A Magical Mystery Bead Box Journey
Monthly subscription mystery boxes seem to be all the rage these days, with many arts and crafts companies getting in this fun way to introduce their products to the masses. When I found out Jesse James Beads was doing a monthly Magical Mystery Bead Box, well I just had to try! As I noted in in a previous post I am fast becoming a fan of Jesse James Beads so starting a subscription was a no-brainer for me.
Each month Jesse James Beads picks a theme, with a matching color pallet of beads, charms, findings and a surprise project. For September they had “Into the Woods”. A lovely earthy color pallet of greens, golds, browns, teal and silver. I wouldn’t normally have picked this color assortment but I found it a wonderful push to go outside my comfort zone.
This selection of stunning goodies made me think of time long ago. When I saw the owl pendents included in the box what came to mind was Athena, Greek Goddess of wisdom, inspiration, warfare, mathematics and art.
Now you might wonder why I had Greek mythology on the mind. Recently I had the chance to see The Getty Villa‘s Buried by Vesuvius Treasures from the Villa dei Papiri exhibit. So many lovely sculptures, paintings, literature and delicate treasures, it was a site to behold. One statue in particular caught my attention and my imagination, Athena Promachos (First in Battle), Roman, first century BC–first century AD.
Using that amazing statue of the goddess as my inspiration I created a necklace from the Magical Mystery Bead Box. Athena’s symbol of the olive tree is represented by leaf charms from a Jesse James Beads Goddess mix, her owl from charms from my bead stash, and the multi strand pattern represents her snake fringed aegis (protective cloak). The pendant is a replica of an ancient Athenian coin, with a image of the goddess herself stamped on the front. The majority of the beads and all of the tassels come from the Into the Woods box. With a few Czech glass beads and metal components from my collection.
Even though I used a lot from beads from the subscription box I still have so many more left over to create many more projects. When the October box arrived I was so happy with the new assortment I knew I had to sign up for a longer subscription.
Until Next Time, Safe Travels#TBT A Quick Vampire Bite of Halloween
Hello! Continuing my Throwback Thursday posts, this time going with my love of hosting Halloween parties and the little ghoulish delights that need to be decorated. While it would have been okay to just put plastic vampire fangs on each cupcake, I wanted to make the fangs an edible candy treat!
Supplies:
Amazing Mold Putty
Plastic Children’s size Vampire Fangs
Wilton Candy Melts
Wilton Blood Red Sparkle Gel Icing
Red Velvet Cake Mix
Black Cupcake tin liners
White icing tinted blue-grey
Toothpicks
Sandwich baggies
Butter knife
I cleaned two child sized vampire fangs, with soap and water to prepare them for molding. I placed them on a black dinner plate so I had a smooth and contrasting surface to work on.
I mixed up some Amazing Mold Putty and molded it around the front portions of the vampire fangs. I was careful to press the Mold Putty up against the fangs to make sure I got a good molding of the fangs.
Once the Mold Putty was cured I removed the plastic fangs. To close up the grove created by the gum portion of the vampire fangs I mixed up and pressed tiny little wads of Mold Putty into the open portion of the mold as seen in the above photo. By doing this I would be able to place melted candy into the molds with no worry of the candy leaking out the back of the fang mold.
To keep the molds upright I placed a small teacup plate inside the large dinner plate and placed the molds snug inside the dinner plate and against the teacup plate. This will keep the molds in place while the candy is piped into the molds.
Following the manufacturer instructions I carefully melted the Wilton Candy Melts in a sandwich bag in the microwave. Once the candy was melted I snipped the end off a corner of the sandwich baggie and pipped the candy into the molds.*Make sure the candy is completely cooled before removing from the mold to make sure you don’t break off a fang. A quick trip in the refrigerator is a sure way to help your candy along!
I made up a batch of Red Velvet cupcakes, applied blue-grey tinted icing, dribbled some Wilton Blood Red Glitter Gel Icing and carefully placed a set of candy fangs on each cupcake.
I had so much fun making the candy fangs I made more than I needed for the cupcakes, so the extra fangs made fun addition to cranberry cocktails!
Until next time, safe travels!*This is an affiliate post, which means I received an assortment of products as a compensation for the creation of art. To read my full disclosure, click here.
#TBT The Upcycled Mummy’s Curse! A spoOky DIY
Continuing my Throwback Thursday posts, this time highlighting my love of Halloween, Ancient Egypt and upcycled crafts! Posted in 2015 on the Amazing Casting Products blog, I had some rather odd inspiration for this project and it all started with me finding some fun plastic Halloween skulls at a Thrift store. With two of them, I made Ghoulish Glam Skulls and the rest I saved for Halloween decor around the house.
While I was outside in the garden one of our dogs, Luna, decided to play in the house, the skulls were close to her toys and she cracked one of them. I of course couldn’t be angry with her playing though her rather adorable “I totally did NOT do that” face also helped. When I was about to throw out the skull, an idea came to me: why not use the cracked skull as a base for a Halloween mummy head prop?
Supplies:
Amazing Casting Resin
Alumilite Dyes
Liquitex Gloss and Matte Varnish
Acrylic Paint
Aluminium Foil and Paper Bags
Stir Sticks
Plastic Halloween Skull
Cotton Muslin Fabric
Black leaf tea bags
Beacon’s Gem-Tac
Paint Brush
Paper Tape Roll
Hot Glue Gun and glue sticks
With the crack being along the side of the eye socket and most of the left side of the skull I needed to stabilize the now-fragile skull. I thought of using Casting Resin but I needed to seal the hole before filling the skull with resin. I taped up the crack with clear packing tape, creating a temporary seal for the resin.
Knowing that if I were to fill up the whole skull with Casting Resin it would not only require a lot of resin but make the skull on the heavy side I needed to put some sort of filler inside the skull. Using used clean paper bags and crumpled aluminum foil I slipped them inside the skull through a hole in the bottom.
Next I made small batches of Amazing Casting Resin and poured it through the hole in the bottom of the skull. By pouring small batches and then tilting the skull I was able to make sure all of the inside of the skull was equally covered with resin, stabilizing the plastic skull. This process went very quickly because Amazing Casting Resin sets up in 10-15 minutes. I ended up using 3/4 of a resin kit to fill the inside of the skull.
Once I had filled up the inside of the skull I hot glued a tape roll to the bottom of the skull to create a neck for the mummy head. Any gaps between the tape roll and the skull I filled in with aluminum foil and hot glue.
I then mixed up some Casting Resin and poured it into the newly formed neck of the mummy head. I put some extra foil into the neck cavity and filled it up with more Casting Resin, using up all of the kit.
Once the resin was cured, I removed the tape from the now resin-filled crack and removed any excess resin spills off the skull.
Since not much of the plastic would be visible under the wrappings but I didn’t want it looking like a skull. I painted the skull with a mixture of yellow, brown and black acrylic paint. I glued on used tea bags to create eyelids and created a nose out of paper bags and tin foil. I glued on some loose tea grounds to give the look of sand/dirt and sealed it with Liquitex Matte Varnish.
To create wrappings: I dyed cotton muslin fabric in a bath of hot black leaf tea and bags. I let it soak for a few hours to stain and then let the fabric dry. Once dry I tore the fabric into 2 inch strips to make wrappings. I started applied the wrappings to the skull with a bit of Beacon’s Gem-Tac and started to wind it around the skull. I didn’t use any set pattern or style; I just had fun and made sure to cover up any of the more skull-like features of the head.
Once I was finished wrapping the skull I liked the overall look, but felt it needed something more to create the look of age.
Since real mummies still have old oils and resin still visible on the surface of their wrappings, I created some out of Liquitex Gloss Varnish mixed with some Brown Alumilite Dye. I used the varnish instead of resin because I wanted to control how it dripped and needed it to dry quickly. The Alumilite Dye allowed me to tint the varnish without losing the transparent nature of the varnish.
Once dry, this spooky décor is a perfect addition to my creepy curiosity cabinet on display for Halloween!
Until next time, safe travels!
This is an affiliate post, which means I received an assortment of products as a compensation for the creation of art. To read my full disclosure, click here.
#TBT Sit for a Spell! DIY Eye of Newt Apothecary Jar
Kicking off my Throwback Thursday posts with one of my favorite upcycling Halloween crafts. Posted in 2015 on the Amazing Casting Products blog, this quick and easy project is perfect with Halloween coming up fast.
Taking inspiration from one of William Shakespeare’s most famous plays, Macbeth:
“Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,–
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”That part of the play has a wonderful spooky quality, often inspiring all types of ghoulish displays and decor for Halloween. The interesting part is that most of those names of ingredients were not intended to be taken literal, but were herbalist or folk terms for common herbs and plants. In the case of “Eye of newt” it was referring to a type of mustard seed. However thanks to pop culture more often than not most people think of real newt eyes in a jar. So knowing some seeds in a jar isn’t that ghoulish of a Halloween decoration I decided to go with the pop culture version of making a jar with faux newt eyes.
Supplies:
A Glass Jar previously used for a candle
Resin
Moss
Eye Beads
Glitter (optional)
Chalk Sticker
Chalk Pen
Wood Bead
Black Chalk Paint
Sandpaper
I cleaned up a old jar that previously had a three wick candle with a metal lid, making it perfect for an apothecary jar. I picked this type of glass because it is tempered and can handle the heat often created by thick pours of curing resin.
I put some dried moss at the bottom of the jar to add some visual contrast. It would also help with adding some textured base to prop the fake eyes on so they wouldn’t all sink to the bottom.
I mixed up 3 fluid ounces of Amazing Clear Cast Resin and slowly poured it on top of the moss to cover it.
The moss became a bit dark after the resin started to soak into it, so before the resin layer started to cure I sprinkled a bit of micro crystal glitter* to give just a slight shimmer to the moss layer.
*The glitter is an optional step
For newt eyes I used transparent acrylic Eye of Warding beads carefully placed in the still wet resin. Recent popularity of the beads has had a lot of bead manufacturers making all kinds of the Eye of Warding beads out of glass, acrylic, clay and even recycled plastic.
*Take a trip to your favorite craft store to check out what types of beads they might have for you to use!
Once I let the first layer of resin cure for about an hour I added some more eye beads and little snippets of moss. I didn’t want to add too much. I wanted it to look like someone used the “newt eyes” a lot in their spells.
While the final layer of resin cured I worked on the lid to the jar. To bring down some of the bright silver tone of the lid I used some sandpaper and little bit of chalk paint to give it an aged look. A painted wooded bead, glued on top of the lid, gave it a pull knob.
With a chalk board sticker for a label the jar was finished and not a single newt harmed! 🙂
Until next time, safe travels!
*This is an affiliate post, which means I received an assortment of products as a compensation for the creation of art. To read my full disclosure, click here.
New Beading Journey with Jesse James Beads
For a couple of years now I have had friends and clients tell me I needed to start working with supplies from Jesse James Beads. In particular their online exclusive collections of beads and supplies. So in July I started ordering from them, and after I received the first package, I was hooked. Their color and style selection was just what I needed to break my inspiration block! All the beads were packed well, shipping was fast and they even included some free tassels!
Mauna Loa Bead Mix What caught my eye was their limited edition Destination Hawaii bead mixes and strands. I bought several packs for gifts and the Mauna Loa 2-Tier Bead Mix for myself. It contained a lovely collection of metal, acrylic, crystal, glass, fiber and semi precious stones. The colors brought to mind the island of Mauna Loa, which is home to one of the five volcanoes that make up the Hawaiian islands. Vibrant red and oranges for lava and stunning sunsets. Black and grey for the volcanic rocks and smoke from the volcano. Metallics and tassels reminiscent of the Polynesian regalia and pageantry.
*If you hurry you might still be able to get one of these lovely bead mixes before they sell out.
Gold Assortment Starting with my personal collection of gold findings I selected beads that brought to mind the warmth of sunsets and bonfires by the beaches. In most, if not all Jesse James Beads mixes you will find two to even six beads of the same type, making earrings and symmetrical jewelry making a breeze.
Silver Assortment I felt certain beads lent themselves to the cooler tone of silver, thinking of cooling breezes among the palms with bright glow of lava at night. Digging through my collection of crystals, fire glass and silver findings I found just the right combinations to go with the bead mix.
Lava Flower There was a selection of black matte beads in the mix that immediately reminded me of cooled lava flow. I thought of ʻōhiʻa lehua, a species of evergreen myrtle found in Hawaii, that often is the first plants to grow on new lava flows. With some additional matte beads, Swarovski crystals and silver findings I created this earring and necklace set.
Last Dance Queen Liliʻuokalani was the last sovereign monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom, a woman of talent, tolerance and intelligence who advocated for a free Hawaii until her death in 1917 at the age of 79.
In honor of Queen Liliʻuokalani I created a vintage design using the deep red crystals from the Maua Loa bead mix, one Ruby Red JJB Chain Reaction, and vintage findings.
Hawaiian Crow Last but not least I created a set highlighting the Hawaiian Crow, extinct in the wild, with reintroduction programs being started. Culturally significant to Hawaiian mythology this beneficial omnivore known to both prey on pest animals and spread seeds of native plants.
In hopes this wonderful creature has a brighter future, that from death there might be life, I designed this set with crystals from the bead mix, a raven skull pendant and supplies from my personal collection.
More bead goodness.. Even after all of those creations I still have beads left over to use.
The quality and diversity of the beads Jesse James Beads offer, along with their ever changing color pallets of the limited editions has made me a fan!
Until Next Time, Safe Travels!
Ancient and Contemporary Inspired Artistry