Orange Gourd Birdhouses

I finally played with some gourds to make a birthday present for someone whose favourite colour is orange!

I started off cleaning three just in case something went wrong as they seem rather thin and delicate now that they're all dried out. First one got kicked from the cleaning process as I found a big crack. The one on the left also has a crack in the bottom so I used it as my practice before making the one on the right for the gift. The reason for finishing off the one on the left was that I figured it would be good to stick it in the garden as an experiment to see how long they last outside.

Not a bad project when I feel like doing something different, but scrubbing (or rather scraping) them clean does take quite awhile - even after soaking them first. I used spray paint with primer that was suitable for wood and the wire is just galvanised wire from the fencing section at Bunnings. I doubt any wild birds will move into it once I put it in the garden but I added drainage holes to the bottom just in case.

Agate Pendants

Years ago I bought some polished agate on eBay to make pendants for my little sister and my sister in law. Then I came across the agate again while browsing on eBay, which has resulted in some lovely pendants for myself and as gifts.

The blue one at the end is my favourite and I wear it most of the time, it has pretty much replaced my tree of life wire wrap pendant that I used to wear. They are quite big (and therefore quite heavy) and as yet I haven't found a chain I like for them,one day I will find the perfect one!

I enjoy making these pendants and find that I make around five of them each time I sit down to make one, they are quite addictive little projects to make. Now that I've been writing about them and looking through the photos I really feel like making more. Unfortunately Christmas is not too far away and I still have a lot to do - and not enough time as usual!

Wire Shrimp

At the start of this year I entered a art/craft competition to make a shrimp so I made this cute wire wrapped shrimp.

This little guy took me about 6 to 7 hours, which seems to be the usual amount of time that I spend on my wire sculptures. He won me first place in the competition, which were some goodies for my shrimp tank.

These are cherry shrimp, very difficult to take photos of as they are so small, but they are super cute! I just don't have much luck with them thanks to my water and how hot it gets in summer.

Tree of Life Pendants

A few years ago I noticed a lot of wire wrapped tree of life pendants on the internet so I made one for myself! It is my favourite pendant to wear now - this is one of the few pieces that never goes into the jewellery box since it lives under my monitor so I can grab it as I'm leaving the house.

In September I decided that I should make a couple more so I wasn't wearing the same pendant every day.

The first one is my original pendant.

And after making another two pendants I still prefer my first one and haven't worn either of the new pendants! The last one I made using copper wire as the base, but unfortunately it doesn't really show through the wrapped wire. That pendant actually took forever to make as I used really thin wire.

Next time I will try adding seed beads as the leaves - I just need to buy more wire! I have also seen some really nice ones that use a cabochon as the background, but I think I need more wire wrapping practice before I attempt that.

Wire Sculptures

My mum loves mermaids so last year for Christmas I made her a wire mermaid and she loves it so much that I decided to make her another one this year, but a bit bigger.

These sculptures do take a long time to do but are rather easy. They are basically a simple wire frame using 20 gauge wire which I then wrap with 26 gauge wire until I am happy with it. 
For the hair I just wrap the wire around a skewer to make curls.
This is the first little mermaid I made:

This is the mermaid I just made for Christmas 2011:

And here is a little cat I made using copper wire:

It really is a good craft to do while watching tv, it doesn't require perfection or incredible concentration to turn out well, just time and patience!