Melismatic Art Jewelry: headpins

Sunday, August 31, 2014

AJE Component of the Month for August - Leather Feathers!

This month, our component comes from the talented Rebekah Payne of Treewings Studio. She created these fun, organic leather feathers...she talks a bit about the process here! We had our choice of an earring pair, or a larger focal feather.

I opted for an earring pair and received a gorgeous set with purple, blue and metallic designs! I knew that I wanted to create a copper backing to somehow attach the feather to, but it took going to BeadFest this past weekend to solidify my idea in my brain!

Gorgeous lampwork headpins by Jen Cameron and Sue Kennedy!

See the ones circled in yellow? Yep, the orange swirls with purple stripes! As soon as I saw them, I knew what I was going to do. I set about making my copper back plates, adding texture, measuring, punching holes and creating balled headpins and earwires. The plan was to rivet the feathers to the copper piece using the lampwork headpins at the bottom and copper balled headpins at the top. The tips of the leather would be folded over so the copper headpins would go through twice, making a loop for the copper jumpring.

A not great photo of everything all laid out after I patina'ed and tumbled the wire and metal...except for 1 stupid jumpring that flew out of my hands never to be seen again!

Ta-Da!

The design itself, I really like...I wish my construction had been a bit neater. I had a mishap with one of Jen's headpins...I started swirling the back and couldn't get it straight for some reason, so I gently straightened it back out, hoping I hadn't work hardened the wire too much. When I went to try a second time, the wire snapped. Luckily, there was enough left to work with to get it riveted fairly tight, but I may go back and add a drop of E6000 to make sure it holds.

Thanks, Rebekah for the challenge of working with a new medium for me! I can't wait to see what everyone else created. Here is the list...

Guest Artists

Karin Grosset Grange - http://ginkgoetcoquelicot.blogspot.com/

Ann Schroeder - http://beadlove.wordpress.com/

Claire Lockwood - http://www.somethingtodowithyourhands.com/

Toltec Jewels - http://www.jewelschoolfriends.com/

The AJE Team

Jen Cameron - http://www.glassaddictions.com/blog

Diana Ptaszynski - http://www.suburbangirlstudio.com

Kristen Stevens - http://kristen-beadjourney.blogspot.com/

Lesley Watt - http://www.thegossipinggoddess.blogspot.com/

Jenny Davies-Reazor - http://www.jdaviesreazor.com/blog

Francesca Watson - http://francescawatson.com/

Linda Landig - http://www.lindasbeadblog.com/

Sue Kennedy - http://www.suebeads.blogspot.com/

Rebekah Payne - http://www.treewingsstudio.com/

Caroline Dewison - http://blueberribeads.blogspot.co.uk/

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

AJE Component of the Month Blog Hop - April Edition!

Hello out there!! Today's post showcases lovely lampwork headpins, created by our fearless leader over at Art Jewelry Elements...Jennifer Cameron of Glass Addictions.

I was thrilled to receive 2 pale blue transparent headpins with swirled copper wire inside! You know me and swirls! She indicated that we didn't have to use both headpins, but how could I resist?

I have been holding onto some special brass flowers to add to my enamel arsenal, and I decided they would be the perfect component to pair with the headpins. I enameled them in a base of robin's egg blue, then dusted some orchid into the folds and torched. Then, for good measure, added a bit of transparent raspberry! I totally love how these turned out and have a few more sets of these that I will be playing with and offering for sale.

I decided to make some tiny caps for the headpins in the same orchid/raspberry hue.

Finished with some of my hand-wrought sterling and copper earwires, and embellished with Czech glass flowers, these awesome earrings measure about 2.25 inches.