I love the flowers and the soft, romantic drawings - so pretty and feminine!
I had lots and lots and lots of ideas for this month, but I really suffered from lack of time to properly execute them. I think the muse was a bit deluded into thinking she and I could pull off everything that we imagined. As a result, I'm not overly happy with most of what I came up with - my designs definitely suffer when I am rushed. Still, I was determined to meet my goal to participate so here's what I came up with that was semi-fit to share:
For this first pair, I used Vintaj patina inks on brass blanks and a Vintaj flower/leaf charm and then sanded/polished to let some of the natural brass show through for an aged look.
I'm happy with the flower portion, but I think the background piece needs a little more work - another color sponged around the edges or something. It's "almost" there. I call this design "Flowering Vines."
This was another experiment with the Vintaj inks - I was trying out a marbling technique that I saw demonstrated on You Tube. I'm actually pretty happy with this one except that I can see a few blank spots that I missed - my eyesight really is getting so bad! And I was even wearing my glasses!
Oh well, a little bit of touch up ink here and there will take care of that. I had these aqua/silver floral components sitting around and they matched the aqua color in the ink so well that I thought they'd be a good choice to bring the floral element into the design. I'm calling these earrings "Aqua and Old Lace."
More of the marbling technique - I think the inks really look like the swirls of a rose. With this pair, I sanded around the edges of the blanks and then polished them to let the brass show through so they'd look a bit aged.
I wanted to sand the bead caps, too, but I ran out of time to get as much shine on them as I wanted before I had to take the photos. I'll be going back to give them another round to really make them sparkle. Also, the crystals really do match the ink color much better in real life than it shows in the photos.
Lastly, I decided to adapt a wrapping technique that I've done in the past with waxed linen.
I took these brass rings and wrapped and knotted some really lovely dyed silk ribbon all around the edges and then tied it off at the top.
The ribbon had pale shades of pink and mauve shading into green and even a little touch of teal so I thought it would stand in for the colors of flowers and leaves perfectly.
I frayed the edges to give it a little "shabby" look and then added some pale pink glass pearls and some blue/green Swarovski crystals.
Those are my designs for the February challenge. I hope you enjoyed them!
KJ
10 comments:
Love love your earrings and I especially love the wrapped ones! Fantastic!
What a fabulous collection of inspiration earrings! And thanks for sharing your experiments with alcohol inks. Seemed a perfect coloring technique for this challenge. The shabby chic pair are my favorite.
I like your interpretations of the flower girls, a riff in a different direction.
I think the last pair are my favourites. You did a nice job of highlighting the pretty ribbon. Using ribbon and silk is something I've been wanting to try, just not there yet courage wise.
Congrats
Mona
So many beautiful earrings. They make me think of spring. Your designs are wonderful.
So very pretty! I love the soft color palette. Great job!
Wow, you got so many different designs done in so little time. I love how you layered the components and your paint marbling came out fabulous, even if you can see flaws.
I love the marbling technique used and the fabric shabby chic ones; both earrings are beautiful
I love the earrings that were made with the marbleizing technique. They are really attractive.
Looks like your brain does what my body does in the morning, warm up! I love how you show the progress of your thoughts and creativity. I also loike the fact that you aren't afraid to share the human aspect of not always being perfect, even though you weren't as happy as you would like to have been you turned out some creative earrings. I didn't even think along the lines that you have and I am pleased to have learned from you.
I really like that marbling technique. I will have to look into that! What if you hammered the edges of the base in the first one, sort of a deckle edge effect. You could always add color to it, but the hammered edge always looks more finished to me. I love the shabby chic of that last pair. Oh la la, c'est romantique! So glad you joined in the spring-y fun at We're All Ears. Can spring be far behind?! Come back on March 6th for the next inspiration! Enjoy the day. Erin
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