Copper

My love of metal continues! Three copper hearts with instant patina and an embossed piece that also has a bit of patina on it. Two jewelry scraps were worked into the embossed piece and the embossed hearts were highlighted with red.

I've been collecting junk jewelry for years that I've mostly purchased from Thrift stores but sadly practically everything has suddenly gone missing. I hate to think that anyone would be so daring as to walk off with so much of the fun stuff, but after four complete searches that is the only conclusion. Sad. I will leave a note for the cleaning people in the hopes that nothing else goes missing. After days of bidding on ebay it looks like I'll end up with more items than I owned; I will take pictures and put the new collection away so as to not tempt anyone. Some pieces have been missing for months; I had hoped that I had simply misplaced the items, but the only piece I ever found from the entire purchase was a pin with my name on it. Some of the pieces I had hoped to make molds of and incorporate other fragments into my work. I was picky when I bought them, but one can't be choosy when buying lots on ebay. I might list pieces that I don't feel I can use. At least the few expensive pieces of jewelry are accounted for!

Quote: No legacy is so rich as honesty. William Shakespeare

Fleur-de-lis

On June 29 I posted the before pics of this piece.

I can't remember when I started collecting Fleur-de-lis motifs, but right now they seem to be very popular! Wouldn't you know it?! The metal embellishments are handmade; once they were aged with black paint they told me where they wanted to go. I was blown away by the way the fibers from the left to right, lower area, followed a sweeping swirling motion, subtle, but perfect for placing embellishments. Wish I could say that I'd planned it that way, but I didn't notice that line of fibers until I put the motifs in place. Anyway, this piece was embellished for Dale's online workshop. Lesson 2 of 6. Talk about being way behind. A few students are caught up with all 6 lessons, I hate them!!

I think that my problem with this piece was that I fell in love with the gold foil on the black felt base and then the painted cheesecloth that was embellished on followed by a layer of distressed silk gauze. I've always had a hard time working with layers, but it sure makes a difference. In person the gold foil is a little more evident, nice shimmery effect in a few areas some of which can be seen in this scan on the upper edge a little right of the middle. At first I thought that this was a vertical piece but the direction changed to horizontal once I started adding yarn to it.

We're having monsoonal conditions here in the desert! Thursday night there was an exciting thunder and lightning show with even some rain! I sat on the patio under cover of the extended roof and marveled at nature! The change in weather is playing havoc on our allergies! But at least the temps have fallen from 110 + to high 90's. Yep, one can feel the difference.

I found a collection of poems by Emily Dickinson amongst mom's books that I was sorting out to donate. (She seems to read the same 3 books over and over again. I think that she's drawn to the covers. I'm not a fan of romance novels so I'm clearing out a huge portion of them.) I opened the book to the page with this poem on it.

Quote/poem: Pain has an element of blank:

It cannot recollect

When it began, or when it was not.

It has no future but itself,

Its infinite realms contain

Its past, enlightended to perceive

New periods of pain.

Felted ATC

I can't remember the last time I made an ATC. This piece started out life as the one of my first needle felted experiments; it's one of the purple examples a few posts back. I did some more work on then then embellished it with a distressed dryer sheet and embossed metal.

There is a new residential community opening soon on the west side of Merv Griffin's Ranch not far from where I live. The ad reads: May 26th, Griffin Ranch will reveal eleven extraordinary model homes, each architecturally superb and furnished to exquisite perfection.

You are enthusiastially invited to attend.

Don't miss this much-anticipated event in the desert's new, world-class equestrian/residential community. The gates will open promptly at 11 am. Mark your calendar.

From the looks of the elegant wall and walking path surrounding the community I can only guess what the price of the homes might be. Is there such a word as enthusiastically? Spell check doesn't seem to think so.