Dead Bug Society

Sounds kinda creepy but it was a ton of fun!!

Last week I completed a class with one of my "Bucket List" teachers Ms. Sally Jean:)

It was in the gorgeous home of Cheryl Simpson who is also a very talented jewelry maker.

We started with an old book that needed to be pulled apart. I had an old third grade reader that was perfect. What was not so perfect was my exacto knife and it's cover. It took some umphh to get that frame cut in the cover..........

The "box" took the whole morning. Before we knew it the lights were being turned off so everyone could eat lunch. I must say it was nice! I would have just kept on working but to go outside in the sunshine and eat was fabulous not to mention refreshing.

Once the box was pretty much done it was on to our teeny tiny glass kit to make our bugs. How teeny tiny well it all fit in a plastic egg lol!!

The fun part! Bug assembly.........

Glass and tape. Paper and fibers. Wire and solder..........

I have to thank my friend Terry for buying and bringing a pink mini pad of paper (totally not something she'd normally buy, don't know what possessed her!) because it was perfect with it's polka dots and florals. Otherwise mine would have been all music paper (so yesterday) and French script (who am I kidding I'm not French;).

Now Sally Jean is a very much leave your comfort zone kinda gal. No pictures of projects beforehand!! Who does that? It about sent this girl into a tail spin! But I bucked up and packed my creative suitcase. To make bugs no less. Now that was leaving my zone of comfort from the start:)

So I made pink bugs. Don't judge! I have this thing............

I take classes to see what I can and can't do. Technique wise. Learn something new. But at the same time the project has to be mine. I have to enjoy the process. I learned this at a Lisa Kause class. She wasn't fond of my work because I wasn't leaving my comfort zone. I was making my project in blue and aqua hues and all oceany. Big surprise I know. There were others. Using colors they didn't like, elements they weren't fond of and it ended up being a huge hot mess in the end. In my end it ended up being one of my top 5 projects. I loved her technique but it was uniquely mine.

And my bugs were mine not so uniquely because I copied most of the way Sally did her glass. Sometimes my mind sees something it really loves and it gets stuck there. All I see is that and it's how I want mine to look. And I must learn how to do it just like that.

This is as close as I got to it looking just like that!

I must say I SUCK at taping and didn't quite get the edges I wanted but that's just the way it goes sometimes. Sally had the perfect scallops. I had Andrea scallops:)

What I love most about him is the glass button body. I actually brought something useful:)

Lately if I am not using tattered lace I am not happy.

And my finished speciman box........

It turned out to be something I love! Sometimes I walk into a class and immediately think I can't do that. When I looked at Sally's sample my first thought was this will take me 3 weeks to do!! But it didn't;)

She was a wonderful teacher and I learned so much.

So happy to have been able to take her class and to have a husband who may not get it but let me fly anyway:)

 

 

Comments

[Grace]

This was a funny awesome post! I felt like I wrote it and so completely understood. It turned out beautiful, hats off to you that you did a bug project I would have thought about it way to much then said no and would have regretted it. No fun classes my way... so thank you for posting. Grace

[Christine Barker]

Great post, Andrea! I adore Sally Jean. She's such a talented artist, and can see so many ways to add to a project to create something unique and so different from anything you've ever seen. No matter how many of her classes I take, I always learn something new. Your box and bugs turned out so beautiful!

-Christine Barker
www.scarletcalliope.com

[Joanne Walton]

Andrea, Bugs, really? Who would have thought? They are FABULOUS, even is girl could get on board with this special ones. Joanne