I had a great afternoon - planned and took part in a work "off site" that included kayaking on the Potomac (for those in and near DC check out Jack's Boat House in Georgetown - it's a gem!) and a BBQ, and then we went to Michael's end-of-camp play. Drama Camp is new for him this summer and he took to it like a fish to water. It cracks me up how the kids are developing - Emma the jock and Michael the creative lego builder and "actor." Emma would no sooner volunteer to get on stage in front of a crowd than Michael would ask to play football. But I digress...
...in fact, digressing is a bit of an issue for me these days. Lots of half finished projects in my "studio" to include a partly started attempt to clean my desk rendering it even messier. Perhaps I will get to that this weekend. Until then I will make jewelry on the 1 foot by 1 foot remaining area of my desk that is clear. I am sure I am the ONLY ONE who has done that :-)
So one project I have completed is my Art with a Heart entry. This is the second cycle of this great competition by Lina from Beads-n-Blessings. Here is her mission statement:
Art with Heart is a beading for charity competition where 10% of the proceeds of all kits sold will go to various charities including The American Heart Association, Make A Wish Foundation, National Breast Cancer Foundation, St. Jude’s Research and the American Diabetes Association.
Pretty cool, huh? Here is a sample of what the kit included:
The kit was to be considered a starting place, and the only requirement was to use the focal (the blue tear drop crystal at the bottom of the picture.) The focal is much different in person - a deep, deep blue with a cool AB finish. "Catch a Falling Star" is what popped into my mind after spreading out all the goodies on my (then much cleaner) desk. Included in the kit was some silver wire, so I played around with making a wire star to dangle with the focal, but it just looked too clunky.
Hmmmm. I was not willing to give up, and liked the idea of something delicate and silver to show off the focal. I tried a chandelier earring finding and added dangles of small pearl and crystals that were included in the kit and was satisfied...
Happier with that part, I needed to figure out a way to string the focal in a way to highlight but not lose the cool sparkliness of the crystal. I put together a bunch of the seed beads from the kit and some dark blue Czech glass beads and freshwater pearls I already had, but they didn't seem to match the focal...not sparklie enough...
The kit is supposed to be a "departure" after all, so thinking that bright silver chain would have the look I wanted, I pushed the beads side. However, there were similar blue beads in the kit with an AB finish on one side, and I added additional clear crystals with AB finish as dangles on the chain. I made the dangles uneven, 'cause it seemed more "falling star-ish." What do you think? I would like to say my awesome picture taking skills added the cool light streak to the picture, but that was just a happy accident on a scorching hot summer day.
All entries will be posted soon, and I'll make sure to post the link when it happens.
I love what you did with the focal that is stunning! I'm going to have to look into Art with Heart that sounds neat.
ReplyDeleteI so love this! Awesome job! I will check out this challange soon!
ReplyDeleteHugs