Jewelry Making Morning

It has been a tough few days for our family. My husband's father has been on a respirator and not seeming to get much better. Friday our oldest dog had a seizure and when we took him to the vets he was diagnosed with lymphoma and it had spread throughout his body. We were able to get him on steroids and to buy some time so the girls each could have some time to say goodbye. Add on top of that youngest child was off to Israel and hubby was having to drive to NYC with her.
So the dogs had me up early today and I was not teaching Hebrew school so I had a few hours to myself.
I got out my beading supplies and with no pre-set ideas started to work on some projects.
As you will see there is really no rhyme or reason no theme, just using some of my stash to bring some joy and light into my house and into my soul.

 The hearts are made at the Corning Glass Museum they are normally $20 per class to make one heart, I was lucky at the annual Studio Sale I got them for much less. I usually make very symmetrical necklaces so I enjoyed doing different chain on each side.

The next piece is for Valetines day and is made up of Art-i-cake pendant and head pins. Added crystals and beads to the head pins I love how the queenbee seems to be flying off the flower.

The next pieces is an ICE RESIN bezel with small cut out hearts and an embedded key. It was place on a dark metal chain. It was a fun project I did with 3 girlfriends and my first time using resin I am quite pleased with it.

 This is a sterling silver and stone pendant I had first made years ago with wire wrapping I did not like how the metal had tarnished and did not wear it much. I cut it all apart add some wonderful barrel stones, the ceramic beads are also from the Corning Glass Museum studio sale. I put the clasp on the side it is a large leaf and added some playful metal bird beads. I am thrilled with the piece and know I will start wearing it again.

This is a iolite and peart pendant I have had for years it was special and I was not ready to put it together. Iolite is tricky as it seems blue one moment and purple the next. I got hold of some really nice barrell pearls and decided to just match the white pears and clear crystals. I used 3 sizes of graduated pearls. I just love how it turned out very elegant and one I will keep for years and years to come.

Snow People of Hector

The large snow woman was an ugly $1 doll from the Bargain Bin in Montour Falls. Working in Gail Walker's Studio I deconstructed the jacket and scarf- added a ruffle,  4 Jewish stars free embroidered on the sewing machine to make the scarf into a tallit. I made a flower rosette for the cap-the stamens were re-purposed from the beads that had been her smile. She was missing her nose hence the $1 price tag- so Gail whittled one for me and colored and covered it in orange glitter. Her jacket button is an old military button with an eagle and an anchor.

The three snowmen are made of Crayola paper clay seed beads for eyes and mouth. They sport brass military buttons with eagles. The large one we made a striped stocking hat with a pipe cleaner center so the stocking cap can be positioned. Base was a re-purposed plaque we removed the wire hanger. The bottom of the snowman has heavy glitter and it was added to the base as well. 

The last snowman although the tiniest took the most time to make. He is in a handmade wired cage the base has book print paper and black glitter around the outside. The body is paper clay with pipe cleaner arms and legs, the scarf is wrapping string. His hat is hand made with paper cone fastened with a jewish bard, then glittered. The small tree was mod-podged and glittered. It is amazing the smaller one took as much time as making two of the big snowman.

Wednesday Wild Women of Hector

Gail and I had art play last night. We both worked on seperate projects.
My goal was to cover some very ugly large plastic dreidels with tissue paper paper mache and then glitter them all over.
Gail was working on her snowman and made a black stove top hat with wiring in the brim so she could shape it. We figured out the front of the snow woman Gail had found some wonderful trim in black cord with pearls down the middle and after her snow woman's bariatric surgery she needed a whole new outfit!
The removed skin and stuffing made a small snow person...so was it bariatric surgery or did she just deliver a baby......
Hopefully Gail will post some finished product pictures of the snow people!

Review: We tried Lucy's gluten free pumpkin cookies.....not good no taste, seriously do not buy these. They printed on the box "little spice so the pumpkin taste can come through". Sorry I do not want to eat straight pumpkin I like mine with spice-make me feel like I am having a slice of pumpkin pie......

Hector Art Retreat

I was at the first Hector GOODNESS GRACIOUS Art Retreat this past weekend.

GOODNESS GRACIOUS we had good food, good wine Villa Bellangio's Red Scooter, good apple hard cider and best of all good art making.

Saturday:
Washi tape clothes pins with hand made tags.  The tags could include photo's, hand stamped papers, stamping, sewing, washi tape, metal embellishments. All finished with Mod Podge, metal rivets in matching colors and ribbon hangers. Made for a holiday fair to sell and as personal gifts for family and friends. The trick was to make enough to have some to sell.

A Hanukkah (Chanukah, Hanukah you pick your favorite  English spelling) wall hanging owl- made from a hideous Salvation Army piece-we pulled off the plastic flocked Jewish symbols stitched on a tatted cream piece for the face, made fabric feathers, used a piece for the wings, sculpted with fabric ruffled leg feathers and added black lace talons, placed a felted beak--suddenly an adorable wall hanging was created. This is not for sale instead it is already hanging in my home studio.

We created earrings for sale at the holiday fair.
1 pair-Silver frog with shell body and repurposed metal flowers and heart.
5-pair Day of the Dead earrings made to resemble Frieda Kahlo and Salvatore Dali---some were made with glass skull beads and some with "stone" skulls-all adorable with crystals, metal finding, rosary beads.
6 pairs-Metal owls with bumpy brown beads that look like logs.

Sunday:
What we did not have a lot of  was sleep as we were up creating until 3:30 AM. Seriously we got busy and forgot to watch the clock.

After a restful sleep we took a mini-road trip to Watkins Glen for some house viewing. Savard's excellent breakfast and on the way back stopped for wine tasting at Idol Ridge newly opened winery. Lovely wine and a breathtaking view of Seneca Lake. We left with Traminette and Rieling to enjoy later.
Then back to the studio where art  multi-media magic continued to occur.

I will add  more pictures after the holidays as many of the items created are gifts and no sneak peeks here.

Halloween happening

I had loved the look of a paper-mache pumpkin on the Cloth Paper Scissor facebook page and sent the picture to Gail. She as usual was "yes we can do that"

So up the lake I went for a fabulous snack and a marathon pumpkin session. Now the paper-mache pumpkins were created on the plastic mold then cut off and reassembled. The with paint brush in hand I was off and creating. For handles we formed our own with coated wire and paper bats.

The last one just did not seem like a pumpkin rather a small mischevious bird-eating purple cat came to be. She is looking oh so innocent in her sporting a crepe paper bow-tie collar but that feather in the mouth really tells the whole story!  

Wild women Wednesday art: multimedia, resin and wine ) October 16

We managed to get all of us together at Karen's for a multi-media night with resin. We had bezels, bottle caps, home-made paper containers by Gail to layers pieces into. Lots of bits and pieces of old keys, old books new papers, glitter and beads to add dimension. As usual some wine to liberate the artistic muse!

This was my first time using resin and I enjoyed it alot. We had two different types a fast drying and a slower drying. It took a bit of team work to pour the fast drying before it set up too hard to pour smoothly.

Wild women halloween multi-media art- paper, glue, sewing machine and heat gun

Nancy and I drove up the lake on a beautiful fall day to Gail's house overlooking the lake.
Before we got down to some fun playful multi-media art we had a lovely repast of cheese, caramel corn, crackers and great conversation.

We put out a huge amount of supplies on the table: papers, pens, markers, pencils, stamps, stamping pads, commercial stickers, scanned and printed pictures of children, old books, crepe paper, glitter, embossing powders and all types of glue. Not to forget the large bottle of mod podge in front of me!

We all got busy and the fun began.Note how bare the table was to start......

Now the creativity and ideas are starting to flow

My finished pieces, the box on left has four different themes the side showing is the vampire child, second side was skulls stamped on old book paper, third side an owl and small boy with crepe paper fringe sewed on a skull cut-out border, the fourth side is an embellished photo of two small children. The middle piece is french paper box with an embellished baby photo the face was replaced by a Gail made black cat beer cap with a tissue paper hat with cardboard banding and skull border on the bottom. Lastly the front piece is a metal pail with the handle wrapped in satin, upper border is book cutouts the bottom orange 2/3rds is mulberry paper with crowns cut form the same book, a large skull was printed on and embossed with clear embossing powder (hence the heat gun noted in the title).

A walk on the beach

I loved in middle school while living in Hawaii to walk the beach at Barber's Point looking for sea glass and sea shells. I could do it for hours I was never one to just lie on the beach baking myself.

Well now a days I live far from any beach and only get to see the ocean on vacation which I relish and look forward too during the bleak gray days of Upstate New York Winters. I still love to roam the beach in search of treasures-sea glass, shells still call to me their siren call of the ocean deep.

This necklace with Art-i-cake is just fabulous!

Scary Halloween

I love the bizarre nature of halloween- the eyes of newt aspects to witch's lore. I have been collecting from ebay and etsy eye grass beads and saving them for something extra special. The focal bead is 3-d and has 3 sides. I then used crystals in stringing and two smaller eye beads

note the 3 d effect

gray black and silver crystals

Halloween my most favorite time of the year

I love halloween I seriously love halloween.

I so enjoy dressing up and start wearing my holiday jewelry from October 1 on.This year I am really excited about Art I Cake offerings at Michael's. I bought them and within a couple of days had 3 new necklaces to add to my month of fun.

I love the coffin shape of the skeleton the wire reminds me of femure bones, Accented with ribbon and crystals.

 The pumpkin is absolutely adorable. He is accented with glass clear beads, natural stone teardrop and faceted beads and metal spacers.













The last Art I Cake Blood Donor wanted was vampire inspired with a multi-layer chain the bottom chain has a large crystal hanging from it.

Challenges, Bring them On!

ClothPaperScissors has had two recent challenges one time consuming and one quick one.

The multi-media 6x6 inch square involved stamping with paint on linen using hand-made stamps by Gail Walker onefinepencil@blogspot.com, pencil eraser tips, a clay tool we used for dots and dashes. Then machine free hand embroidery a new skill for me. This was not as easy as it looked I sat frozen in front of the piece begging Gail to just let me put down a few lines. She is infinately patient and reassuring and when I finally put the needle through the piece I was off. Then hand embroidery a skill taught to me by me maternal grandmother on Woolworth cotton pillowcases in the 60"s. Grandma Hazel Koplin would of been proud my back was as neat as the front. As  my preferred media is still beading I included myself as a tiny bee bead.

MEANDERING THROUGH THE GARDEN

The second challenge was a 4x4"  Mulberry paper face drawing only using markers, pens and pencils.

SHE PAINTS 

As a bead artist these challenges stretch my skills and doing them with a friend makes it just that much more fun.

Yeti-dom

Here lives a couple

In the land of Yeti-dom 

He's green and she's gold

Reclycled J. Crew sweater with wool felt face belly and claws. Attached eyes and animal noses. Pattern from the imagination of Gail Walker and made in her Art studio. He is an older man made last week and she was just born yesterday. They are so soft and so cuddly!! 

Jacket completed

Worked with Gail  Walker on the last weekend in August on my Angelheart Flax jacket project. It was a piece of stamped linen a  orange brown large leaf, maroon small Japanese buds and a platinum rat. I then added prints-Asian and a crane print too and did embroidery free-style on the sewing machine- the leaf was a metal stamp discarded from a paleontology museum for the outline and free stitching inside.
I learned to use the serger to finish edges and that was quite fun!!

The last photo depicts the serged piece that wass added to the front two pockets and the similar material was added to the collar as well. It came out wonderful and I have worn it out to dinner and to work.

So a jacket given to me by a friend that I had just keeping at the YWCA pool for when I was cold is now a featured art piece in my wardrobe.

wednesday at the lake

We traveled up to Gail's art studio on the lake for a print making day. Nancy had made her first stamp the week before a flower garden and I was going to use the new fox stamp I had made. We had access to all of Gail's Asian and nature themed stamps, my mermaid, penguin and dog stamps. Nancy had not been to the studio before so as she was exploring I took one of my printed pieces: black linen with an Asian vase with colored flowers in it and attached it to a Feed Tote. I love the philanthropy behind the feed bag series that my purchasing the bag feeds families and I had bought the canvas bags last year but had not used it yet. A bit tricky to sew inside a completed bag but we got it done with help from Gail and I love it. The fun part is the piece was made on the horizontal plane of a button up skirt and I had positioned it when I stamped it so two button holes are at the top. I attached two buttons to the outside of the bag so when I made the pocket it buttons shut.

While they were setting up the paint and stamping area I started to do  the sewing on the piece we are submitting for a contest in cloth, paper scissors. I had to decide which of the three previously stamped pieces to do- a mermaid, a butterfly or a floral- it was not easy. I knew the mermaid would be easier just follow the lines with the machine embroidery. With Gail's encouragement I went for the butterfly as their was more negative space, less obvious shapes.

So here i sat in front of the sewing machine thread loaded and paralyzed I kept asking " please give me a pencil I will stencil something on, okay I will free-style a drawing. Gail kept repeating start sewing it will come to you. Finally I was like I can do this....started to stitch and some magic started to happen. I really really loved what I did- some followed the shapes printed and some just created something completely new. I am so proud of it-even if it is not a winner in the contest it was something new for me.

Meanwhile Nancy and Gail had the area set up and downstairs I went to print up some new pieces to work on I am starting to get a stockpile of printed material to use in projects. One of the large pieces with leaves and a rat has been prepped (serged edges) to be placed on the back of an Jacket waiting for its turn on the sewing machine.

Playing with Paint

I am taking a break from making jewelry for a bit and am just in the hoarding stage. I have been traveling and picking up pieces to work with. The bead show in York, ceramics from Raleigh North Carolina, and pearls and beads from Peurto Rico.

I am also playing with altering old pictures and adding color to them and text this one I am going to add "anchors-away". I think it is just adorable.

rest of the goodies from the bead show

Wednesday Wine & Wild Women Art- home made stamps

We got together to make new stamps. This was Nancy first stamp and she made a great flower motif. Gail made a tiny owl  with great big eyes. I made a fox and a small owl stamp. I am hoping to make a small stamp that I can use to personalize pieces I made not sure the owl is the one yet. I may want a smaller bee shape or small jewish star will not be sure until they are made and printed up to see which I like the best.

Okay I am jazzed I just figured out how to upload the photo's from my phone to facebook and then copy the url for the photo's here. Woo hoo I will get into the technology sooner than later.

Bead show Bountiful beauties

Theodore Beads- Maryland