Animal totem bracelet

I just finished a commission for a new customer today.  She wanted a gift for her daughter who is just graduating with a master's degree in Animal Science.  She had seen my animal print bracelet and asked if we could do some other prints on one for her daughter.  Her daughter also has her animal totems tattooed on her back, so she chose the animals from that.

There were a few challenges in her animal choices however:

1. Unfortunately one animal was a whale - and as hard as we looked, we couldn't find a footprint from a whale anywhere :=D
2. Another was a butterfly and while they have feet - I doubt that they ever leave any trace that they've been anywhere.
3. The third "problem" was a dragon!  But my customer emailed me a photo of a dragon track - so now her daughter will be able to identify any passing dragon tracks she may come across!

Here are all 9 tracks:

Eagle, Bear, Wolf

Elephant, Dragon, Rhinoceros

Owl, Buffalo, Cat

I wonder how many you would have guess correctly????  The name of each animal is actually written on the back of each square, in case the wearer forgets - so it's a good portable field guide to animal tracks!  You can see these on the middle set of photos.

Doesn't it sound like a great gift - just right for her daughter!  I really enjoyed doing it and spent some time looking into the different animal totem symbolism too.   What animals would you choose?

Field Guide to Bird Tracks bracelet

I've decided to change my bracelet design a little by making some of them elasticated instead of closing with a clasp.  Some people find clasps on bracelets very difficult to operate - no matter what type of clasp, so I thought this would be a nice option.

Here's the new design on my Field Guide to Bird Tracks bracelet:

I like it and am going to change my own "be as a bird" bracelet to elasticated.

What do you think?  Which would you prefer - a clasp or elasticated?

 "Hmm... I wonder which bird I'll grow up to be?"

The bird tracks bracelet can help you identify bird tracks that you may see in the soil or sand or wherever...The tracks shown are for the following birds (starting at the duck as that is easily recognizable!:

Duck; Bald Eagle; Canada Goose; Wild Turkey; Great Blue Heron; Sandpiper; Northern Flicker; Raven; Snipe.

I'm going to do a few new bracelets - do you have a theme you'd like to see on a bracelet - 9 different something-or-others???

In the Etsy Top 10

My Bird Tracks bracelet has been selected for Timothy Adams top 10 on Etsy this week!

Here's a link


If you click on that, you can vote for which item you like the best from the 10 selected - through etsy and his blog comments.

Gosh - just reading the etsy forum on this and the comments on his blog are so heartwarming! People just say the nicest things :=D

Thanks to all who voted and commented. You made my day!

Bird tracks silver bracelet

I refinished my bird tracks bracelet today, adding small silver balls in between each square. It doesn't really change the visual look of the bracelet but without the balls, the squares jingle together quite a lot. I like to hear the sound - but in many environments you don't want a jingle as you move your wrist - so the little spacers do the trick. It's now a quiet bracelet - so you won't scare the birds away as you are checking their tracks!


I've also photographed it again trying a couple of new props. I'd like your opinion. Obviously close ups are necessary but I sometimes like to add one "prop" photo to catch the eye.


Here I've done the bracelet on binoculars and also on a 'field guide to birds' book. Which do you prefer? Which "grabs" you most? If you have the time, please let me know in the comments. Appreciate your point of view!

Bird tracks

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I've made a bird tracks bracelet, similar to the animal tracks one for all those bird lover, birders, twitchers. This is more difficult to guess the tracks as birds are not as diverse in their feet as mammals - so no competition for this one!!!


The birds from left to right are as follows:

Northern Flicker; Raven; Snipe; Duck; Bald Eagle; Canada Goose; Wild Turkey; Great Blue Heron; Sandpiper.

Creativity sparks - ideas to inspire : A series

For today's 'ideas to inspire' I'd like to consider creating a series of items. Maybe you can look at one item/design you have created and then think about expanding on that either in terms of the object or the idea or as part of a story...... and thus create a series.

For example, quite a few years ago I created my first "anyone can" necklace which was "anyone can fly" with a bird hanging upside down. For a long while I liked the idea of an "action" series using the 'anyone can' idea - but I wanted it to be a person and not a bird and couldn't decide on how to design a figure that could be male or female and pose-able. Move forward two years and I came up with a person - "anyone" and then created my "anyone can" series with people "accomplishing" different things like whistling, or training a dog, or falling in love, or flying a kite. And the series has proved popular and will continue with some new ideas soon...

So if you've created one piece that you like, look at it in different ways and explore how a series could be developed from it. It could be the color that you select (eg the blue series)...it could be the subject (eg all my shoes!) ...it could be a design feature (eg all lariat necklaces)...it could be part of a story (eg characters in Old MacDonald had a farm)...it could be using one motif somewhere (eg every piece has a pentagon shape in it)..

As you can see, there are lots of ways to explore this. My latest series that is just beginning is my bracelets where I now have an animal tracks bracelet and a bird tracks bracelet. I want to do a safari animal one with elephant, giraffe, lion etc tracks.....but then also a story one where each square tells the next part of a story, like a cartoon strip...then I've thought of doing grape leaf shape variations, as I live in wine country...then....and so the list develops. It started as animal tracks...followed that subject to bird tracks, then will go off in a slight sideways tangent away from animals but using the same design.

And the benefit of a series of items? I think the main benefit is that it creates a type of "collectible" and something that people may want to get more than one of. It also helps to create your artistic identity and something that you can then be known for. Additionally, when it comes to displaying your items at a show or exhibition, having a series if often more eye catching.

As an artist, it also encourages you to explore something in more depth - whether that is a color combination or a technique. As you do more and more with one thing, you will look at it in a different way and learn more about it. I think this may be one of the reasons why many people view artists with a "series" as being more credible? What do you think?

One thing I would recommend however is don't start a series on something you don't love! Otherwise you may end up making lots of something that you don't enjoy doing, because they become really popular!!!

So chose one of your items you love and think around it in terms of a series and see what comes up. If you have a series of items already, give us the link in the comments so we can see how it developed and progressed.