The making of a tiara

A couple of months back I was invited by Phoenix Gallery in Lawrence,Kansas to participate in a challenge to create accessories for a vintage gown. I always love a challenge like this and immediately accepted. I was given a photo of this cute 1950's party dress to design for and my first thought upon seeing it was rockabilly queen!

I knew that I would want to do a double bird necklace but had originally pictured it more like the Citybird necklaces that I've done in the past using the street signs. Im glad in the end that I went with sterling and brass, it really looked nice with the burnt orange dress color. The tiara was a definite challenge for me, I've never done a piece that large but Im planning on doing more headpieces for sure!

Gnomes are fun!

A friend asked me if I could make a necklace with some little plastic gnomes that she had. Sure! I said, I'm always up for a challenge. I hate to think how long I've been hanging on to these guys waiting for the inspiration on how I would connect/design this necklace.

You never know where inspiration will come from and this one was definitely a surprise. Bryan and I are doing some renovations on our bathroom and when we replaced the vent I was intrigued by a spring I found inside. The light bulb went off in my head and I finally had the solution on how this piece was going to look.

I used steel wire to construct the hanging mechanisms attached to each gnome. I think they look like they are on little ski lifts! My friend had also given me some plastic flowers so I added a few more flowers that I cut from a French Market coffee can.

I'm so happy with how this turned out, wish it were mine!