Fairy Wands

 

What do you do when you are bored on a hot sunny day?   ...... well of course you make wands for your grandchildren - lol!  

The didn't turn out quite as planned, so have called them fairy wands rather than magic wands as they are very sparkly.

I started off with kebab sticks, onto which I threaded various sized beads.  I then got out the glue gun and glued an unusual shaped bead on the top with my glue gun.   The ideas was to make criss-cross patterns down the stick and over the beads, but it was more difficult than I thought  (you can see my attempt before the painting in the photo below.)

I then applied gesso to the wands - I did start off with one black gesso, one with gold gesso and one with silver gesso - but didn't like the gold and the silver - so applied black to all three.  I then added various gilding waxes in silver, gold, green, blue, pink, white and red in various parts.   I wanted some sort of jewels on the wands, but a) I couldn't find my pot of large jewels, and b) didn't fancy sitting sticking little jewels all over them!    I decided to use my Nuvo drops, but wasn't completely happy as they were a bit pale, so before they dried I sprinkled fine glitter over the wet drops.  Finally they had a coat of spray varnish.

If I locate my larger jewels, I may well add them later.

The mess of glue and beads before painting!

Anniversary Card

I received a birthday card from a crafting friend earlier in the year with concentric circles on it.  The effect fascinated me, and I had to ask how she had done it, thinking she had used some special dies - but no the effect was just done with circle dies ........ so I attempted to reproduce a version of it for my daughter's anniversary card.   

I don't have a lot of dies, and only a very small selection of circles - I may have to rectify that, as rather like the effect.  I cut these from gold mirri card.

The background paper was created using distress oxides in cracked pistachio, wild honey and pickled raspberry - randomly applied with a dry wet wipe and blended together.   The rose and leaves were also coloured with the same distress oxides.

I created the sentiment in Craft Artist.  I added Nuvo Jewel drops to the card in yellow, green and pink.  (The ones on the circles are actually translucent green.