11th Hour Vision=Bird&Nest

I bet not a week goes by that half a dozen people ask us what we do all day. Holy Moly I'm wondering just what do they think retirement (from outside work) really is! For heaven sakes the only thing we retired from was our careers not our lives. Heck we manage to keep busy all day long so much so that LW said the other day, he wondered how he could ever find the time to work at his "job" if he still had to! :) We moved down with out a TV thinking we would buy a new one when we got here. That was 5 years ago and we still don't have one. We never have time to watch it if we did. Jeez even to get a whole uninterrupted day working in my Little Art Corner takes a shoe horn. But "What do you do all day??" Any more my answer is "What ever I want"! So much easier then trying to explain that I don't know, but what ever it is, sure takes up a lot of my day! :)

And what you may be asking does my so called "busy" days have to do with the necklace in the picture??? Well let me tell you. Okay? last fall my friend Ann bought a pair of tiny nest earrings I made. They looked a little like these and had an amber stone between the nests and fishhooks.

Right after the first of the year she asked me to make a nest necklace to go with the earrings. "No rush take your time" So the Feb. Art Walk went by and I didn't have the necklace done. Heck I hadn't even started. I couldn't even come up with a divine vision for it. Then before I knew it Feb. rushed by in a whirlwind of "busy". Still no progress and I had promised her I'd have it for the March Art Walk. It's a good thing the Walk got push back a week because of Carneval or I still wouldn't have had it done in time. But thankfully my 11th hour vision came through!! I paired the amber with pretty blue-green Turquoise nuggets.

Added some of my magic verdigris patina to a bird and leaf charm. Then attached to 2 sides to the nest.

I attached a branch of ivy to the bird charm. I made it with polymer clay. Jackie P has 1(very lonely) sterling silver earring that the branch comes from. I made a mold of it and then made the polymer one from the mold. Because it's thin and long (a good 3") I ran a flatten 18gage wire through it for stabilization. Then formed a ring on each end to attach with. I added some stamp pad dye and acrylic paint for a vintage ivory/bone look, and buffed the heck out of it. Now if you look closely you can see what it is that makes this "earring" piece so cool. See the gecko?? In Chinese homes you will find a luck cricket. Here we all have lucky geckos! They control the mosquito and fly populations. We have a little group who live on the walls of our sun room and others that live on the first floor. Because there are many places where we are open to the outside these cute little critters come and go as they please. I just couldn't pass up a chance to play around with it Jackie's orphan earring. Can ya blame me?? I painted just a tad bit of very light green acrylic paint on the little guy, so you could see him.

I sure don't know what I'm not doing right, but no matter how close up my picture is when blogger gets a hold of it the zoom view is no more!??

I finished up with one of those new fangled snap clasps. seems to be holding so far. I told Ann to test-drive it for a bit. If it wasn't going to work I'd make a hook clasp for it.

I have to tell you I think this time the 11th hour vision turned out great. But the litmus test of course was whether Ann like it. YEA! she was really pleased with it. She kinda did one of those happy little girl squeals and exclaimed it was perfect, exactly what she hoped it would look like. She even had to put it on right there and wear it for the rest of the Art Walk. Kinda made me all warm and smiles (you guys know that feeling) cuz she had to show everyone the necklace I had made to go with her earrings. Some things just like the commercial says are priceless. It was the best medicine I could imagine for my little soul!!

Add that is "what I do all day" ;) Have a most audacious art filled day, no matter where in the world you are  p;)