Great Trade

On Thanksgiving every year my family goes to Gabriola Island for the weekend. The artists there open their studios for a studio tour. One of the artists on the island is Tammy Hudgeon. She does really beautiful glass art and has now branched out into painting as well. I think she is an amazing glass artist but like her paintings even more. They speak to me!

This past Thanksgiving my crow proposed a trade with her. She had a painting that I really, really loved but the price was a little steep given our budget at the time. So, he proposed that I make her a necklace (she already has one that she bought at Slice of Life)  and then pay the difference for the painting. She went for it!

What with being sick, work, family etc it has taken me a little longer to finish than I expected but....(drum roll please) it is finally finished!!!!!

Here it is...

Tammy is currently inspired by horses, birds, blues, turquoises and the word "wild". So I tried to incorporate these. Luckily I love the same colours and have a large stash of beads of various kinds. I actually didn't have to go buy anything to make this. Everything was in my studio stash. Can you say pack rat? I used a vintage pill box for the main pendant. I glued a vintage bus token to it and then created a mini collage inside that says "unlock your wild" with a small skeleton key glued beside it. In amongst the beads I added word charms that say "dream" and "create" plus a charm of a horse pulling a stage, an angel's wing and a Buddha. I am really happy with how it turned out.

So, now to mail it. I didn't want to just wrap it in paper and send it off so I made a felt envelope with a bird on it. The bird is made out of a scrap of silk that my father brought back from Thailand for me many years ago. Seeing as how the name of my studio is Die, Adjust or Migrate putting a bird on the envelope made sense.

So, now all I need to do is pop it in the mailing envelope and get it to the post office. I have a few other packages to put together so will get those done today and do a post office run tomorrow. Hopefully I will feel well enough to do that!!!!