I am excited to share with you Tristan's Masquerade themed crown! We have a
Le Diadème de la Reine swap going on at my Marie Art Group. Tristan said he liked the idea of a Masquerade theme. He told me his favorite colors are black, royal purple and gold. I had an idea of what I
wanted to do, but it was funny how it seemed this crown put it's self together.
I knew I wanted a mask covered in black German glass glitter in the center, but I was not sure what I wanted to do for a base. One day last week I found a Art Glass store that is about 40 minutes from me. I decided to go to pick up some soldering material. While I was there I saw this beautiful brass trim coiled up. I asked if it was for sale, and she agreed to sell me some. This was the first piece, the foundation for the crown. Once I knew what I was doing for a foundation my mind began to whirl with ideas. I wanted to try to use as much of the stuff I had around the house as possible. I went to Michael's to look for things, there was stuff I could use, but I wanted to have a bit more of a personal touch. So I decided not to buy a bunch of dried foliage and flowers.
On the way home I thought of an idea. I thought it would be nice to use wire, but as I envisioned it in my head. . . it did not seem like just wire would add what I was looking for. It lacked sparkle! I really wanted this crown to gleam. So I decided to make a special sparkle recipe and dip my wire into it. I added sheer ribbon to help the sparkle mixture stick. I think it turned out perfect.
I thought I would share with you the technique I came up with. I think this technique has all sorts of possibility. Think of all the wire shapes and ornaments you could use this technique on.
1. Wrap soft artistic wire around your object of choice.
2. Cut one end of the wire to form a sharp point.
3. Using a wide sheer ribbon make 1 or 2 small cuts to the edge and tear.
4. Using a variety of twist and turns thread the ribbon onto the wire. I did mine with both tight and loose spots.
5. Cut off your sharp end and coil both ends up to hold the ribbon.
6. Using items in your craft supply make a mixture of items. Here are examples of things to add: glitter (a variety of fine, and chunky looks great), micro beads, and seed beads. Also try fine cut up pieces of fiber, yarn, thread, and ribbon. Small hard embellishments like chain, crystals, watch parts and tiny brass charms.
7. Cover your wire piece with diamond glaze and dip into the mixture. Repeat this step for all pieces. If you have a few items to dip you may need to re-add your fiber materials since these tend to attach the easiest. This way you do not have just your glitter and hard elements as you go on to do the other pieces.
8. Set your piece aside to dry on a covered surface over night.
I hope you enjoy, and I would love to see pics or know if you tried this and liked it. Here are all the supplies I used on Tristan's Crown. I did use almost everything from my own supplies except the brass base and the burgundy feathers. Sorry Tristan I could not find royal purple.
Embellishment Supplies: Vintage glass gems, black gemstone beads, Czech glass beads, dark brass and gold wire (dead soft), diamond glaze, German glass glitter black, feathers, small glass gems, and other beads.
