Charm auction benefiting A Place To Bark

I've mentioned before that I participated in a charm swap for the Raevn's Nest Art Retreat back in October. One of the participants did not show up, so Kim Rae Nugent is auctioning off the extra charms on eBay to benefit A Place To Bark, the animal rescue organization run by fellow artist Bernie Berlin.

This lot includes charms made by Laurie Mika, Jill K. Berry and Kim, of course. Mine's not in the auction photo, but I just mailed Kim one of my extra charms to include. (I wasn't there the night of the swap and had traded with the participants individually the next day.)

Halloween & Day of the Dead projects

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth! My non-art job has been incredibly busy, and then I got the cold that's going around, so I'm moving in slow-motion. But here's what I've been working on. Above is Dearly Departed completed for the Ten Two Studios design team challenge, which I had mentioned last month. I used a paper bag book and colorful Day of the Dead designs from Ten Two Studios. You can see all the pages in my Dearly Departed Flickr set. The book will also be on display at the Bay View Book Arts Gallery later this month for the 2nd Annual "Darkness Falls" show.

If you haven't been over to Ten Two Studios lately, Lisa's been posting daily Halloween eye candy from the design team and others. Kooky & creepy - Be sure to scroll down to see everything!

Next weekend, I'm attending Raevn's Nest Art Retreat in Cedarburg, WI. I registered for this back in March, and I can't believe it's almost time! I'm still running around trying to get my class supplies. I signed up for three workshops: 3-D ATCs with Laurie Mika, Make A Scene with Jill K. Berry, and Hinged Copper Locket with Richard Salley. (There are photos of the class projects at the bottom of each workshop page.) I'm also participating in a Halloween-themed charm swap at the retreat, and so I've been working on those (using dominoes and images from Ten Two Studios, of course). This is the reverse side of the charms above:

I'm also working on ATCs for the Milwaukee ATC group's next meeting, which happens to be on October 31, so not surprisingly the Halloween & Day of the Dead theme won the vote. I've been doing a series of Witchy Women, with these fun collage sheets

You can see the rest of the set on Flickr. So that's what's going on here!

Crafting 365 rebooted

I decided to start 2009 by getting back into the Crafting 365 project, which I had been working on after I finished my ATC-a-Day project but fell out of the practice last summer when we started househunting and then moving.

On New Year's Day, my friend Jess Poor held an art play date at her studio, so we all started the year craftily. I wrestled with wire-wrapping techniques since I'm trying to improve my skills. My mom got me the book A Charming Exchange for Christmas, and I almost considered doing a "Charm-a-Day" project this year, but I quickly realized I was better off keeping my goals open-ended. So my official photo for Day #1 (above left) was of the Coiled Wire Knot charm in that book. This was my second attempt since on my first attempt, I wrapped my wire around a larger dowel and the coils just flopped around when I joined them together.

I also have Josie Cirincione's latest book Bent, Bound & Stitched, from which I got the instructions for the button pendant above (Day #2 - above right). I had a little trouble bending my wire to fit my button!



Day 6 was another technique from Charming Exchange in which I learned I can twist wire with my little cordless Dremel rotary tool but I'm not very good at twisting it around itself. I want wire to behave like thread, but it seems to have a mind of its own. I'm getting better, but I do end up with a lot of distorted wire scraps (which of course I can't throw away, because I might be able to use them for SOMETHING).