Emu Egg Butterfly Jewelry Box

I really ran a muck since my last post, I finished another jewelry box. This one I will be listing in my ETSY shop.

The star of this box is a butterfly that is perched on top of some burgandy, pink and yellow flowers.

This box opens to reveal a fabric lining, just as the brides box did. Rather then a curved horizontal cut, this one has a beautifully done straight cut. I have to thank Corinne for the beauty of these cuts because if she didn't do such a wonderful job with that part of it, it wouldn't look good no matter what subject matter was painted on it. Here you can see a close up of the hinge area.

I painted the whole box light pink, green & white, then built my design from there. The funny part way, I meant to leave it like the brides box that I painted, with the bottom half of the egg left its natural color. This however is where your best planned ideas go wrong. I was a bit sloppy with applying color to the top of the box, I really ended up having quite a bit of paint on the bottom half. I thought, hey no problem, I'll just wash it off and clean the bottom half up. Well, what a surprise, water, baby wipes, alcohol not even Goo Gone (which gets everything off any surface by the way) would work on this box. Turns out the shell is that heavily textured that, once you get too much paint on it, forget it, it's not coming off. This is where you have to be flexible in art and go with the flow. So, I decided that the whole box should be painted that base color, and so it was.

I also carried the design from the top half, to below the opening of the box on the bottom half. I really feel the design flows a lot better that way rather then forcing it to stay in one area. I really struggled with this box too....who knows why but it took me forever to get drawn out just the way I wanted it to be. Once it was though, I was able to dive right in and paint. From there on in it went pretty fast.

**I've decided that around mid month, each month, I'm going to be doing an "In The Spotlight" post on my blog. Here I will be featuring an artist whose work I love and greatly admire. I've got a long list of all different kinds of artists and craftspeople I plan on asking so I hope it will be a very varied display of work. I'll be posting my first artist next week so stay tuned. I hope you will all enjoy discovering some new and beautiful art work.

Pendants For Kathryn

I have finished the miniatures for kathryn's order. These were so much fun, I really had a blast painting them.

My favorites by far, are the butterflies. I took so many great photos of butterflies this summer, I really wanted to put them to good use and paint some on a few pendants.

It has kind of inspired me to do a whole series of butterfly miniatures now.

Kathryn's favorite themes were Hydrangeas and Roses so I did a lot whith those 2 kinds of flowers. I also tried to vary designs a bit to keep them interesting for both her and me.

I'm really looking forward to starting on the Emu Egg brides' box and should be getting that going later on in the week. I will post pictures of the naked egg before I start painting it so you can see what I'll be working with. I'm so into the idea of painting jewelry boxes now that I think I will get some more of these going and add a new section on my ETSY site, just for jewelry boxes.

More Miniatures

In my spare time I've been painting quite a few miniatures to list in my ETSY shop. The above is Hydrangea Wreath.

All these pins are done using an acrylic paint for the background as well as the main subject.

So far I've been painting pins that can double as pendants but I've decided to come out with a dedicated line of pendants. The next ones I paint will have a bail on the top so you can slip a chain through.

Flower Carpet Roses & Dragonfly Egg

Something that just started blooming in my garden are my Flower Carpet Roses. I love, love, love these roses as they are so prolific with blooms all spring, summer and fall but they are also the most disease resistant roses I've ever come across. These particular blooms are salmon colored and I also have pink and red in the garden as well. They are the most beautiful, no fuss roses I've ever come across.

Well, my poor little Dragonfly Egg is no more.......a couple weeks ago, I was packing up my china cabinet for our move up the street. We're having movers but hey, I figured I would treat my china and precious items with a lot more care then they would right?? Well, it didn't really work out that way....this little guy came crashing down on my hardwood floor and smashed in a lot of pieces. Had there been carpeting, the little egg would have been fine but it just couldn't take hitting the hardwood floor like that, from so high up.

I had it listed on ETSY for all of a couple of days, until I broke it and had to take it down. I thought atleast it could appear on my blog and get its day in the sun, since that is the only glory this little egg will receive at this point.

A New Addiction

I've discovered a variation on a favorite surface of mine. I love painting decorative eggs and now I've discovered eggshell jewelry. I cannot tell you how much fun these were to paint. These pins are all handpainted onto goose eggshells. There is a pin attached to the back of each shell so it can be worn that way as a pin or could fit onto a chain or ribbon and be worn as a necklace. The above design is called - Ladybug - no surprise there.

These are called - Pink Roses - I look at each eggshell in size and shape and decide what the subject matter should be. I've done the backgrounds on all these eggs in watercolor, sometimes mixing several colors to get it just right.

Once the watercolor paint is dry, which is pretty quick, I then sketch out my design right onto the eggshell. Purple Hydrangeas above, as well as all the other pins have the main subject painted in acrylics, right on top of the watercolor background.

Once I'm done with the design, my husband Chris sprays them with a protective coating so the design is sealed onto the eggshell pin. It is the same finish he puts on mailboxes so it is extremely durable. The above is - Pink Tulips.

I painted my Dragonfly design on a burnt sienna background. I can do a little bit of erasing if I mess up my drawing , although it does sometimes take some of the watercolor paint off. I can go back easily though and do a quick fix. Some of the designs I thought needed a little something so I added Swarovski crystals to certain ones.

The Ladybug & Hydrangea pin was one of the first that I painted, I think I was hooked after that. It's actually quite different then painting on a whole egg, more difficult because you have a lot less space to work on, you cannot wrap the design around, all you have is a slice of the shell to work with. I actually went out and bought 4 new paint brushes just to do these because I didn't have small enough brushes already at home. I would not have been able to paint these without those tiny brushes.

Well, these are my first 6 and I'm now finished with number 10. I just haven't photographed them yet so, the above is all there is to show for now. I'll be adding the rest soon though....

I have them for sale on my etsy site: http://www.eleganteggart.etsy.com/