April Showers......

Did you get an April Fool's joke played on you today?  Well, this is no joke.....the April Showers kit is in the Hidden Vintage Studios shop over at Deviant Scrap.

I made this collage with the elements from the kit.  The watercolored background is from Holliewood Studio's "Enchanted" kit @ Deviant Scrap.

This is a physical piece I made with the kit elements........

Speaking of rain.  I call this necklace "the rainball".  You can find it here.

You can also find this leather distressed bird here.

That's all for now.......spring has sprung!

Birdie Pendants

I finally put my new Tim Holtz die to good use! I love his stuff and the cage makes a great display card for my leather pendant birdies. My husband cracks me up, when I showed him these he said, "those are nice Melissa but arent' they kind of big to be wearing as a necklace?" Ha! He thought that the chipboard cage was part of the pendant! I replied, "no honey, you take the bird off the cage and put it on a chain or ribbon necklace!"
These little guys measure 2.5 inches from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail. I made them from leather! I love visiting the tack shop and checking out all the different kinds of leather. You can find these little guys over at Honey Girl Studio Jewelry. Just detatch this little guy from the cage and slide a chair through the 10mm jump ring and wear it with a song in your heart!

A Bird In The.......

How does that saying go? "A bird on a necklace is worth one in a boxwood shrub?" Ok, well not exactly like that but that's the one I'm going with for this post! It is part of my breezy summertime fair as we are nearing the summer solstice (which I will have an amazing necklace give-away on June 21st so please stop by to enter) and celebrate the beginning of summertime.

This necklace is 17 inches long. It is composed of 3 strands: handmade fabric cord, glass beaded strand and cotton strand with blue shell discs. The bird is leather with a wonderful blue shimmer reminiscent of the hazy blue summertime July afternoons. You can purchase it over at Honey Girl Studio Jewelry.

Birdie Collage Pendants

I loved making these little collage pendants. I've always liked birds and remember as a kid looking through my gram's bird book and sitting for hours drawing birds from the book (she was a birder). A few months ago I found the "Birds of North America" book at Borders and picked it up for a few bucks. I tucked it away and pulled it out the other day....was leafing through it and inspriation struck! Ta-da! Birdie Collage Pendants! They are backed on a thin piece of wood and the back is finished off as well. They measure a little over 1 inch wide and 2 inches tall. They are available at Honey Girl Studio Jewelry.

It's all about the Crow's Nest....

Well, here is my completed project from the other day.....a nest necklace. To be exact, a crow's nest. You know how those crows are, they like to collect shiny things and put them in their nest. This nest has 3 little freshwater pearls for eggs, a rhinestone button, an antique brass button, white shell button and a tiny metal key and the back has been finished off with a hand stitched piece of felt. Hanging from the bottom of it is a little metal frame which says "bird". It measures about 19 inches long. The necklace has been created from aqua tiger eye glass beads, freshwater pearls, tiny wooden beads and white vintage shell buttons. It's available at:
Honey Girl Studio Jewelry.

Happy Saturday!

Ahhh Saturday, don't you just love it! It's pretty windy and cold here but the sun came out and the sky is clearing so all is right with the world! I spent a good portion of the day at the Time and Again Shop Spring Open House and it was a smashing success! My friend Tracey came over from Akron and we had a great time. She's a very talented altered art artist and you can see Tracey's works on Flickr. I got to meet a super fiber artist at the open house whose works you can view in a few posts before this one and her name is Chris. I'm fascinated by the detail and devotion she has to her craft.

Below you'll find a few new works (poker chip pendants, bird pendants and beeswax collages) just completed this week in the studio but rather than just show you the pictures I've decided to turn them into illustrations for a little story about life.........

Life is not always a day at the beach.......

or a bowl full of cherries...........

and somedays if seems like everybody wants you to fetch something for them......

And I know there are days when you feel like you don't want to leave your warm, safe nest.....



However, life is a long race and in the end, it's only you that you are racing against, so be original and........

Shoot for the moon because you just might land on it or at least fall among the stars!

That being said, continue to do these things for a happy life........... LOVE......

Be FREE.........

And sock away a NEST EGG for the future!

THE END