The Evolution of an Inspiration

In the Spring issue of Belle Armoire Jewelry ( 1 of Somerset Magazines publications) there was a tutorial by Deryn-Something Sublime. She showed how to transfer images onto crystals. Way cool I thought!! Then a couple of weeks ago my bloglandian friend Sharon-Livewire used Deryn's technique and created a wonderful piece that she transferred an image of Marie Antoinette onto a crystal focal. Then I thought okay I gotta do this. First up I had to find the lamp crystals. Ha I lucked out because one of the two bead stores in town had some!! :) Next find a print to transfer. I have kinda been wanting to play around with a Marie Antoinetteish piece of jewelry. I had a couple of portraits of MA in my ever growing digital library. Flipping through them I really liked this one. Then as I got to looking at it I thought "wouldn't it be cool to use the necklace she has in the picture as an inspiration for my creation??" Oh yeah I can use the crystal as one of the 3 focals. Oh oh oh I just scored big on those beautiful strings of pearls!! Perfect. Cuz you guys all know how allergic I am to pink, which is the color of the pearls in the picture.


So I set to work on "transferring MA onto the crystal. Now I have to tell you that was one big learning experience!! First MA was in my computer so I printed her out on the best printer paper with the setting as super duper as it would go. Oh yeah I don't have a laser printer :( Then there's the issue of the transfer medium, hmmm not to be found in this town. No worries I can still do this. But after many different experiments I can report that they all failed to transfer MA to the crystal. Not willing to admit defeat I decided not to transfer her I'd just glue her onto the back of the crystal and move on :)

Now if you have to you can flip up to the top to refresh your memory with the inspirational piece :) The next picture is what my hands, heart and brain created.

Wow if you didn't know better I bet you'd guess they are the exact same piece :) :) Okay so what can I say, you guys all know how it goes. Something happens and your hands just seem to take over and before you know it there on the desk is the piece you must have had in mind all the time. I don't know about you but I learned a long time ago not to let my perceived conception control the final outcome. Much easier, far less stressful and way more exciting to just let the inspiration flow uninterrupted from my hands :)

See there are pearls like in MA's piece. I decided to put the toggle in the front so I used a recycled donut type metal bead with the word beautiful stamped around it. For the bar I used another recycled piece. This time with a bit of the Bling MA loved.

There's the first focal just like in MA's piece. I used the cyrstal here. That posed a small problem because there is only one hole in the crystal and it's at the top. How to continue the necklace below it. Simple I took another piece like the bar in the toggle. It actually has 4 holes in it so I could thread the wires through it, to connect the bottom pieces to the top one. :)

On the bottom strings I changed the beads a bit, not wanting to be too boring :) On the wires going into both focals I tied a bit of dark cranberry colored ribbon, my nod to fru fru :) The second focal is a early 1900's head and shoulders of a bisque doll. She got E6000 glued to another one of those recycled pieces. I think they were a part of a belt once. A few beads to gussy up the support wires

Ya remember the other day when I showed you the two Bohemian candlesticks?? Weeeel then you should recognize the 2 blood red glass cut beads and the amber colored prisms!! I thought they were a great finishing act for MA's "Evolutions" necklace.

Since the back of the crystal really looked yucky with the wires and white paper backing I glued a small piece of tatting over it. I also glued a small piece over the empty hole in the back of the stand MA's head is pertched on. Awwww jeez now that sounds soooooooo bad!!! Surely that didn't just come out of my fingers?? As Pattie's Mum would have said "sometimes it's a good idea to think about what you say before you let it out of your mouth" ;)

On that note and with one last look at Annalise modeling the piece called "Evolutions" I will quietly slip away :)

Have a most audacious today or tomorrow depending on where in the world you are ;)