Ottawa Bead Society Challenge

Although I'm not a beader last year I decided to join the Ottawa Bead Society. It's great place to get inspired by other jewelry makers. They've had some great demos and I always enjoy the show and tell of peoples jewelry creations. One of the first meetings I went to last year was the reveal of their first bead challenge. It was so interesting to see the outcome that I was glad to hear they were doing it again this year and of course signed up to be part of it. The challenge involves groups of 3 people over a 3 month period. How it works is, the first person creates something with beads and passes it along to the second person at the next meeting and they add to the creation and then passes it along to the third person to finish it and bring to the next meeting for the big reveal. Well I was the third person in my group and this is what I received to work on.

I was loving the colours as soon as I saw it because I knew copper would look great with it. My challenge was the strings and loose ends that came with it. Not being much of a beader I was unsure of what to do with them but after consulting with a local beading store I learned a few new tricks and was able to finish it off just the way I wanted. 

I made an etched copper disc to be a backdrop for the beaded circle and finished off the ends with some interesting caps and beads and my usual adjustable copper hook. I think I was so lucky to get this challenge. There were 10 groups in all and the results were spectacular but this was the one that was most my colours which made the design part of the challenge fairly easy for me. 
I didn't manage to get a photo of all the other ones but I'll let you know when they get them up on their web site.
For my first jewelry challenge I think I can say it was a success. I really enjoyed doing it!

Happy Creating!
 Wendy

And the shows begin...

Spring has definitely sprung here. The sun is shining, the grass is green and my first craft show is this weekend. Come see me from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm at the Russell Curling Club in Russell On. Check out some of the other vendor on the facebook event page too. As usual I've been trying to get more pieces finished before the show. I know I was suppose to be getting stock done all winter but it doesn't matter how much I have done I just have to get a few more done before the show. It's how I roll!

This necklace is resin in a copper wire frame on vintage sheet music.

Here is a new earring design that will be at the show. I have a few variations of these with different things riveted on the textured copper. 

If you can't make it to Russell this weekend I'll be at the Glebe Community Centre next weekend for Glamour in the Glebe.

I must get back to finishing more jewelry. Hope to see you soon. 

Happy Creating.

Wendy

Metal embossing workshop

Last week I participated in the Ottawa Catholic School boards annual Mosaic Art event. This is my second year teaching metal embossing to these teens from grade 7 to 12. It's wonderful to see the talent and variation in the creations of these students. Sorry for the glare on some of the photos, it's so hard to take good pics of metal without ideal lighting and my favourite camera! Enjoy and be inspired.

Alex

Torianne

Alexa

Caitlin

Cassandra

Chelsea

Gabriel

Geneveive

Jen

Jessica

Josianne

Marissa

Michaela

Rachel

Sarah

These students sure inspired me. I hope to find a little time this weekend for metal embossing!

Happy Creating.

Wendy

Book swap of the year.

The ATC group that I belong to does a book swap once a year. We choose a theme, give ourselves a few months to work on it and have to do as many pages as there are people that sign up. This year the theme was favourite quotes and we had to make 10 pages. So when done we get a page from each person to put our own book together however we like. As usual this years book pages were outstanding. It was so fun to see all the quotes chosen as well as the variety of art that was created. It's also interesting to see how different people work. Some do all different pages, while some do a variation on the same and some do one and make copies for everyone.

Linda

Louise

Lucie

Marie

Michelle

Nancy

Olive

Veronica

Virginia

Wendy

I forgot to take a group photo of my pages so I did a mosaic in photoshop to share for now and will share some individual ones later.

Next I will be sharing with you some fantastic work from a group of High school students that I taught a few days ago. But first I have to get the photos ready for you. 

Happy Creating!

Wendy

Things that Bite ATC swap

Here are the ATC trades for this month and the theme was 'things that bite'. The Tin Man thought there would be some vampires amoung them but I didn't think this was a vampire type group and I guess I was right this time!

As always it's so fun to see the variations on a theme.

Tomorrow I'll share the book swap we did.

Happy Creating!

Wendy

ATC swap for last month.

Louise

It's been a very busy week with lots of visuals to share, so it may take me a few days to get it all on here. I had our ATC group meeting here this month and along with our usual monthly swap we still needed to do last months swap, which was canceled due to weather, as well as out book swap that we do once a year.
Today I'm going to share last months ATC theme swap with you which was 'trees'.

Lucie

Linda

Nancy

Olive

Virginia

Wendy

Marie

Veronica

Tomorrow I will share with you this months ATC trade which was 'things that bite'

Happy creating!

Wendy

Projects in progress.

Book swap backgrounds

If you don't already know this about me, I must tell you, that I rarely only work on one project at a time. Sometimes one gets put away to work on another but often they just start piling up here and there until I'm forced to clean to have space to work again. It's just how I roll. I don't question it any more. But some days I look around and wonder how the studio got to this point of disarray. I'm sure I couldn't have done it all on my own but there doesn't seem to be anyone else around to blame. That's when I know that I share my space with fairies who keep working on things when I'm out of the studio. They're usually pretty helpful at fixing creative blunders or blocks but they are very messy workers.
Well today is one of those days when I walked in the studio and am sure the fairies have been at it again. First of all above you can see the pages in progress for a book swap that's due in April. If I leave them on the table, every once in a while some new things just happens to them. 

Hmm...where to go from here!

 And then their is the painting projects I started. A few weeks ago while visiting Laura Daub's new studio, across the road I discovered another wonderful new shop, Malenka where Katrina transforms or as she likes to put it 'refreshes' old tired furniture. Well the wheels just started turning and I had to try out this inspiring new paint she sells by Annie Sloan called Chalk paint. First I bought a small jar of Duck Egg to try out on my last Ikea drawer set. This is as far as it's gotten. I'm thinking texture paste and lots of antiquing but you can never be too sure how these thing work out so who knows really.

Oh my that's orange!!

And then I had to go back to get some Barcelona Orange for this bedroom bookshelf and possibly a dresser. I have to admit I'm kind of stuck now with this one. I know it's not done but I haven't decided just how antiqued and/or distressed I want it. Also the dark wax isn't working exactly how I expected to so some experimenting is in order. I think it's going to go back into the room to contemplate on it some more. Also I've run out of time and need to clean the studio for Easter weekend. 

If you have some time this weekend, I highly recommend these wonderful shops in the Britannia area of Ottawa. Go Saturday afternoon and do some doodling with Laura. I went last Saturday and had great fun and learned some new doodling designs.

Have a Great Easter weekend.

Get creative!

Wendy