Friday, February 10, 2012

Welcome Smeared & Smudged Bloody Valentine blog hoppers!

My project was created for the Secret Sister Bloody Valentine swap on Smeared and Smudged. I have to say that I really enjoyed creating these projects for my secret pal. I chose to make a couple of non traditional items: Altered cigar box, soldered hanging ornament, and a soldered "dark fairy" necklace. Hopefully my secret sister will enjoy everything and I hope all of it makes it over the pond in one piece.
One thing I loved about this cigar box was it opened in the middle as opposed to one of the sides. This also presented me with the challenge of what to do with the heart center piece I wanted to be the focal point. I decided to split it into two halves and it worked like a charm. I then filled the heart with broken jewelry, beads, spiders, skulls and a few other odds and ends. At the top of the heart I spelled out "Be my bloody valentine, insert my secret pals name here". I also stamped the words forever and love hurts. I need to note here this little gem of a heart took me over two weeks to create.
Anyone who knows me knows I will solder anything that doesn't move faster than I can get my hands on it! I am not joking. Lol The black and cream flowers were soldered individually to the front side. I figured it was going to take me awhile to do this but the whole thing only took me 45 minutes from start to finish (This included cutting the glass). Speaking of the glass.... You can not see it in the photo but the glass has a special scratched finish you can only see when you tilt it in the light.After trolling through some images I settled on a dark angel and a poem that reads;
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
My rose is white and it bleeds for you.
On the back side I added some bloody halloween paper by Martha Stuart and another image. Oh come on.... You knew there was going to be blood somewhere. It is a bloody valentine swap after all! Lol
I thought it needed a little contrast so I soldered black and clear bling to the top and bottom of the ornament. Then finished the whole thing off with a black patina.
Last I created a goth like fairy necklace. It was quite the trick to line the wings up, hold them in place, and solder all at the same time. But necessity is the mother of invention after all and I managed to do it.
Products used:Rock Star Black metal by Ten Second Studio
Tim holtz: Advantus - Idea-ology Collection - Foundations Metal
Feet 7 gypsies: Red -
Knob - Antique Brass
Paper clay
Silver leaf
Crimson acrylic paint by Heidi Swapp
Martha Stuart 3X6 "Vampire paper"
All kinds of stuff from the "junk" box
Glass, solder, and copper tape
Thank you for stopping by! Now you are off to see Dianne. http://dkspinner.blogspot.com/