And the Winner is …. Moi! Brag Post!

Back in December I submitted two of my pieces from my Winged Things series to the Fire Mountain Gems ‘Metal Clay, Metal Beads, Wire Work and Chain’ jewelry making contest.  The results are in.  I am thrilled to announce that I placed first in my category, Fashion Accessories, with my Madame Flutterbye Brooch!  I was very happy just to have made it to the finals round and really did not expect much more than that.  Even as a finalist I would have had the added bonus of having my work displayed in full color full page ads in jewelry making magazines nationwide, which alone carried quite a thrill for me.  I am just over the moon to with excitement to have won the gold medal.  True that I didn’t win the Grand Prize Gold Medal … but then there’s always next year. 😉

Feel free to take a peek at all of the wonderful designs that were submitted by so many talented artist to get your creative juices flowing. I am the seventh person listed in the winners at the top of the page.  Thanks to all of you for the kind words of encouragement over the years that gave me the courage to submit my work.

http://www.firemountaingems.com/galleryofdesigns/jewelry_design_gallery.asp?docid=BC2011METALWINNERS

Fire Mountain Gems Jewelry Making Contest

As some of you may recall I blogged in January about entering the Fire Mountain Gems Jewelry Making Contest.  I entered two pieces from my Winged Things series, Marthra and Madame Flutterbye.  Today I received notification in the mail that one of my pieces made it to the finals for round two of judging!  I’m very excited.  I was sure that it would be Marthra that drew the most attention out of my two entries but I was wrong.  She was not selected for the finals.  Madame Flutterbye, however, made it to round two!

So what’s next?  I will send it in to Fire Mountain using the address label provided so that they can examine it in hand and have professional photographs taken.  This means, if I understand correctly, that my beautiful butterfly may appear in full page full color ads inside and on the back cover of jewelry magazines and the Fire Mountain gems catalog.  The national exposure certainly can’t hurt. 🙂  Now I am off to set up at the Gulf Breeze Celebrates the Arts festival in preparation for this weekend.  I just had to pop in to post a brag before heading out the door!

Fun With Fibulas!

I’ve been saying for a while I wanted to make some fibulas for some of my Winged Things creations so that they could function either as a pendant/necklace or a kinetic brooch of sorts. Today I decided to play around a bit with fibulas and made two quick and easy pins in no time at all. I decided to make a fibula to match my Madame Flutterbye pendant (Winged Thing #4) first.

This one was actually the first fibula I made but it didn’t fit the pendant very well so I just added a few swaros and a bone cat for the heck of it.

You will be seeing more fibulas from me in the months ahead, no doubt a tutorial for them as well. 🙂

Winged Things #4 Madame Flutterbye Wire Wrap Butterfly

Meet Madame Flutterbye!  A beautifully ornate wire wrapped butterfly! She’s number four in my new Winged Things series.

This Whimsical pendant features handmade sterling lace wings  with amethyst marquis gemstones, Swarovski crystal and gold embellishments.  The delicate face is hand carved from bone and her body is a lovely piece of green Russian Amazonite.

Winged Things: Marth-ra (number 3 in the series) Wire Wrap Moth

Number three in my new Winged Things series is complete!  Meet Marth-ra!  A lovely wire wrapped moth pendant.  Her gilded wings are fashioned after a lunar moths, except for the markings.  The silver spirals on the wings represent motion.  A lovely fiery piece of labradorite is used for the body, carved bone for the face and sterling silver for the frame with gold fill wire for the netted wings.   She is quite whimsical which just thrills me to the bone.  I am very pleased with her and I think she is the best in the series so far!  Next will be a butterfly with jeweled wings!

More Winged Things: Meet Sarah-phim Wire Wrapped Angel

Meet Sarah,
She’s a seraphim – an angel of the highest order. She has gilded wings upon which she traverses the heavens above keeping order in the lands below. She comes complete with a silver halo above her crown.

Sarahphim is number two in my Winged Things series.

Another inspired piece for me. I’m very happy with my muse at the moment! She’s been restrained a lot over the last month as I was trying to stay focused on custom work, but now that she’s free she’s taking off like a rocket and I’m struggling to keep up with her!  I have many more little winged things buzzing around in my head trying to get out.  Look for number three in the series soon!

New line: Winged Things Wire Wrapped Fairy

This outstanding cabochon that was gifted to me by Laura inspired me to create something special.  She sent me this cab, along with a few others, a little over a month or so but I’ve been too busy to really be able to play but recently I got myself caught up on all of my custom orders and found myself with free bench time! I knew immediately that I wanted to create something with Laura’s cabs.  This piece is my absolute favorite out of the batch. I’m not sure what it is … at first I thought it was mookaite because of the wonderful colors but then the pattern struck me as peanut wood. I’m learning towards mookaite.  I was glad to find that I had these burgundy swaros on hand because they were the perfect match to the brownish-burgundy colors in the stone. The tiny peachy pearls pulled on the cream markings in the stone very nicely as well.

I’m very pleased with the outcome of this lovely little Luna. Thank you so much Laura!

UPDATE:
I was inspired to transform her into a fairy!    I am sooooo thrilled with the outcome of this! I have always wanted to create a wire wrapped fairy and I’ve finally done it! She started out as just another Luna for my series with some exceptional materials. The lovely little carved bone face has such delightful detail in it and the cabochon from Laura (cabbingrough) is magnificent. Now I add to that a stroke of sheer inspiration taking the form of gilded wings and >POOF< …. this is the result.

 

I am tickled pink with her! I love whimsical jewelry and this pendant is the embodiment of whimsical for me.

Initially I intended to put a LOS patina on the silver wings too but then I paused because I thought it looked kind of cool with the bright silver. I am looking for feedback on this part … share your thoughts!

Look for a tutorial for a complexed border wrap pendant soon!