It's Here! The B'sue Boutiques September CHANGE IT UP Vintage Flair Challenge Blog Hop Big Reveal!

That's a mouthful!

You've seen a LOT of great designs today. Thanks for hanging in there this far! 

As you probably know by now, we all had to choose at least one from these four pieces below to use for the challenge (available for sale here): 

I ordered more than one, because I had no idea where I was going at first. Thankfully, when we were given a link to the wonders of Joseff of Hollywood, the gears started turning. By the time my order arrived and I combined it with my stash hoard, I almost had too many ideas to know where to start!

I wound up saving that tie for strategic steampunk purposes. 

As you can see, the first thing I did was cut the cuff in half. I picked out some vintage from my B'sue Etsy store orders and made the base for two necklaces. 

I let things go bling crazy for the one on the left, which resulted in this piece:

I needed sunglasses to photograph it!

But you can't really see the main element, so while this can get filed under "Vintage Flair," it's not quite changed from how I might use it otherwise. 

No....This is a job for two elements.  Actually two and half, but we'll get to that in a minute.  I bent the floral component (upper left of our choices) all sorts of ways and pondered a bracelet, but it wasn't satisfying on its own. I sat it down on the remaining half of the cuff piece, and knew what I needed to do. 

I took all the skills I've been gathering from my Etsy ventures; my rosary making, my assemblage, my metal bending and coloring...and threw them at this piece. 

I tried the pearl cabochon you see in the stash photo, but it seemed to get lost. Then I remembered; I've had this magical big blue gem since I was a kid. Never had anything it seemed to go with. It's been sitting in a baggie in one my bins forever and a day. 

Not this exact one, but to give you the idea what it looks like.

On this day, it got its time to shine. It needed to be cradled completely, and my one flower bit didn't do the job, so I had to get creative.

*snip!* Good thing I've got a bunch of these!

I stared at all the bright brass looking back at me. Needs something. Despite already being assembled, I needed to be creative again:

Testing 1-2-3...

"Hmm the bottom needs something. What's that? Tassels are a thing again? Say,...."

Without further ado, here she is:

Whee! Thank you Brenda Sue Lansdowne for the inspiration and fun (and all those goodies).

Now it wouldn't be a blog hop if I didn't give you the list of all of us you can visit, so here it is!

You may have started with Brenda's blog here. 

Here's the rest of us:
Mary Deis

The Rose Sword

http://theroseswordmdeis.blogspot.com/

Jann Tague

Clever Designs

https://janntague.wordpress.com/

Lori Beekman

B.Accessorized

https://baccessorized.wordpress.com/

Renee Hong

Fine and Dandy Jewelry

http://www.fineanddandyjewelry.blogspot.com/

Cynthia Wainscott

Exotic Peru Jewelry

http://exoticperujewelry.blogspot.com/

Dana Hickey

Magpie Approved

http://magpieapproved.blogspot.com/

Mary Beth Quigley-Spiker

Q Settings

https://qsettings.wordpress.com/

Karen Eaton

KJewelry Creations

http://kjewelrycreations1.blogspot.com/

Shari Gardner

SLG Jewelry Designs

https://slgdesigns.wordpress.com/

Alison Huie

Ally's Baubles

http://allysbaubles.blogspot.com/

Pamela Anger

Novegatti Designs

http://www.novegattidesigns.blogspot.com/

Carole Carlson

Beadsophisticate

https://beadsophisticate.wordpress.com/

Cindy Peterson

Howling Dog Jewelry

https://howlingdogjewelry.wordpress.com/

Marcia Tuzzolino

Aurora Designs

http://auroradesignsjewelryblog.me/

Charlotte Smothers

Sea Horse Ranch Life

http://seahorseranch.blogspot.com/

Catherine Shattuck

Victorian Rose Boutique

https://vrbrose.wordpress.com/

Clare Wells Nemeth

Papercrafting Magic

http://papercraftingmagic.blogspot.com/

Erin Whitacre

Shattered Time

https://shatteredtimejewelry.wordpress.com/

Lynda O'Mara

Lomara Creative

http://www.lomaracreative.com/

Ginger Hammond

Lynn Leigh Designs

https://lynnleighdesigns.wordpress.com/

Ingrid Anderson

Lilis Gems Artisan Jewelry

https://lilisgems.wordpress.com/

Deb Beechy

Beetique

http://www.beetique56.blogspot.com

Harry Wood

Oscar Crow

http://oscarcrow.blogspot.com/

Delyssa Maxwell

Past Time Fancies

https://pasttimefancies.wordpress.com/

Paula Gaskill

Lovely Layla Bugs

http://lovelylaylabugjewels.weebly.com/blog

Irene Hoffman

Heart's Dezire by Irene

https://heartsdezirebyirene.wordpress.com/

Alexandra Sefton

Imaginary Jewelry and Altered Art

http://wilywolverine.blogspot.com/

Leslie Carver  (Hey, that's me!)

Adorn Divine Designs 

http://adorndivinedesigns.blogspot.com/  (You are here!)

Thank you for joining us! 

Come join The Creative Group on Facebook!

Ever had an idea that just wanted out?

I had several of those butterfly fairies fluttering about my worktable.

They were just asking to have something interesting behind them, but I didn't want to just attach them flat. If you've seen my wing earrings, you know I've gotten into bending things lately, so sure enough I found myself twisting them all sorts of ways. Here are two that came out of the adventure: 

One of my butterflies was silver plate, so I had to give its raw brass backing a silver treatment. Wound up treating the bead caps, too. I need to remember to look up suggestions for doing that, since it's not so much fun chasing tiny things around on a plate! Funny enough, finding the right beads to match the reddish pink faux-opal effect of the cabochon was the hardest part. "Colors between the colors," indeed!

But "Best in Show" for this lot was definitely this one:

Not so easy to get that opal like effect to show on camera, but you get the idea. I got in some good wire wrapping practice here. 

I'm working steadily now on my pieces for the September "Change it Up" Challenge and blog hop on September 25!

It all started with an octopus...

...this one to be exact:

The August Monthly Challenge theme for B'sue Creative Group on Facebook was "End of Summer/Under the Sea." I had a few of these eight-armed fellows hanging around (you can get them here) and some strands of beads that reminded me somewhat of seaweed/coral ocean type scenery, so I decided to play around a bit.

The oxidized brass octopus got the green beads and nautical looking chain. I'm still debating the starfish on this one. Too much green? Perhaps a little Swellegant is in order here.

For the second variation, I used the chocolate octopus above with some of the same beads in ivory. Wow, it wound up looking eerily like bone. I just went with it, and gave him a little skull souvenir. This guy means business!

But the winner turned out to be the octopus I gave a little patina treatment to, along with the turquoise version of the beads:

This one wound up being my August Challenge entry. He won me a spot in the B'sue Boutiques Blog AND the newsletter, which was a first for me, and very exciting!

Haven't decided if I should be selling these or not. Lots of fun to do!

Greetings from the Lab

Welcome to the Mad Scientist Laboratory (aka Worktable 1).

(in a rare moment of order!)

This is where I've been collecting various means to color and patina metals, opening the doors to a lot of design elements I've not tried before.

Today's experiment has involved an Alphonse Mucha style stamping. I could only find it in this silver color, and I needed a brass/gold finish. The results:

At first, I tried the Brass Swellegant metal coating as the base layer. The details for this piece are so fine (the stamping is only 1.25 inches), the coat was very thin, and didn't want to play well with the Gilders Paste, despite being sealed. The Iris Blue has a lot of green undertones, which cooled the color of the brass finish appreciably.

On a second stamping, I decided to try the highlight color as the underlayment, using the Vintaj Patina coating. It took some doing to get it into the details and keep it a thin coat, but it worked. I took a stiff dry brush, held it sideways, and gently applied the gold Gilders. Much closer to the look I wanted, so I now I know to work "backwards" when I want this kind of effect. 

I've got to get back over to the jewelry worktable (we'll save that photo for another day) so I can finish something "seaworthy" for the August Design Challenge over in the Facebook Creative Group page for B'Sue Boutiques...join us!

Hello, there.

This is the new blog space for Adorn Divine Designs.

Please pardon our dust while we get set up. Thanks for stopping by!