Winter Wedding in Winnipeg

 I had a fantastic opportunity to create wedding jewelry for a bridal party!  I do really love creating things for people.  There is something super exciting about creating a special piece for a person.  These were to celebrate the marriage of two of my dearest friends from Canada.

When I make personalized jewelry, it help for me to know the person.  Are they ostentatious?  Do they tend to dress up often?  What is their personal style?  What is their personality like?  If you've ever browsed a lot of jewelry shops or sites you start to notice that each and every piece seems to be suited for someone special.  There are huge, chunky necklaces just as often as there are dainty charms on delicate chains.  So, in a way, I was really fortunate to have a good friend as a client!

I wasn't given many variables to work with.  She wanted them to be mostly amethyst and the other wedding color was sapphire.  Other than that, she wanted it to be a Red Tail Arts original.  Would you believe having less guidelines is more difficult than having a long list sometimes?  After scouring Fire Mountain Gems website for a while, I finally found the types of beads I wanted to use.  There was high-grade dark Amethyst and lavender Amethyst spheres, sapphire Swarovski crystal, glass seed beads lined with silver, and some tab-clasps in sterling.  The hook clasp on the necklace was an after thought, because who really wants to struggle with a tab style clasp on a necklace?

Strangely enough, once I got the beads all the initial design idea I've had in my skull fell away.  My initial goal was to have a different balance, more silver and less amethyst so it was almost like ice with amethyst peeking out.  To be honest...it looked silly.  So I took a few days and just played around with the beads.  I probably made about 7 different designs before settling on the final.  It has just the perfect amount of silver accent, and the Swarovski brings out the color and shimmers just right in person.  Off it went for the bride's approval, and they were all shipped shortly after.

Sometimes the creation of jewelry doesn't go exactly as I plan, but it always turns out just the way it's supposed to.

Wedding Bells

I was asked recently to participate in the bridal party of a dear friend's wedding.  We have been friends for a long while.  I don't know exactly how long, but it's been a long number of years.  We've been there through good times, bad times, and all of the other times in between.  So to me, the exact number gets lost in all the other important stuff.
As her wedding gift, I offered to make her the necklace for her special day.  She had always been into the Renaissance style; her dress and veil was even as close as she could get!

Being her wedding colors were green and purple (green for the groomsmen and purple for the bridesmaids), I chose amethyst for the main stone.  Some of them are chevrons, some balls, and some little chips.  The two little glass leaves are just a splash of green to bring the colors together, as well as a few silver accents through the piece.  The rest of the necklace is freshwater pearl; which is one of her favorite "stones".

While it's not traditional Renaissance style, I tried to create something to make her feel like a Queen!

Wolves of the Sea

Orca's don't show up too often here on the OBX.  We get more dolphin and porpoise to be honest.  But the orca has often been considered a step above the other whales.  Whales are considered to be the record keepers of the totem animal, but when it comes to the orca, there's that feeling of something more primal.  This may just be because of the large teeth they still posses as compared to the baleen that its cousins uses.

This feather has quahog shell, amethyst, as well as puca and cowery shell.

The Mystery of Owls

There's always mixed feelings about owls.  They're shrouded in mystery, superstition and linger around death.  It's often said that if you hear a screech owl calling outside your home, someone close to you is fated to die.  Most spooky of all the owls seem to be the barn owl.  It's snowy white face, almost reminiscent of a ghostly human face.  Their call sounds like a screaming spectral woman in fury or fanatical sorrow.  When someone infringed on their hunting grounds as they camp huddled around the campfire, they'll swoop down after crying out, stopping just short of the unsuspecting camper's face and shooting soundlessly up again; leaving the camper hit with the wind of it's powerful wings going through them.

Detail

They're said to be the boarder between the spirit world and the material world; their large, dark eyes peering into the unseen just as easily as they witness the obvious.  I think for this reason, is why they are more intimidating to those who see mystery and magic as something to be feared.  For those that are afraid of the shadows, the owl poses a threat to that fear, and will tear it down if they would only allow it to.  Death is not something to be feared behind mystery and shadows, but a natural part of life that should be accepted just as sorrow and joy and anger and accomplishment.

Large amethyst and tiger's eye chips attached to the feather shaft