Driftwood Pendant

Debbie and Henry waltzing at our wedding

When Henry's mom died she wanted her ashes to be scattered in Lake Superior. The night of her memorial was beautiful; a rainbow appeared as her ashes were poured into the lake, and the sunset was probably the most incredible one I've ever seen. On a whim, Henry picked up some driftwood, as a way to take a bit of this place home with him, and to keep a physical reminder of where his mom now rests.

Debbie's memorial

We decided to use a piece of the driftwood to make a necklace. Henry carved it into a teardrop, to symbolize Lake Superior. I think it turned out perfect. I'm honored to wear it. 

Pitcher Plant

http://www.tootoo.com/d-p2919601-Nepenthes_Alata/

Time for another weird and beautiful plant post. Pitcher plants are perhaps one of the most bizarre plants out there. Pitcher plants tend to live in places where the soil is very low in nutrients, and so have evolved a novel way to obtain their necessary nutrients. They use their modified cupped leaves to trap insects, and once inside, digestive juices break down the prey into the nutrients that the plant needs. My pitcher plant is based off of the Nepenthes genus, but isn't species specific.

To make the pitchers I formed a skinner blend into plugs and then hollowed them out. To make the leaves more interesting I dusted them with pastels and then glazed them with polyacrylic. This piece is mounted on a magnet, because who doesn't want a pitcher plant on their fridge?

When I was a little kid, my grandmother gave me a little gold charm of a cross, an anchor, and a heart. They stand for faith, hope and charity. The trinity of this has always resonated with me, and ever since then, I've loved finding the importance of threes. So many things in the human experience seem to be held together in threes; body-mind-spirit, maiden-mother-crone, father-son-holy spirit, love-honor-protect, I could go on and on. I was looking for viking representations of the three, and came across these celtic representations. 

I textured the spiral one before I baked it, and brushed on some dark pastel to give the piece depth. I sealed both with a polyacrylic. 

Gold Flower Swirl Earrings

Swingin Earrings

       I love to dance, more specifically, I love to Swing Dance. Its been a huge part of my life for the last 6 years or so. I thought it was about time to pay tribute, and make some swing-inspired earrings. I wanted my dancers to move when I moved, so I made the top and bottom half separately, and hooked them together with a jump ring.

Prairie Smoke Pendant

Here's one I made last week, I hope you like it. Its Prairie Smoke in a pottery jug on a pearl background. I made the jug with inclusions of coffee, and I really like the effect. We are still working on getting the photography right, let us know if you have any tips! 

Henry's photos

I don't have a post ready of my own today, so Henry wanted me to put up some of his photos. I love these ones, and he's doing the photography of my pieces now, so I'll give him the shout out! Enjoy.

Wildflowers

 love prairie wildflowers. I grew up with them, and I miss working with them in the summers. I'l also very very ready for spring. I thought I would create a little bit of July to brighten up March with a miniature bouquet of tallgrass prairie forbs. 

The images got a little backlit, so some of the detail is lost, but we have spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis), hairbells (Campanula rotundifolia), blackeyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta), butterfly flower (Asclepias tuberosa), and prairie smoke (Geum triflorum) in a faux stoneware jug. The whole arrangement is less than 2 inches tall. There are lots of possibilities for other pieces using the techniques I worked out on this one, so I'm excited to see what else I can come up with. 

The weekend's jewlery

I needed to make another sloth for a coworker who's obsessed with sloths, so here's Sloth II. I like how the texture showed better on this sloth. Anybody else have requests?

Ever since choosing the background for the blog, I've been wanting to experiment with the form of the Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum) flower. Here's what came out. 

Kitty Toys

Hackey Sack Cat Toy: Great use for scrap yarn

I haven't mentioned much of my knitting on this blog yet, but one of my other addictions is knitting. The crazy cat needed a new toy a while ago, and I thought maybe I should put it up on here. I based the toy on a hackey sack pattern I found, it can be knit in the round, or flat. I did it flat, but it shouldn't matter either way. It's done in garter stitch, and just a cross shape, knit a small square, increase at the start of the next two rows, to make a rectangle the same dimensions of the square, and then decrease back down for one more square. Stitch up the sides, and stuff it with what you will. I put a plastic grocery bag inside, a rattle bell cat toy so that it makes noise when its played with, and a good amount of catnip. I figured it should appeal to all of his senses; crinkly, chewy and intoxicating -perfect cat toy right? As a finishing touch, I crocheted a single chain and attached it to the toy to make a handle, and as an after thought, I stuck the whole thing on a wire to make it dance. 

Its just the perfect size that he can bite it and attack it with all four paws at the same time. The wire lets me make it wiggle, which gets him even more excited. 

Happy and thoroughly entertained cat! Success!

Orchid

It was my friend's birthday yesterday, and I knew he loves orchids. I wanted another plant challenge, so I decided to make him an orchid flower out of polymer clay. The bloom I decided on was a brassolaeliocattleya hybrid, I think its called Almakee 'TIpmalee' AM/OST. Hybrid orchid names are confusing, and I'm not going to worry if I got the name right. 

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/azumino/kmagland/myphotos/catt.all.Hybrids/Hybrids.html

Here is the finished product. I used pastels again to make the highlights to give it depth. Adam seemed to like it, so I'll just wish him another happy birthday!

My own orchids don't have enough light to bloom, so maybe I'll just make a bunch of these and pretend! 

Owl and Fall Tree

Last weekend I tried my hand at a couple of new techniques. I made this owl using the concept of my applique flowers, but instead of petals, I used slightly larger pieces to create feathers. I really like how the colors turned out.

The second technique I tried, was to create my own push mold for this tree pendant. Basically I used a scrap of clay, and carved out the tree shape. I'm not great at drawing, so the shape didn't turn out perfect, but I think the finished piece works, so I'm satisfied. After I baked the mold, I mixed the colors for my fall background and pressed it into the carved mold. To get the color effect, I lightly mixed reds and golds, and then grated the chunk of clay. Cool huh? To make the tree stand out, I brushed it with soft artists' pastels. 

Titan Arum

I fell in love with working with tropical plants at my college greenhouse. We had some unique and charismatic specimens that were impossible not to fall under the spell of. Perhaps the most so was Perry the Corpse Flower. Perry was started from seed in 1993 by a professor at GAC and was finally big enough to bloom in 2007. Big enough, of course means that its underground corm was 90 pounds in 2006 when it was repotted. The Corpse Flower, also known as Titan Arum or Amorphophallus titanum has a number of fascinating features that make it and other members of the Amorphophallus genus unique. These plants send up a single leaf from their underground tuber (think potato), but this leaf can reach ridiculous heights in the case of the Titan Arum. When I first met Perry at GAC, I thought he was a tree. It wasn't until closer inspection that I realized the several meter high "trunk" was actually only one highly branched leaf. 

http://arboretum.blog.gustavus.edu/2008/06/19/gigantic-leaf-garners-gawkers/brian-leaf-may-7-2008/

Perry's first flower caused quite a stir as it was the first of its kind to bloom in Minnesota. The flower (technically an inflorescence) of an arum consists of two parts, the leaf-like spathe that wraps around the, um, phallic shaped spadix. The flowers themselves are arranged on the spadix and are hidden and protected by the crimson colored spathe.

Dorky picture of me, but you get the idea; big stinky plant!

 These flowers are pollinated by flies and bugs that are attracted to the plant by its noxious smell. When it blooms, it emits odors that mimic that of dead, rotting flesh. Yummy huh? Titan arums are pretty talented mimics; not only do they produce that amazing stench and look like meat, they also heat up during the peak of their bloom to spread the fumes further. Plants that have endothermy? That's cool! (or hot...)

Me, being the nerd I am, felt the need to make my own mini Titan Arum. It was a fun exercise in blending colors, and sculpting the shapes I needed. I "planted" it in a tiny pot, and now can enjoy my very own corpse flower -without the nasty smell.

Last week's pieces

I'm almost caught up on getting my stuff on this blog, and I published on facebook! Hopefully I'll get some readers now! :D Here are is another batch of sculpy pendants. As you can tell I love quirky nature themes. 

This is one of my favorites.

Lucky Pea Pod

Giraffe

Blue pendant with light blue floral applique

Monkey!!

Panda Bear

Obsession

Ok, now I'm obsessed with polymer clay. I'm going to blame it on Julia introducing me to craftgawker.com, I am constantly inspired by things I find there. Here are my first batch of projects. I'll apologize for the horrible photography, I've been taking pictures late at night, and can't get the right lighting. When Henry gets his life back from grad-school, I'll get him to take some better ones. 

Flowers pendant

Faux wood grain pendant

Lucky Turtle

Meadow Lark silhouette 

Mockingbird silhouette

Happy Acorn!
I'll admit I totally stole the design, but it was just an experiment to see if I could do it. And he's super cute!

Cala Lily
Be warned, I have a thing for Arum Lilies. This might be a reoccurring theme....