Autumn Wedding Jewelry Ensemble

This past autumn, I had the honor of designing a jewelry set for five bridesmaids!

The color theme was reds and golds, with hints of pearl and green. Each of the girls would be wearing a different dress in the same color, and each girl had different jewelry requirements (pierced/non-pierced ears, short/long necklace, etc). 

The necklace shape is also adjustable-- since I created a braided base, it could be gently pinched into a pointed shape, or a flat, or rounded style. If you look closely at the pictures of the bridesmaids, you'll see that each necklace is worn differently!

The bride wore a thick lace veil with a bright, bold wreath of red and gold flowers and leaves on top, and the jewelry was designed to coordinate with her style.

It goes without saying that these five sets were a fair bit of work! Each necklace had a braided base that looks very similar to my braided circlets. Beads and glass leaves of all kinds were woven on in matching patterns, and beads adorned the adjustable golden chain.

These are the earrings and ear cuffs designed for the bridesmaids!

The ear cuffs were beautifully decorative; the bride loves fairytale styles so I had fun going overboard with the sparkly bling!

One of the girls had double piercings and wore two sets of dangles! I'd never really heard of that kind of pairing before, but wouldn't you agree that it is a lovely combination?



The other girls all wore variations of my Enchanted Forest Earrings in gold and red.

I also created a pair of barefoot sandals for the bride! The picture below is with shoes from our outdoor photoshoot, but these "fairy sandals" work well barefoot, too!

This is the entire set of jewelry, representing a couple weeks of work!

I didn't photograph the rings very well, but in this picture you can see the leaf flower ring and the gold-and-red wirewrapped rosette ring on the maid of honor!

This was one of the most unique weddings I've attended, style-wise, and I had a blast designing jewelry for such lovely girls!

I've created many pieces of jewelry for various brides, and I've even designed an entire set of jewelry for a bride, bridal party, and mother-of-the-bride, but this was the first time creating wedding pieces for someone I knew! I am also friends with all of the bridal party, so I had the opportunity to take their personal styles into consideration.

In addition, I also helped out last minute by being the second shooter at the wedding! I wound up taking over three hundred pictures of the ceremony, photoshoot, and reception.

It's not a fairytale wedding with friends until you do a hilarious gag photo, is it?

The park we took photos had at these awesomely weird concrete frogs...

So... I did mention that this was a group of my friends from high school and that everyone involved are fantastic geeks, yes? While the main photographer was off taking sweet pictures of the bride and groom, the bridesmaids and groomsmen posed with my Lord of the Rings weaponry.

Aren't they just too cute?

Best wishes and lots of prayers for the new Mr. and Mrs.! 

Habemus Papam

To my Catholic readers: I know this is old news to you by now, but WE HAVE A POPE!

After Pope emeritus Benedict XVI resigned, we had several pope-less days and I was so excited to see a Twitter post proclaiming "Habemus Papam-- we have a Pope!" Then I got a text from Pope Alarm just a few seconds later (why yes, I did sign up to get a text for the big news!) and had the honor of being the first one to run around the house telling my family!

I don't remember much about Benedict's election so this week was, I think, the very first that I heard about the smoke tradition. The Cardinals vote on the Pope multiple times each day. After each set of votes, they light a fire and send smoke up the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. Black smoke signifies that they have not reached a decision, and white smoke means that they were led by the Holy Spirit, made a conclusive vote, and HABEMUS PAPAM!

We turned on EWTN (a Catholic channel, where you are much more likely to just get to see everything going on at the Vatican and not have to suffer through all the snide comments on how everyone thinks that they can be a better pope than the popes).

We basically sat there for an hour, watching the smoke and the crowds in the square of the basilica, praying for the new pope, and wondering who it is!

I of course grabbed my travel sketchbook and sat doodling. Lately I've been trying to be more decisive with my sketches, so these are all drawn directly with pen (no erasing mistakes) and then splashed with a bit of watercolor. (I recently discovered the epic Urban Sketchers' blog, and I'm surprised by how much these sketches are similar to their style!).

I think that the Swiss Guard are pretty awesome. I wish they'd shown more of them!

 The wait was very very long... so I drew St. Peter's, a happy pilgrim girl who appeared on screen for about two seconds but was so picturesquely joyful, a clock that they kept filming, and some of the crowds. It's surprisingly difficult to draw things on TV; they sure don't keep the camera pointed in one direction all the time!

The excitement and prayerfulness of the crowd there was inspiring.

And finally, they announced the Pope! Francis I is from Argentina and looks like he will be a wonderful pope. He's a theologian and from the Americas and, judging by his speech, has a sense of humor. I'm excited, hopefully he'll be just as strong and totally epic as JPII and Benedict.

(this is a REALLY rough translation that a friend shared on facebook; more polished ones are now online) 

I was impressed by his humble request for prayers before he even gave the Apostolic blessing. 

He surprisingly didn't come out in the full garb with the red cloak; just the white habit and the stole (basically a prayer shawl but with deep symbolism).

(Here's the Altoids watercolor tin that I made several months ago if you were wondering how it's holding up! It works really well. Also, I found a waterbrush in Mom's scrapbook stash yesterday. It's pretty epic.)

Just because I'm posting pictures that I drew of Pope Francis' election today... here's a pen-only sketch from when when pope emeritus Benedict announced his resignation. Just pretend that the hands are the right size and all that.

I don't remember too much about the previous papal election. We were on a class trip to the state Capitol, and someone said something about the pope being sick during a tour of one of the offices. When I got home that day, Mom told me that John Paul II had passed away. Even though I'm racking my brains, I don't have any strong memories of Benedict's election. We just got a new pope and everything was as it should be. When you are in fourth grade, things seem to just work out like that and there is nothing remarkable in it.

Several months later (Jan 2006, judging by where this was in my old sketchbook) I drew a picture of JPII and then a quick sketch of Benedict XVI. It was only after JPII's death that I read encyclicals and books by him and his sucessor and the wisdom of these two saintly men has really strengthened my faith!

Let's pray for the new Pope Francis I and the entire church!

Sharpie Easter Eggs

I'm sure you've seen pictures of those beautiful works of art known as Ukrainian Eggs (or perhaps you've been lucky enough to see them in person!). This traditional style of decorating eggs uses beeswax, candles, really really really strong dyes, and other materials that most people don't have on hand.

Those eggs are true works of art, though. I've always admired them. Last Holy Saturday, I decided to try my hand at blowing eggs and decorating them with various materials-- and I never got past the Sharpies.

Sharpies are awesome.

Sharpies are the ultimate quick-and-easy-(relatively-easy-that-is)-egg-decorating-tool-things.

And, for once in my life, I am actually being a good blogger. I did a craft before the date it's themed on. I've got a very bad habit of doing themed art the day of or even the day after holidays/events, and not posting the pictures and tutorials until a week or so later. (Bad habit if I wanted to be a rich and famous blogger. OK habit for a teenager who just loves art and sporadically posts on her blog for the heck of it.)

Last week, I pulled out the Sharpies and did some more experimenting! These turned out much better than last time-- and I really liked the ones I made last year.

The eggs are pictured below in the order that I made them. Right now, though, here's some tips:

• When blowing the eggs, go ahead and make the bottom hole really big. (See below). This will keep you from getting dizzy when blowing it. Also, you might need to use tweezers to pull the membrane out of the hole; it likes to block the opening up and send raw egg up the end of the egg that your mouth is touching! BTW, I'm just using chicken eggs that we get from Costco.

• You don't need a ton of Sharpies (I've spent a lot of money and have nearly 30 in different colors and sizes, but only use 3-4 markers per egg), but be sure you use real Sharpies. You don't want that half-permanent stuff to bleed all over the place.
• Don't use a pencil to draw in your design, use a very pale marker. I use light pink and light green. The pencils will leave gray in your color.
• Use a rubber band to draw straight lines.
• Hold the egg with a kleenex or paper towel. The Sharpie takes awhile to "set," and nervous, focused fingers will get damp and bleed the color. (Ask me how I know...)
• Blend and smear colors! The unique thing about using an egg is that the Sharpies stay liquid for a good 3 seconds. Use your fingers, a Q-tip, or a bit of Kleenex on your fingertip to smear the ink.
• Sharpies pull each other up, even once the ink has dried. It's great for fixing problems, but be sure you do the dark colors last so you don't risk pulling dark brown into that light yellow you're coloring.
• If you want to color in a large area, hold a Sharpie against a kleenex and let the ink bleed. You've got 15 seconds to rub that color in wherever you want. It leaves a pale and solid color and is great for "erasing" large areas of underdrawings.
• If you really need to remove something, use fingernail polish remover on a q-tip (or something equally abrasive). It doesn't totally remove the color, but I had a major och-nee (oh-noes!) on one egg and this let me keep the background mostly white. I think it might weaken the eggshell, though.
• Use thin wire to thread ribbon through the egg. Most needles aren't long enough. (None of that is pictured here).
• Sharpies aren't toxic. I'm pretty sure you can safely use them on hardboiled eggs.
• Be patient. I spent almost two hours per egg. Rushing things won't get you anywhere. Be sure and use lots of layering to get depth.
• HAVE FUN! Because this technique is AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME and I love it and you'll love it and it's awesome. *emphathetic head nod*

Let the pictures commence!

First I did another egg very similar to last year's eggs. I forgot to snag close-up pictures of it, look for it in the bowl of eggs.

Madonna and Child

I was a little tired of boring old swirly designs and wanted to attempt something more religious. Because Easter eggs, after all, celebrate Easter, only the greatest day of the Church year!

I'm quite proud of this one. :) It's still my favorite!

The Resurrection

The first egg left me wanting to make more! I winged the first one, but for this egg I looked up some traditional iconography for the Resurrection and tried to incorporate it. This also includes my big artsy obsession, Celtic Knotwork.

You know, art is hard enough on a flat surface. Especially knotwork. Try throwing it on an irregular spherical shape... *head explodes*

The Crucifixion

It felt a little odd to do a Resurrection drawing during Lent, so I did one of the Crucifixion.

You can still see the underlying light-pink marker underneath the words. When I draw pictures, the underdrawing gets rubbed away, but it evidently doesn't work as well for lettering!

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady's picture is very graphic and perfect for copying onto an egg.

Of note on this egg is the rose. Originally my underdrawing had some heart-shaped design that is typical on Ukrainian eggs, but I didn't like it so I used a tissue to smear tan ink and "erase" it. Then I drew the rose on top with light pink, bright red, and dark brown. It took a lot of smearing.

My family isn't very artistic but three of my siblings joined in the fun. My sister's is pretty obvious, but I bet you'd have a hard time telling about the 4 and 11 year old boy's ones. *rolls eyes* My brothers are math and physics geniuses, not artists.

My 8 year old sister did this one entirely on her own. It's "Mary holding Baby Jesus and the back of the egg is the cross after they took Jesus down and you can still see his blood on the cross and on the ground." She then told me all about how Jesus' blood washes away our sins because He died to save us and all about how sad Mary was when her Son died.

She also told me that she wants to make a special egg to commemorate her First Holy Communion this spring. :)

I made these eggs early so they can be gifts for family and friends on Easter Sunday, but they are so so so much fun to make that I'll be making them through the rest of Lent, and probably during the whole of the Easter season. You'll be seeing a lot more of these around the blog!

I think my family likes the decorated eggs so much because it means that I'll offer to cook breakfasts of omlettes and scrambled eggs!

Did you make Sharpie-ified Easter eggs? I'd love to see them! Please leave a comment with a link to your blog or flickr or whatnot. If lots of people decorate eggs with this technique I might do a special post highlighting all of them. :)

O Tannenbaum

I am finally on Christmas break-- that glorious time with no school and nothing to do but enjoy time with your family (and spend any leftover time doing artwork!).

I'm looking forward to Mass tommorrow night and then our tradition of eating pizza, baking Santa cookies, and reading The Night Before Christmas (and each year it gets harder and harder to fit all 8 of us on one single couch for Dad to read us that book!). This year my littest brother is old enough to understand what Christmas is all about-- he was so cute this morning when he said that Jesus was even smaller than he is!-- and he's also sooo excited about the presents.

Anyway, I made you all a pretty little Christmas tree. :)

I can't take credit for this idea; I'd seen a photo with a tree made out of stacked up books online a couple of months ago-- maybe on Pinterest? I can't find it now, though.

(part of my destroyable books series... only this one didn't destroy any books except the couple of pages used to make the bow/star. You'll be seeing a tutorial on that very soon.)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The Grand Finale

I've decided to stop apologizing about not posting very often. Real life is more important than what happens on the computer, and that's that.

(For the record, though... I am not this behind on the 30 Day Drawing Challenge. I was only a little over a day behind. Our scanner is only hooked up to one computer, though, and it happens to be the laptop that Dad had brought to work for the past several days).

Day 23: Something You Need

I stole Lydia's lovely idea-- of course, Our Savior is someone I need!

Gouache paint, based off of an icon on a prayer card. 4X6 as usual.

Day 24: A Couple

I thought about being all smartypants and drawing something like a couple socks or a couple dragon claws or something... but then I decided that this idea floating around in my head was just too cute.

Gouache paint.

Day 25: Scenery

Due to a very unfortunate spill, the backside of the Couple painting got smeared with paint. Now, I did the entire 30 Day Drawing Challenge in one little notebook, and was running low on pages. I had to do the Scenery drawing on this smeared peice of paper...

...so I ran with it and smeared more paint on randomly and then drew random cartoony scenery stuffs in sharpie. I call it the Magic of Random Paint Spills-- An Abstract Study of the Biochemistry of Gryphons. It's a masterpeice and will someday hang in a museum.

Day 26: Something You Don't Like

I don't dislike Rubik's Cubes. It's just the fact that my little brother can solve the entire thing in two minutes flat, while I... well, I can't even solve one side of it! ;)

Day 27: Someone You Love

When you can't decide who to draw because you love so many people... it's always safe to draw the cutest littlest dude around. Meet my brother, King of the Laundry Basket (we didn't have a mountain handy). Complete with the paper crown handmade by our eight year old sister.

Day 28: Anything You'd Like

Feeling a little nostalgic for Autumn. We just had our first sprinkle of snow and first frost to last beyond the sun's waking.

watercolor

Day 29: A Place You Want To Go

A ticket to Middle Earth? You shouldn't have. Aww, thanks. YOUR'E THE BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD!

(Here's another unforunate spill at work. My india ink made a nice big blot right on the bottom left corner. I did my best to fix it with some guoache paint and stained the entire map brown. Now I'm not sure if it looks all cool and aged, or all messed up and stained!)

Day 30: A Congrats Banner

I meant it when I said I was running out of paper! This is drawn on the back cover of my sketchbook. Sharpie and a wee bit of white watercolor.

Here's the linky... sorry it's so late... go ahead and use a seperate link for each of your drawings, or a single one, or whatever. :)