Thursday, April 30, 2009

Pay It Foward Update!

Sorry for taking so long to get moving with this- I received my pay it forward gift from the wonderful Lee Anne- you can check out her blog, Sun Soul Art Thoughts. She sent me a stunning original painting- which I promptly ran to the framing store with and I just got it back- it looks spectacular!



In any case, Maggie and I will be contacting our Pay It Forward recipients -Jo, Shauna, Shimmermeblue, BeadedTail, The Astral Cowboy and Arizona- this week to arrange for shipping stuffs. Yay handmade goodies on the way! :) Thanks for participating!

-Tara

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Fiberart for a Cause


The preview for Collage Mania 2009 is now open! There are 39 pages of collages to see, I have only finished looking through about page 3 and I am already overwhelmed about trying to decide which one to bid on! The actual event will be May 5-7 2009.

Collage Mania is a fundraising auction hosted by Fiberart for a Cause. Fiberart for a Cause has already raised over $170,000 which has gone directly to the American Cancer Society. Many great artists have donated 8x10 inch fiber art collages to be auctioned off to benefit this great cause. The goal for Collage Mania 2009 is to raise $20,000 and they have 383 collages to auction off.

Here are the instructions about how you can get a beautiful work of art and help out a great cause at the same time!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Outside My Comfort Zone


I have been afraid of fire for as long as I can remember. My dad was a volunteer fireman so I was always very aware of fires and the destruction they caused. I grew up back in the day when volunteers did not stay at the firehouse, they would sound a really loud alarm that would bring the firefighters running. Whenever I heard the siren at night, I would have to go look around our house and make sure it was not the one on fire.

The point of all of this, is that for all the years I have been making jewelry, I have been doing strung beads or wireworking, but no soldering. If I could use just a little soldering iron, I would be fine with that, but silver work requires a torch. Last year, I signed up for a class called Cold Forging, which I thought would be hammers on anvils, with no torching. Turns out that the first step of even the cold forging is to torch the metal. The teacher, not knowing my fire issues, asked me to hold the torch while she lit it. I must have turned pale, because my classmates figured out rather quickly that I had an issue. I decided not to be a ninny and did it anyway!

So now, wanting to step up my jewelry game, I have signed up for a silver jewelry class, which involves torches, saws, you name it! It starts this Thursday, and I hope by the time I am done, I will have resolved my issues enough to get my own torch setup that I can use at my house.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Cherry Blossoms




Today we had our own mini Cherry Blossom festival. We wanted to avoid the crowds down in DC near the monuments, so we went to a neighborhood my friend knew about in Bethesda, MD that has a beautiful canopy of old cherry trees. We got there around 10am on a Sunday morning, and it was surprisingly crowded. The trees were fabulous!

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I've been a busy beaver!

So last night I finished the last of my really big projects- I was making 4 "handbags" -for lack of a better word- to be carried down the runway in a fashion show. The show is featuring ocean inspired lingerie and the models will carry giant versions of my Christmas ornaments.

I made two 6" round seashell kissing balls with pearl embellishments, a 5 inch round English Channel sea urchin adorned with pearls and a 7 inch armored starfish, again adorned with pearls.



In the photo you can also see the necklaces I've been working on, another wreath I made and part of a picture frame that I turned into an earring display.

Some close up shots of the finished pieces:





I think these could all really be cute for a beach wedding too- instead of flower girl baskets or even in lieu of bouquets for the bridesmaids- the starfish perhaps as pew decorations if it's a church wedding?... hmmm the wheels are spinning now!

Stay tuned to check out the new boutonnieres I'm working on for another client!