Spring Flowers

I am so looking forward to the peonies.

This is the bud on the tree peony.  Isn't it an amazing shape and color?  The regular peonies are still sprouting, about 4-8 inches up now.

In the studio
A tiny but tough heart, coaxed from a scrap of 18k yellow gold, with chasing and repoussé


Sweet and Asymmetrical Silver Ivy Earrings


Always romantic Wild Rose Earrings

Gardening in earth and metal

I couldn't resist the urge to plant in the warming weather.  I picked up 2 lilacs and a forsythia bush and planted a small welcoming flower bed out in the yard.   I added a few daylily plants and a peony plant, rescued from some overcrowded shaded areas near the garage.
  
I will expand this flower bed a bit as I get more trees and plants. 

With the spring air, I also took a walk.  I walked by a junk/antique/treasure store and couldn't resist this little goodie.

She is a carved and painted wood doll form, probably a decorative furniture accessory, tabletop sculpture.  Quite shabby chic isn't she?  I think I'll use her as a jewelry display mannequin for sales.  I haven't decide yet whether to leave her dress pink or to paint it to a more neutral ivory tone for display.

For the interior gardening....
Two silver rose pendants
   

Two silver ivy leaf pendants
  

In Progress and Complete

A pile of stuff that I am determined to finish off into a something soon.


Another Baucis and Philemon inspired Oak and Linden leaf pendant set, this time with a green patina


A shiny, but not too smooth, copper Oak Leaf pendant

Feather Charm

Very excited to be trading this
 
for this

Belle Wristlet - Leather in Pink, White, and Gold

by: moxieandoliver

You can get bigger pictures and details by clicking on the photos.

Hearts in Spring

I'm consumed with spring right now, so I only want to post green nature pics or colorful cookie pics.  But really.  I think I should show you what I've been up to in the studio.

I'm working with hearts again, continuing with a bound heart theme that's popped up periodically, in my mixed media work.  The bound heart theme includes any of my work that involves hearts and chains, in one form or another. 
In this piece, the chains were part of the text, from a tire chain bag.


In this one, a fiberart heart is hung on a hanger.


In my more recent work, you see hearts caught on branches, some with detachable jewelry, some purely sculptural.  You can click on each photo to get to more photos, measurements and details.






I love the rock heart piece so much that I had to take the kids out hunting for more rocks at the park.  My son found one for me.


The heart is in the lower right hand corner.  The other rocks were just plain nifty- some fossils, others beautifully worn.

Then my daughter saw a heart in the curling tendrils of the wild onions that are shooting up all over the place around here.



We are all so melodramatic, spring and hearts.

Sweet Colorful Life

Our home dive into cookie decorating did not go quite as smoothly as the teacher prep'd class.  We still had fun.
I really could have used a tutorial on how to color the royal icing. That was much harder than I expected, especially using a cheap liquid color that dilutes the icing.


Once again, I realized that the kids will explore as they will.  I can show a few principles, but then, they have their own ideas and they are not afraid to try.  After all, no matter what the cookie looks like, you can still eat it!
I went out today to buy gel coloring and more sparkly sprinkle supplies. 

Yes, we have to do more.

Cookie Decorating Class

On Saturday, I took an Easter cookie decorating class at Kitchen Affairs in Evansville. Cathy Webb of Cathy's Designer Cookies taught us how to decorate 4 different cookies.


We started off with a sheep and a bunny.


where she taught us how to sprinkle, outline, and fill. The royal icing takes about 2 hours to totally dry, so we took turns working on the 4 different cookies. We didn't have two hours drying time, but we let them dry enough to get the job done.

For the chick cookie, Cathy had put on the base layer of violet icing the night before, so that it would be totally hardened and ready for class.


The easter egg was the simplest of the four. You can see that I overfilled my frosting. It's dripping over the edges- good excuse for me to eat frosting.

Here is what the teacher's egg cookies looked like. See how she left an edge of the egg cookie showing? If you do that, you can add another decorative border, like you see in the bagged cookie on the left.


Here are my finished cookies! They are by no means professional, but they are so cute. I love them. Yes, my family already ate them. They didn't last long.


My daughter is itchin' to decorate cookies now. I need to buy supplies.

If you want to see these pictures a little larger, visit my cookie set on flickr.

waiting to photograph

waiting to photograph, originally uploaded by knitsteel.

Waiting for the right light so that I can photograph these hanging on the wall

Ginkgo Art

I took all of the larger copper and bronze ginkgo leaves that I had cut and hammered them into small sculpture, for the wall and tabletop.



Sizes range from 5 to 7 inches at the maximum dimensions.
They are all in the decorative arts section of my online shop.

Maple Leaf Art for the Wall

The last of my twiggy bracelets.  Click on the small photos to be taken to the detailed listing in my online shop.
These two bangles are hammered steel, quite modern yet still organic


These three bracelets are copper hollow twigs- textural, lightweight, and lovely


Feeling good about the twiggy theme, I went on to finish some of my leaf wall art/sculpture pieces, this time in bronze.  These are just magical.  They fit in the hand, but have enough presence to stand alone as individual artworks.  (I haven't linked these photos.  Go to the Decorative Arts section of my online shop to see the individual listings with  details and measurements.)





I love this kind of small art, arranged together on a wall with other small works.  Small art is very affordable and versatile.  You can develop a great art collection over time, without spending lots of money.  Don't limit yourself to standard Wall Art.   Mix it up with jewelry, fiberarts, clay tiles, whatever looks good and hangs on the wall with small nails or straightpins.  With such ease of hanging, you can move your pieces around whenever you feel like it, even change displays with the seasons.   

Sparklies and Metalwork in Progress

Sometimes I have to hang out with the kids.  Other times, for no particular reason, I can't face the metal studio.  I'm tempted to eat candy and play games all day, but instead, I do put some time into creative pursuits.  As you may have noticed, sometimes I knit, sometimes embroider, sometimes play with with mixed media fiberarts.  Recently I got out those wire wrapped briolettes, more beads and wire, and made up some sweet sparkly earrings.

Petite elegant and elegant faceted natural rubies with sterling silver
I have six pairs of these left, enough to buy several and give as gifts.


faceted pale pink and pale yellow with silver -
The round yellow bead is very pale, just barely lemon toned, so the entire effect is quite delicate and sparkly.

As always, I do get back to the metal studio.  Hearts and roses in progress on my workbench today.