Eucharisteo

Eucharisteo...thanksgiving...always precedes the miracle.

I love to read and a friend of mine from church was reading a book one day at the pool this summer,  "One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are" by Ann Voskamp. Kathy told me a little bit about it and mentioned it was a book they were reading in their book club. I could not make the Monday evening get togethers, so I purchased the book on Amazon and read it pretty quickly.

Ann, the author of the book writes about "How do we find joy in the midst of deadline, debt, drama, and daily duties? What does a life of gratitude look like when your days are gritty, long and sometimes dark? What is God providing here and now?" She discovered, in giving thanks for the life she already had, she found the life she'd always wanted. She kept a notebook and wrote down her daily thanks as she came across them in the moment. 

Now, I also love to make jewelry and I am usually inspired by what I am reading at the time. I happened to be taking a webinar "Windows to My Heart" by Diane Cook at the same time and the image popped into my head what I had to make.

I really enjoyed the book and it opened a "Window to My Heart", so to speak and I translated this into my bracelet.

The base of the cuff and the heart are both nickel silver and the band in between the two is copper. On the heart I etched "Grace, thanksgiving, joy" and "Eucharisteo".

The copper band reads "The greatest thing is to give thanks for everything. He who has learned this knows what it means to live...He has penetrated the whole mystery of life: giving thanks for everything.

The image under the mica is part of the painting "Supper at Emmaus" by Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio. In "1000 Gifts", Ann travels to Paris with a friend and sees a Rembrandt of strangers at Emmaus eating with Christ. Everything she wrote about came together and was so clear to her at this moment. I googled Rembrandt's painting and was in awe of Caravaggio's painting and had to use it in my piece instead of the Rembrandt. Don't get me wrong, I do love Rembrandt!

"When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him" (Luke 24"30-31 NIV).

I had to finish the back with sheet music of "Joy to The World" - it just seemed so appropriate to me.

"Thank You, God, for the bread of now...
for Your Son and sacrifice...
for the love song You keep singing, the gift of Yourself that You keep giving...
for the wild wonder of You in this moment."

Stacking Ring Class at Eva's

Last Friday, in the 90+ degree heat, 3 of us took a class at Grand River Bead Studio with Kristina Malcom. It was fantastic! It was like getting in a hot yoga class at the same time! I think the hardest part was walking up 3 flights of stairs with such humid air.

I have to say, heat aside, I really enjoyed the class along with the two others, Claudia and Marilyn, and all of our rings turned out beautifully.

I ended up coming home, ordering a bunch of supplies, which just came in the mail a couple days ago. I can't wait to fill up my fingers with stacking rings!

Kristina and Claudia polishing away

Marilyn busy shaping her rings

My rings soldered, pickled and ready to set!

Group shot from left: Marilyn, Krisina, Mine, Claudia

Close up of my rings with a 6mm Labradorite, copper band with silver ball and a 4mm Alexandrite

Copper and Leather and ICE Resin, oh my!

Here I go again, resin crazy, both Aiden and I are filling everything we can get our hands on!

I am hooked on combining copper and leather, I really like the look. Here, I've made some bezels out of copper tubing from the hardware store, soldered on a back and micro fastened them onto the leather. In the bezels, I've included handmade paper with skeleton leaves and some rhinestone chain that is oxidized and cut into individual pieces. And of course, some text out of a thesaurus distressed with ink.

I love working with Susan Lenart Kazmer's ICE Resin®; It mixes so clear with virtually no bubbles.  You'll have to check out her site for some of her newer products and bezels, very fun! I'll be sure to share some pieces soon with her new Iced Enamels®!

My Little Artist

Here is a picture from Art by the Falls this month with my 7 year old son's work. He has the crafting bug! Everyone in the family has been saving bottle caps for him to use and his most popular item at the show was his resin filled bottle caps. I really love the look when he squirts in different glitter glue and then lets it dry. When it dries, it shrivels up and makes very interesting patterns.

We signed up to do another show, Art on the Hill in Mantua on July 13th and we're pouring resin on a regular basis :o)

And the Winners Are......

I am so happy! Out of all the entrants, my Believe necklace was picked as a runner up for the 7th Bead Soup Challenge! You can see all of the winners here.

First of all, thank you so much to Lori Anderson who organized this event, it was my first time entering and I really enjoyed making everything from my "Soup".  Thank you to all of the sponsors: - Beaducation, Kalmbach Publishing, Fusion Beads, Nina Designs, Lima Beads, and PJ Tool Jewelry & Craft for their time and contributions.

A special thank you to my Bead Soup Partner, Jennifer Davies-Reazor, I was thrilled to be partnered with you and to receive such amazing pieces to work with - I am so happy to have made a new jewelry friend and am in total awe of your work!

Faux Bone with Becky

 What a fantastic day I spent with Becky. Her boyfriend, Harry, a good friend of mine, bought her a class to take from me as a Christmas present. She chose to spend a day exploring faux bone and what a fabulous outcome she had with her first piece! For those of you who aren't familiar with the substrate, it was founded by artist Robert Dancik. It is a completely non-toxic, high grade rigid PVC that does not outgas (produce fumes) when heated properly. Because it is malleable at just below 250 degrees it can be heat formed into just about any shape. You can learn more about it at Crackerdog Design.

Becky teaches African Dance and just a little over a year ago travelled to Africa, so, that was the inspiration for her creation!

 First, she learned how to use a jeweler's saw - talk about picking that up quickly, look how great her shape turned out!

 
Here is Becky cutting out a couple discs to possibly use on her piece. After the texture was added to both sides, she applied acrylic paints and shoe polish.

                 

Becky decided to put "location markers" with tube set cz's in the countries she went to when she visited Africa. She decided to put the copper disc she cut with an etched image of a butterfly wing on the back.

 Here are the finished creations with chain. She will be stopping back at Bead Paradise in the near future to pick out a couple African Trade Beads to add a splash of color to the chain.

Thanks again Becky! How much fun it was to hang with you for the day!!!

Bead Soup Blog Party 2013 - drumroll please....

This was my first time involved in the BSBP and how much fun I had. There are over 541 people participating! Thank you Lori Anderson for putting this together, I am so glad I stumbled upon your blog!

I was paired up with a fabulous artist, Jennifer Davies-Reazor. She makes beautiful ceramic pieces inspired by myth and ritual. She is also inspired by found objects which, to me was a perfect person to be paired up with! I couldn't be happier with my final pieces.

I was challenged by the soups she sent me, mainly because I have never used ceramics in my work, but some of the pieces were very tribal looking to me, which is right up my alley!

If you recall Jennifer sent me 2 beautiful "soups" in 2 separate pouches. The Brown Pouch, as I referred to it was easier for me to work with:

The very first piece I made immediately was a bracelet using the Jen's stoneware bracelet bar:

I have been on a roll etching metals and had a hunk of etched copper just waiting to be used. I cut a piece of that and used micro fastneners to attach it to the leather. I added chain and attached some of the pearls and vintage buttons as dangles. I used some crystals from my stash with the buttons to add just a tiny bit of bling.  I love the clasp she sent me from the other soup, I thought it went perfect with the colors and feel of the piece. I had to use a couple pieces of turquoise, well, because I love turquoise and wanted that little bit of color in the clasp to be picked up.

Right away, the discs by Marsha Neal Studio called out to me, they are just fabulous! I fused some copper wire (that my husband stripped for me while working on our kitchen electrical), pounded it out and textured with my hammer. I disc cut 2 circles from the same piece of copper I used for the bracelet and voila, matching earrings.

And last but not least in this group is the necklace:

The copper medallion by Andrew Thronton arrived to me shiny. I had to oxidize it right away and it really brought out the texture of stars. I thought it would be perfect to pair it with the crystal Jen sent me. I also used a couple of the brown pearls and a brown bead she sent me along with some of my own stash of turquoise and vintage beads from broken necklaces my Gram gave me long ago. I was struggling with the perfect chain for this and found in one of my bins some copper links I made into bracelets. I took 2 of the bracelets apart and used it for the chain on this piece. I am planning on putting together the perfect outfit to wear this set tonight to a function I am attending!

Now, for my challenging soup

The focal was the biggest challenge to me. I stared at it numerous times before coming up with an idea. 

I still have a lot of pieces from this soup to use and mainly strung a colorful array of beads, pearls, crystals and spacers from my stash to pick up all of the colors in the Believe pendant.

Again, I steered toward a tribal/talisman look, that's just my thing. 

I hope I made Jennifer proud! Again, I had so much fun doing this and cannot wait to find the time to visit the blogs of all the participants - the full list of links can be found here.