60 in 60 Day 44 and 45

I am having a booth at an upcoming music festival so most of my creative efforts in the next week will be going into finishing up jewelry projects.

I finished these pieces in the past two days.  All these earrings are made from repurposed copper pennies and use some of my favourite patinas - oven heat, torch with peanut oil and ammonia and salt.

I stopped to take some pictures of this Mama Duck and her little one (Common Goldeneye) on my way into town.  I always pull over and let the ferry traffic pass me on my way to town so it's easier to stop for any photo ops.

60 in 60 Day 43

Due to many different reasons (excuses?) and way too much procrastination, my challenge to do something creative every day for the 60 days leading up to my 60th birthday this summer, and to post about it, was drastically derailed.  I'm not going to even try to catch up now on posting  for Days 14 through 42 but I gathered and processed lots of plant fibre, made paper, did two encaustic paintings, made a few bracelets, took lots of photos, and taught a mosaic workshop.

Today I restored order to my studio to get ready for a creatively productive summer.  Keeping things tidy with so many different interests is an ongoing battle.

I love this old dental cabinet for jewelry making supplies.

And printer trays for beads.

I keep my tools handy in vintage wooden boxes.

I finished one pair of earrings today but got started on several more.  Busy day tomorrow!

Made from copper pennies and freshwater pearls with sterling silver ear hooks.

60in60 Day Two and Three

Yes, I know, behind already!  I had the day at home yesterday due to a temporary closure at my work place so I spent the day in the yard doing hard labour.  While I was doing some tidying up, I spotted some ficus branches that I had pruned from my plant and thrown off the deck in the winter.   I noticed that a good amount of fibre was showing under the bark and it had just the perfect amount of moisture to come off easily so I stopped to strip all the branches for papermaking.  Now my live plant is in danger of severe pruning!

Day 2 Creative Act - stripped fibre from Ficus branches for papermaking

Today, I made some Boho style earrings.  I hammered these copper pennies to flatten them and then used a brass embossing template from my scrapbooking days and the ball end of my hammer to create the hearts.  The patina is from a gas torch.  Banded Agate, Tiger's Eye and copper beads on sterling silver wire and sterling silver ear wires complete the pair. 

Day 3 - copper earrings with sterling silver wire

These will show up in my Etsy shop in the next day or two.