A captured fairy for my friend Gail!

My good friend Gail stopped by this morning and I showed her my captured fairy... she thought it was kinda cool! I had actually made another fairy for the original jar but it was just a schmidge too big and she asked for a little fairy box with the extra fairy inside.

It was awfully fun to work on and I was surprised at how quickly it came together - but all of the materials were already on my work table, so that probably helped. Anyway, we found a plastic case that used to hold a deck of cards. I lined the bottom of the box with tiny green glass nuggets and then used some twigs from the yard, moss, silk flowers and a little millinery mushroom for the environment. Then the back and sides were decoupaged with some pattern tissue. Just a few pretty flowers and lace trim as a finishing touch and *voila!* - a pretty little fairy box!

I hope Gail likes her! I hope you do, too... be sure to let me know what you think! :)

Captured a Fairy in my studio...

I don't really know what took me so long to find out about captured fairies! I was just browsing around on Pinterest and *poof* there they were! I was instantly smitten and everything else was put on hold so I could capture a fairy of my very own!

Rummaging around on my stash, I found a jar and some trim, some Spanish moss and an old book from 1915 about the great operas. In the book were some wonderful photos of divas of days gone by and I copied a couple in different sizes. I loved the look of this lady - Geraldine Farrar as Juliet from Gounod's Romeo and Juliet. I lightly colored the photo with colored pencils and cut wings from plastic packaging. After dipping the edges of the wings in glue I glittered them with in turquoise and added some glitter detail to her bodice.

From there, I decorated her surroundings with the moss, some millinery mushrooms, silk blossoms and twigs from my yard and closed her up in the jar.

The jar is decorated with more silk blossoms and pretty trim.

I also added a little jar of fairy dust and a few charms just because.

I really enjoyed capturing this first fairy! Next time I'll find a taller jar - this was the first one I found and even had to evict some vintage buttons in order to use it! Anyway, I love her - I hope you do, too!
**P.S. I also love my new high-temp glue gun!!**
:-D

Nice Day for a White Wedding

Original title, right? Sorry, Billy Idol, don't sue me!! :)

So here's a little in-progress shot of the white wedding necklace I'm working on these days. Not too far into it - there's roughly 2 hours of work in this little bit...

Something new in the works...

I haven't done too much bridal/wedding jewelry but I have made some commission pieces for close friends to wear on that special day. I have a group gallery show coming up soon and thought maybe I'd include a big, fancy wedding necklace just to see what people think of it!

I haven't started on it yet but I have some of the pieces picked out already. Here's a little glimpse of the "bead soup" I pulled together for inspiration - I hope you like it!

And here's a lay-out idea I'm enamored with at the moment...

 Hmmm... It will be fun to see where this one goes!

Thanks for stopping by - please leave a comment to say "hello!"  :)

Morning Coffee Quotes to get you thinking!

Sweet-smellin' Lilacs (Photo by Cindy Caraway)

"Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it is good only for wallowing."
- Katherine Mansfield

"Who is in your life asking you the tough questions?"
- Jeff Henderson

"The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it."
- John Ruskin

"Example is the lesson that all men can read."
- Gilbert West

"There are two ways to improve yourself — through the people you interact with and the books you read."
- S. Truett Cathy

"Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose."
- Lyndon B. Johnson

"Dressing up is inevitably a substitute for good ideas. It is no coincidence that technically inept business types are known as 'suits'."
- Paul Graham

"Progress is always preceded by change; change is always preceded by challenge; challenging the status quo is often where leadership begins."
- Andy Stanley

"The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail."
- Napoleon Hill

"A hypocrite is a person who--but who isn't?"
- Don Marquis

"Do not trust all men, but trust men of worth; the former course is silly, the latter a mark of prudence."
- Democritus

"The most profound statements are often said in silence."
- Lynn Johnston

"It's a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money."
- Albert Camus

"The man who can articulate the movements of his inner life need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering."
- Henri Nouwen

"Be clear about your goal but be flexible about the process of achieving it."
- Brian Tracy

"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook."
- William James

"You don't get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour."
- Jim Rohn

"Psychiatry is the care of the id by the odd."
- Unknown