Inspiration strikes

So I have been taking these Taste of Jewelry classes at the Sawtooth center here in the city.  I have made two beautiful sterling silver rings.  Last Friday a couple of hours before the second class I decided that if I was going to keep making jewelry I was going to need a  jewelry bag to store them in.  That resulted in the butterfly girl jewelry bag, the first project that I posted on  Lucky Duck Dreams.  The first ring on top was made out of a beaded silver wire.  I'm holding the second ring I made.  On the outside I stamped the words "butterfly girl" (that's me). Inside I stamped my first name and the year 2010.

So yesterday I went to a class and learned to make glass beads.  I used an oxygen with propane torch and melted glass rods at 1200 degrees.  If you look closely at the picture you can see where I used a second color on some of the beads.  I made the purple bead for my sister and put it on black stretchy cord.  The green one is for me of course. It was wild fun and I will have to do it again.

So on my way home I was kicking my self that I had forgotten my art class journal.  It's where I write down all of the materials and tools we used , and the steps it took .  Someday I will use what I have learned to make my own jewelry.  I also forgot my butterfly girl jewelry bag to put my glass beads in. I needed to put my journal and jewelry bag together so I would have them ready for class. 

Then inspiration struck!  I had some canvas and when I got home I dug out some really old (ancient!) acrylic fabric paints.  While a  few were completely dried out, most were still good.  I cut a rectangle of canvas and painted an abstract design.  Then I pulled out some fleece scraps.  I saved all of these long thin 60 in strips I had trimmed off of different colors of fleece.  I choose a large dark pink, two short yellow, two short purple and two short light pink strips.  Then I went to bed because it was midnight and I was tired.  I was up early the morning about 6am anxious to continue working on the bag.  I scrunched the fleece strips into roses, cut some leaves from leftover spring green fleece, and after sewing down topped each with a matching button. 

 I had this one long thin black strip of fleece that some how worked its way into my name.  I added a handle and a little rick rack/ribbon trim and now I have a beautiful arty personalized satchel to carry my supplies to my classes.

I have had a lot of inspirations over the years, but until I had an organized space to work in, most of those inspirations went unfulfilled.  Its amazing to have an idea and be able to have the materials and tools at hand to create it.

Keep dreaming...Colleen (aka lucky duck)