Opera Fan Keepsake

     This is another experimental piece. I made the oriental fan and hand painted it. But I couldn't decide what to do with it. I put some sheet music behind it, added a tiny, hand painted vintage looking button in the corner, and put it between thin pieces of glass. The cornucopia bowl of fruit at the bottom is hand cast in pewter. 

     It looks like a metal shadow box, with several loops at the bottom where shiny crystals could be hung. 
     Or, if I can figure out the setting for the orange-red fused glass faux gem, it would look great with the japanese fan's color!
     The other shadowboxes I made earlier didn't have glass on the top, they were open. This one is glassed in on both front and back. 
     I like combining the resin, pewter, glass and solder to make something that looks really ancient.

Mother of Pearl or Not

I made a few more button charms.

And actually got them photographed and listed in the Etsy shop.

I was hanging onto them, thinking I'd make something out of them.

But I decided to go ahead and let go of these three.

I'm still doing a lot of sewing these days. Maybe I'll find a good time to shoot some pictures of the outfits.

In the meantime, if you like these button charms, they're out there in Etsy-land for you, if you want to play with them.

Button Button Who's Got The Button

Today is my day to do the Studio Saturday post at the Art Bead Scene Blog. I'm talking about buttons. Their quaint historical background. Their origins and why they're called "buttons."

If you comment on my post, you might win something!

Lately I've been playing with a bunch of old buttons, seeing how I can use them to make charms and connectors.

I love the old style shell and mother of pearl buttons.

These two are my most recent button collages.

I'm thinking of combining them with the bowtie pewter piece.

You know.

Buttons and Bows?

Very old fashioned and sentimental, I know.

Bark and Leaf Buttons

Another button. This one's color reminds me of mahogany.

Or Autumn leaves.

This one has a wood grain to it.

I made it a two-loop connector.

All the buttons are in the Etsy shop.

In case you'd like to play with them.

Rounding the Bend

These are four new designs from the button replicas I've been casting. They are various sizes and designs, but all extremely beautiful, like tiny sculptures.

This one reminds me of a pair of thistles, like the stylized designs I saw in Scotland.

This one has buds, flowers and leaves, swirling around inside the lovely round frame, they resemble tulips in the spring to me.

There are large, medium and small sizes, just like the actual buttons. some are very detailed, I'm so happy with the molds and the results I'm getting.

Sometime this year these will be part of another collaboration magazine article with Deryn Mentock. These are her buttons, and they have quite a story to tell.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying just looking at them. And I have some ideas about how to combine them with some fiber patterns I'm working on. When I get everything together, I'll show them, too.

Church Woods

More buttons from the rescue! This one is beautiful, almost like a carved sculpture.

It has a church, or a castle, in the woods.

One I gave a dark, ruddy coppertone patina.

The other one I gave a dark pewter, aged patina. This one is just a little too large, I think, for a ring. But I put a hole at top and bottom, to use as a central focal bead for a necklace. 

There's so much detail, I'm really happy with the way this turned out.

Three Rounds

These three designs, with their similar shape and style, seemed to me to go well together.

So I snapped a photo with the three of them, the flower button, the moonface faux ivory, and the vineyard button.

The moonface pendant is already spoken for - I need to make some more of them. They've been very popular - THANKS!

The buttons are from the group loaned to me by Deryn Mentock a while back. I'm still taking molds off them and casting new ones, to reproduce the old button images.

At the moment, I'm just putting a hole top and bottom in the button design, to use as a focal bead, but I'm working on a plan to turn them into a kind of clasp or closure. I think they'd be really lovely used that way.

If you think of any other unique and special ideas about how you think it would be fun to see these button designs used, reply to this post, there's a GIVEAWAY!  I'll announce the winner next week!