Tuesday, September 22, 2009

It's officially Autumn but you can't tell it in Mississippi!


Oh how I envy those of you who live in areas of the country where the leaves turn colors in the fall. We have a very few trees in our area that "show their colors" but mostly we just go from green to brown and time to rake!

But that doesn't keep me from thinking and designing in fall colors! At our local guild meeting last Saturday, one of our members closed the meeting with a demo about making leaves. I was so inspired that I made my own fall leaves using a skinner blend that ran from copper on one side to a glorious golden yellow on the other side. I used a large leaf cutter to create a background leaf, then layered a hammered copper bale with smaller leaves, acorns and copper swirls. Then I made two sets of leaves to go with it, either as earrings or strung on a necklace. These will be listed on my Etsy site soon.

While I was on the hammered copper bale kick, I created what I'm calling my Copper Layered Retro Pendant. This was inspired by a video on You-Tube by Barbara McGuire that shows how she uses hammered copper pendant bales. I had already been working with hammered copper for a while now thanks to help from Cindy Leitz but Barbara's video took me in a whole new direction with it. I'm loving this! I made a retro extruder cane, then used the scrap from that to create a cool marbled effect, then combined the two! I used the rest of the scrap to make matching beads. I am so on a roll! These too will be available on my Etsy site soon.

So to those of you whose trees show off in the fall – enjoy! and think about those of us in the south who are still sweltering in the 80's and 90's surrounded by green leaves!

1 comment:

Cindy Lietz, Polymer Clay Tutor said...

Awesome pendants Arlene! You did a beautiful job. I like what you did with your bails. Barb has some neat ideas for combining polymer clay and copper too! Thanks for the mention btw. That was very kind of you. Glad to see you're putting what you've learned to good use!