Inspiration is Everywhere

I truly believe that, if you are willing to take the time to see it. I know I have in the beauty that lies in the mundane or at least what most would label mundane. My artwork is usually based on seeing something others don't and wanting to share that. Erin Prais-Hintz is a kindred spirit in that vein.

She has started a Challenge a week this month. Now I wish she would have held off until January ;) , after the holidays when we all have more time, but it is still exciting. I found out about it after the first week was well underway and had an idea all planed out, see her first challenge was to go to a Hardware store and create something from the parts you would find there. I would not have even had to make the trip, I have been shopping these kinds of stores for years to come up with all kinds of things with parts not made for these specifically. It all hasn't been jewelry but various things. I have bought a downspout elbow to mount to a board with a porcelain socket to make a cool up light to light up my Palm plant. I have shopped the plumbing isle for copper components and make Candle sticks and a few Menorahs out of them, soldering together various sizes of the pipes. Came out pretty cool too, even sold some! My husband is always amazed at why I want to look in those isles. Recently he was in an automotive store. Now I can't stand the smell of the rubber tires in those places and was shopping next door at the Staples but got done sooner than he did and went in there anyway. I looked around, seeing what I could use. I've gotten my seriously fine wet/dry sanding paper in there for my polymer clay (up to 2000) as well as some fine copper tubing for something on a car but perfect for making cool beads!

This time I found some great SS washers. I grabbed a bunch of sizes and promptly took them home and tried my stamp kit on them to see if they would stamp and sure enough, they did! Can't wait to get to them to make something, which actually was some components I was going to use in Erin's first challenge, but couldn't find the time with the shops so busy. Then the second week was Grandma's Jewelry Box which would have been great too seeing how I have both my Grandmothers and my MIL (who were only a few years apart in age) and have been wanting to be able to make something out of the pieces in them. But again time was against me.

This weeks challenge is Sewing Kit. I also have my MIL's and Grandmothers sewing baskets and my MIL's vintage pedal sewing machine too! I really am short on time this week as well but decided to take at least a bit of time and see if I couldn't come up with something. I found all kinds of neat things to work with, some great glass pressed buttons, brass closures ( for lacing up something) bobbins, threads, glass head pins and more. I played around with these and I guess I was under too much pressure and too many ideas were forming but nothing concrete. So I turned to a box of old zippers, not sure why I even hung onto these, and also found some big black snaps. I liked the look of these and the fact that I was going to just make something with all the buttons I have from them both and more like I've done in the past with button jewelry I've made but then I decided to makes my piece of jewelry with a different kind of closure. The Snaps and zippers were perfect. Now I did have to cut the zippers up but they were so long I don't think I'll ever need them, and maybe I can create something else with the locking part?

Anyway I did get an entry in for this week, you can view it here at Flickr where I give a description of my piece as well as a few more shots of it. I hope Erin may try and re-visit these themes later in the winter when we all can have some time to more freely create because it is such fun!

Go visit Erin's blog and maybe you can find time to make something for this weeks? You have until Sunday. And then I think she has one more ............................Have fun! She offers wonderful prizes as well as a way to stretch your creative muscles, outside the box of holiday crafting!


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