15/52 Bird a week challenge - Break Out

My bird for this week is the one I created for the master muse challenge.  It's entitled "Break Out" and shows a little silver and gold bird, breaking out of his shell in a nest.

The egg shell is actually a real bird's egg that I found and I strengthened.  And the nest is made from twigs, like the birds would use, all intertwined together.

Photo by Drew Davidson

A bit of nature in a pin.   The beak of the bird is covered in gold using the keum boo technique as little birds beaks are always bright yellowy gold so the parents can see where to put all that food!!

Is it time for you to break out???  Maybe you should join our bird a week challenge if you haven't already.....you can join at any time......

Click on the links below to see the other birds that have been created for this week's birdie challenge.

Break out - final master muse project

My final master muse project is up on Tonya Davidson's blog this week.  I have been part of the master muse team for the last year or so.  During that time we were each given 6 challenges to create jewelry using certain materials or techniques and then had to write a step by step project on how to create the piece.


The challenge for this final master muse project for me was to create something using a found object and also use the technique of keum boo to add gold to the piece.

Photo by Drew Davidson

Hmm. When you think of "traditional" found object jewelry, you know that really isn't my style...so I had to think a little outside the box. I finally decided on using a found bird's egg from the vineyard as the found object!  Then as it is spring time, I thought it would be fun to see it hatching in a nest....and when you see little birds with their mouths open, their mouths always look yellow and golden - and thus that is where the gold part came in!!

And so "break out" was born!  A pin for a jacket. A happy, hungry little chick breaking out of his egg in his nest.  The full tutorial will be available from Whole Lotta Whimsy, but to see a summary of it, go to Tonya's blog.


I've loved being part of the master muses.  They have been challenges as I've tried lots of things I haven't done before so for me each challenge was a "break out". 

What about you? Is it time you had a springtime "transformation" and broke out of your shell and tried something a little different?  Go for it! It's that time of year for growth.

PS Special thanks go to Angie and Marly for this project as they loaned me their ultralite kiln for the keum boo.

Master Muse Challenges

I'm just working on my last master muse project at the moment.  Can't tell you anything about it yet as it is a surprise, but I like it!  The idea of it makes me smile so I hope it will do the same for you too!

I've really enjoyed being part of the master muse team. Every other month we have been given a challenge to use a new material or different technique and invariably it has been something I haven't tried before.  It takes time to learn the new technique first and I always tend to make a few different designs before I finally come up with the final project that I then write a step by step project for. 

Hugh the Chameleon - my resin master muse challenge.

You'll see the previous challenges in the side bar of my blogspot blog..and in a few weeks my new one will appear.

The step by step projects are or will be available for sale on Whole Lotta Whimsy and summaries of the new projects by different artists come up just about every week on Tonya's blog. In fact, Donna Pennoyer's latest project is up today using bottle caps and prismacolor pencils.

Donna's necklace. Photo by Drew Davidson

Next year there will be a whole new group of artists to keep the challenges going. I look forward to seeing what they all come up with and what their challenges will be.  I've loved the opportunity and the way it's pushed me in new directions. Thanks so much Tonya, for including me.

Jive like a jellyfish - Master Muse latest challenge

My latest challenge for the Master Muses is up on Tonya Davidson's blog  from Whole Lotta Whimsy this week.  The challenge was to use dry media with silver clay.  The dry media I used was Prismacolor pencils.

When I received the challenge topic, we'd recently been to the Monterey aquarium and I always love seeing the jellyfish there, so they inspired this piece - "Jive like a jellyfish".  The jellies seem to be dancing all the time, so this necklace is a brightly colored jelly with wiggly dancing tentacles that move as the wearer moves! 
 
A full step by step project for this will be available Whole Lotta Whimsy soon.

Hope you like him.  Hope he makes you want to dance too!  He'd love to join you.....

Keep Flowering - Faux bone ring variation

You may recall that for my latest Master Muse challenge, one of the rings I made was an interchangeable flower ring where you could make different parts of the flower and swap them in and out with different colors.

The ring shown here is the same design and this time, instead of having different pieces to change out, I just colored them a different color on each side so you just  unscrew the ring, turn the pieces over and screw them back together when you want a different splash of color!

The ring is bold - so I colored it boldly too!  I find I am wearing  a lot of coral, peach, orange colors - and my favorite sweater has some purple in it - so you can see where these color combinations came from!

Robert Dancik has just joined the team of Master Muse and his Faux Bone ring project is shown today.  He is actually the originator of Faux Bone so has used it extensively. Hope you'll go and check his out.