3 Feather Wolf

Way back in December, I had a request for a fan painted with wolves.  Two cubs if I could.  She wanted it by April for her man as a gift.  Now to be honest, I am ridiculous when it comes to commission pieces and I make myself nervous to the point I'm scared to work on it.  So that being said, I waited till mid March to start it.  Apparently...I work better under pressure

It turned out really great!  It was a bit of a challenge to work across three feathers.  I don't have the photo of the ends because the shafts still need cleaned up and wrapped, but hopefully everything in this go round will eventually make it much easier to do another fan in the future!

Bob's Dreamcatcher

 Dreamcatchers have long been associated with native culture.  Traditionally Ojibwe (Chippewa), they now span into nearly every tribe...each one putting their own twist to the beautiful craft.

This was done for a friend of mine down on the island.  He wanted a unique piece for his wife's birthday.  All I was given was that it was to be big, she liked purple, and sea shells.

The branches are from the shrubbery right outside my front door, so the hoop creation was the easy part.  The shells are mostly collected right off the beaches in Hatteras Island, with exception of the cowery and little snail like shells from a cannibalized, and very tacky, necklace.  The beads are all glass in shades of purple and green (being his favorite color).  And the feathers are pheasant, guinea hen, and wild turkey.  As for the size, it's a bit over a foot at the widest spot.

Double Feather Earrings

Fluorite and Unikite

As I'm getting ready for the Powwow, that is slowly creeping up on me, my mother send me a box full of little turkey feathers.  While they're not big enough to paint on, they're pretty enough to do some simple feather earrings.

Amethyst and Shell

 I've used surgical steel ear wire.  Half of the reason is convenience on my part and the other half is to help them be cost effective.

Rhodonite and Moonstone

I hope to do many, many more before the event.  They're quite a bit of fun to create, and they take considerable less concentration than my paintings!

Rose Quartz and Shell

 While most of these are meant to be sold as just the earrings, I may decide to make a matching necklace for the ones at the bottom; made out of turquoise and coral stones.

Turquoise and Coral

Branden's Rune Companion

 As promised, here is the book companion that goes along with the deer antler runes I made for Branden.  All of the information was hand written on cardstock.  The cover is plastic from old advertisements at Food Lion covered in a thick black fabric. 

The binding was the hardest thing to figure out.  I had the pages all written by the time his birthday came around, but no clue on how to bind it together.  I had a wonderful journal that I had bought from either Borders or Barnes&Noble that showed the stitching on the spine. I had really loved the way it looked and decided that's how I wanted to bind Branden's book...just to figure out how.  It took a slow-paced video on YouTube by an older gentleman that only spoke Italian to help me figure it out.  It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but I was able to use what he showed me and make up the rest as I went.  It's much easier than keeping all the page sets handy when he wants to do a casting!

It just took a quick drilling of holes into the plastic, poking holes through the folded paper with a thick needle, and a long strand of sinewette.   The actual binding didn't take that long, and was quite easy once I got a few passes down.  And it was a much cleaner process than worrying about binding glue!

The symbols on the front are done by hand as well, they're just the circle of runes and the symbol he uses as his signature.  I wouldn't mind doing another book like this.  I think next time, I'll just print off the pages rather than write all of them by hand.

Amber and Turquoise

At the 12th Annual Journey Home Powwow of 2010, we started incorporating demonstrations of native crafts.  Not only did I do demonstrations of how to do my feather painting, but how to do some simple sand painting.  Most of the participants were young children, which is wonderful...usually.  This was the first time I had done a demonstration in that kind of atmosphere, and I admit I was a bit unprepared.

The first day was hectic and stressful, so even while I enjoyed it, I had a tendency to want to throttle some small person into submission.  Branden was teaching how to carve soapstone across the way, and he was stressed out just as much as I was.  So after the first night, we met up with two friends who were also demonstrating and vending at the Powwow to relax.  We all kind of vented whatever we needed to and then just commenced working on our own crafts for the next day.


One of the ladies handed me a drop of amber, and said that she would carry it around with her when ever she was under such stress, and hopefully it would help me.  Being as the amber is also my name sake, I was super excited.  Amber is one of the few "stones" that are classified as coming from organic matter, same idea as jet.  It has a deep, warm feeling to it, almost like solidified sunshine on a warm autumn afternoon.  While I've heard people say it's for healing, I find it more to be a stone that is likely to balance things out the way the need to be rather than for healing per say, it's more like a pleasant side-effect.

So, I had the gorgeous piece of amber with a bead hole drilled through the center, and not a clue what to do with it.  I carried it around for a while before I got an image in my head of what I wanted to do with it.  I wanted to do a three strand necklace with turquoise and little amber chips!  Well...easier said than done.  All and all, this took about 6 months to make, if not a little bit longer.  The turquoise chips I found at one of the outlet stores in Nags Head, I purchased a few of them because they were 50% off at the time.  It was a good thing to, because they no longer carry them there.  I couldn't find amber chips for a decent price until I went online.  Fire Mountain Gems was having a sale on a few of their amber strands, so I grabbed a few of the grade and shade I wanted, along with a strand of coconut heishi.

It was well worth the wait though, it's one of my favorite pieces so far.  At least as far as jewelry is concerned.

Memories of Life Long Friends

It can be funny sometimes, the circumstances in which we meet those people that seem destined to be our life-long friends.  The story behind this necklace, always serves as that kind of reminder to me.  I met a woman, I think it was about 2 1/2 years ago now, who was quite distressed.  Her native tribe was lost to her, her dreams were overwhelming, her health was swiftly spiraling downward.  I spent quite a long while talking with the woman, and we exchanged addresses.  I thought that maybe, I could make something to help.  I am no trained medicine woman, I just have a strong intuition that doesn't let me rest.  I made a pouch of sorts, shipped it off, gave her some herbal, meditation, and diet advice, and prayed for the best.

I heard back from her several  months later via a box in the mail.  There were a few little thank you gifts, but the most important thing was a long letter and the photos enclosed.  Her health was improving, she was more active and in considerable less pain.  The best news was that she was coming the next spring to visit.  I made her another pouch, but the best part of the whole experience was being able to see her walk around more freely.  The photos were of her walking around in her yard, or working on it.  And there were honest smiles there!  To be able to see her face to face again with that kind of renewed energy was the best kind of gift anyone can receive.

Before we parted ways on the last evening of her stay, she gave me a bulky letter, and asked me not to open it until she left.  Inside were three shells and a handful of stone chip beads, along with a letter to explain.  She was able to walk on the beach again, and she choose three of the shells that spoke to her our of her collection she was able to pick to give to me.  As for the stones, she always wore an anklet made of those chips, and when she got out of the car the first day she got to the island, the band broke and all the stones fell neatly on the ground.  She felt that their use was done, and that it was time for them to go to me so I could do whatever it was I wanted or needed to do with them.  I have a huge tackle box full of beads from either my mother (who has been kind enough to send me down packages when she see's some sale going on in Pennsylvania) and from when Fire Mountain Gems has some really good sales, so I had a wide heishi to use as the top accents.

We still keep in contact, though, life tends to take its sharp turns to make it difficult at times.  I painted a little yellow warbler on a feather for her recently for Christmas/Yule/Solstice.  She's still doing good, and has a little grandbaby to occupy her time.  The beautiful and amazing thing here isn't that her health improved, or that I was given thank you gifts.  But rather that on what seems like a chance meeting, we have both gained a friendship that has meant so much for each one of us.  I wear the necklace often, it reminds me of her, and how close we can be even though we're several states apart.  It reminds me of how a single meeting can change one's life so drastically and in such a positive way.

Branden's Runes

Branden had been oogling rune sets for some time now.  My mother had sent me deer antlers, and while I'm not much for runes (I'm more of a tarot person) I really wanted to make him a set specifically for him. I tried to do as much research as I could with them.  Being as I don't follow much of the Asatru ways, I still wanted them to be as accurate as I could make them.

The bag is out of rabbit skin.  There's a little bit of fur still around the edges.  The antler beads on the toggles are smoothed and one has the image that he uses as a logo.

The skin was already tanned, so I didn't have to do much work on it to clean the fur off...thankfully.  I still plan on learning how to properly tan, but his bag, is not one of those projects.

All of the runes were ground with a dremel on the edges so they're nice and smooth when he reaches his hand in they're not going to slice his fingertips.  The rune symbols are burned into the slices of deer antler.  And let me tell you, burned deer antler smells horrible!  But the finished product is well worth it.

They were finished by his birthday last October, and while he hasn't consecrated them, he has quite a nice bond with them already.

And to add to my pride of these, I got to speak with some of the members of The Troth when vending at CNCPPD 2010.  I asked him to take a look at the runes I made to see if they were acceptable to Troth standards.  I also have done a book that I will post soon to go with them.  I am very pleased to say that both the runes and the accompanying book have received the Asatru stamp of approval!

Moonlight Serenity

While I haven't taken many photos of my jewelry work, I have found one of the pieces that I'm quite fond of.  There's moonstone, copper colored glass, metal leaves, sodalite, and a lovely clasp at the top.  I was given the large center piece by a friend that just didn't have the dexterity to bead anymore, and I really struggled for a long while with what to do with it.  It was just lovely, and I wanted to make sure that whatever I put with it accented it without overpowering it or making it look out of place.

The finished necklace feels very elegant to me.  The sodalite is a very calming and soothing stone.  While the moonstone can be energizing to some people, it's still a very feminine, silvery type energy.  All and all I'm very pleased with the way that this turned out.

Feather Earrings!

While the painted earrings are a lot of fun, it's very trying on my patience to do a nice set.  So I figured I'd just try my hand at some simpler styles.

The single feathers were easy enough, and then I found a way to make some really nice ones with double strands of beads.  Some of them have semi-precious stones, and some are just beads and shell.  But they make me really happy.  And a shout out to my mother for finding me feathers and beads that are beautiful to work with.  Thanks mom!