on and tightened it all up to fit both sides nice and snug, I glued a nice peace of leather on the back side.

And finally the sari silk was the last thing I added.  I made the J hook clasp and beaded up a little band around the wire which is wrapped around the silk that is looped around the end of the hook. Phew...that was a mouthful!  Hehe

This is a better view of the pendent.  You can see now where the word DRAGON is written and FLY, and the heart.  Now, see if you can find my signature...LOL

Here is a close up of the clasp, simple and does a nice job!  Its quite comfortable too.  Its made with blackened steel wire and I sealed it with some really good spray..sorry, too lazy to go find the brand name...LOL  I will get it later.  :-)

Finally another cabochon I painted for this challenge but didnt have enough time to get it finished.  I think this one turned out quite lovely.  It is painted with watercolors and sealed with resin.  It is still in the works and hope to finish it soon.  I struggled a lot with this pendent.  I am not all that experience at beadwork, I consider myself a beginner/intermediate beader.  I wound up being a tad too loose once I got to beading the upper half, but I found a way to tighten it, and I am quite pleased with the finished work..

I am very happy to announce that I am FINISHED with the second dragonfly.  I need to start naming my pieces.  I think it would be great if I had the wits to come up with some fun names...but no..I just am not all that good at it...Hmmm...I think I need to call my BFF in NY.

Wow...are you feeling the love???  This dragonfly looks grumpy though, but when I had a nice close up picture, that is really what their faces look like...those frowns...  Its hard to see in this picture, but the yellow beads I bought to match the body of the dragonfly.  The yellow and black beads were mixed on the strand and I just knew they would match quite well.  And those huge lavender beads...wow..to see them in person they are beautiful and add some magic to the dragonfly.

I went shopping the other day at Michaels, and found these great dragonfly pendents.  I thought...hmmm..I might use this sometime, and they were on sale..which is always a benefit! I didnt know I was actually going to use the pendent in my design, but when I finished the beadwork, it looked a little naked still..so yea, the dragonfly looks really nice.  I added some patina to kind of match the dragonfly painting.

I struggled some with the clasp...wasnt really wanting to make the J hook, but I did.  I refused to go to the bead store one more time...cuz you know you cant just buy one thing there...  So after I wrapped the wire around the fabric and leather...it still needed something to tie into the design...it was just too plain for me.  Then, the flower spoke to me...and I put it all together and it was done.. Ahhhhh...   The fabric, just so you know, came all the way from Ireland.  When hubby and I went there several years ago, I saw this fabric in one of their side shops..  I love how it shimmers, and being that at the time I was making lots of mermaid dolls, I thought this would be a great piece to bring home.  Funny thing is, I never used it to make any of my dolls yet..and that was probably...hmm...10 years ago now...maybe 8.  It is a purple fabric with a blue shimmer, perfect match!

You can visit my flickr page to see all the photos I have taken of my designs

Flickr

Thank you very much for stopping by and please take a peek at some of the other participants...

http://www.jewelschoolfriends.com/2014/06/the-411-on-cool-community-events-design.html

http://www.paisleylizard.com/blog.html

http://www.peru-medesigns.com/

http://bytameraleah.com/

http://skyescreativechaos.blogspot.com/

http://www.lamplightcrafts.blogspot.com/

Cabochons

Well, I think I got the right mix of things now with my newest creations, Cabs!  Cabochons have been very interesting to me these days and I have seen sooo many beautiful ways to make them.  I decided I would put my own touch into making these little creations.  I have had several rejects which I will share with you here...  But now that I think I have it going good, I went ahead and listed them on my etsy which I will give you the links below

This is my first piece. It looks great, but is too thin...but its still a nice piece.

This is really pretty but when I put the resin on top, I did it wrong and the resin ended up being really thick and has a lip on it that I need to remove.

Basically I still have these 3 pieces.  The orange starfish I made into a pendent and its going to be on a beautiful necklace which you will get to see soon..  I promise, it will be well worth the wait!

In the first batch, I lost 2 pieces due to the resin leaking past the tape.  I learned later from an awesome group of ladies on a facebook group I belong to, how to do the resin the correct way.  Phew!  So glad to have beading buddies!

What I do, is hand draw on the piece with pencil, shade it in with pencil, add the water colors, then spruce it up some with white acrylic paint and a hint of ink pens.  Heat set them and put a layer of resin on top to add that extra shine and it also helps with the durability of the cab.  I tried 3 different brands of clay.  One, which I have to order is the Kato clay...love it!  Second is the Craft Clay which is the Michaels brand...HATE IT! and Sculpy 3 which works really well but is not quite strong, but I do like how easy it is to work with.  I have used Sculpy clay for a long time with just other stuff, but not as a cabochon.  I think since I dont have to order the clay and its easily found at Michaels, I will just continue to use this.  I will do a clay comparison later..

So, now for the final fun creations... Now available on my Etsy shop...

Pink Starfish

Sunrise Whale

Sunset Whale

Reveal Day of 11th Non-Blogger & Blogger Challenge

Actually the reveal date for the WINTER FOREST challenge was yesterday, but you know me...always a day behind.  I decided to join this challenge because I fell in love with the painting which we had to get our inspiration from.

I thought it would be great to sort of recreate the painting and turn it into my own.  I have been interested in learning more about working with polymer clay and making pendents and when I saw Dini's painting I just had to do this.

So I made a simple drawing, then got to work.  I made the cab from polymer clay.  I then drew on the cab and added some soft pencil blending to help deepen the colors once I started painting them on.  I first sprayed the pencil with Flexatif spray so the pencil wouldn't rub off.

I then misted the piece with water and added the paints little at a time and heat set in between the layers....

Next, I drew darkened the shading with pencil again, and wrote Winter Forest on the bottom with permanent ink, then heat set that.

I then painted white acrylic paint blops to create the snow and drew more lines for texture.  I sealed the pendent with 3 coats of high gloss spray.

See the snow...and the fun heart on the trunk? 

Then it took me a day or two to decide on how I was going to finish on the pendent.  I have done beaded pendents before, but not using the embroidery beading technique.  So I challenged myself a bit when I decided to learn to do embroidery beading.  I made a quick pit-stop after work on one of my crazy days...lol...and picked up some leather scraps at Joann fabrics...ran the rest of my errands and when I got home, I got to work.  I had all the beads on hand so that was the easy part.  It took me, well, lets see, maybe 3 or 4 attempts before I finally got it working smoothly.  Im still not 100 percent happy with the results of the bead work, but I think it turned out ok.

Then, today, when I got home and logged onto facebook...there it was!  The reveal post...and my mind was a tad on overload!  I was not finished yet with the piece.  I didnt have the bail beaded, I didnt even have the chain or rope or what ever I was going to use to hang it onto!  Then, suddenly, the light bulb came on...I had made a rope with denim one day for fun, before Christmas, and it was sitting in my kumihimo box.  That is what I needed..that is why I made that rope!  So, once I got that all figured out and put together... it was time for the photo shoot.  Thank goodness that was a quick ordeal.  I loaded up photoshop and did my quick crop and sharpen and any other little fixes and posted the final picture on the challenge page.

But before I posted the picture, my mind started playing games on me.  I was thinking...OMG, maybe Dini will think I was copying her painting...maybe I was in the wrong for making this.. So I asked for some advise from an awesome beading artist and she was kind enough to tell me that she felt the pendent was beautiful and if it was her painting, she would have been happy with what I have created from the painting.  I hope Dini feels the same...

Thank you for reading all of this...and I hope you go to the hop and vote for my piece... XO

My Tree of Life challenge to myself

Today, I decided to make my drawing come to life.  I drew this picture earlier this week.  It took me a few times of going back to the drawing to finalize the way I wanted to put this together.  I actually took a bazillion pictures of each step, perhaps making a tutorial in the future.  I still need to figure out what I am going to make to use as the bail.  I do think it turned out really close to my drawing and what I actually had in my head...

Please feel free to leave a comment on this piece, I would love to get some feedback.