I took apart the mother/daughter brooch of an Aster and Lily of the Valley that I had done a while back. I wasn't too pleased with how it came out and I thought the Aster was pretty enough on it's own to be used as a hair clip.
Then I turned my attention to some vibrant orange beads I had in my collection that had been calling to me for a while. I tend to be inspired by colors. Sometimes when I get stuck I just lay out various strands of beads and let the colors come to life in my head. This is what I did in this case, and these beads wanted to become a gorgeous 6 petaled flower.
This particular color reminds me of persimmons and bright summery things, I also wanted to experiment with the shape of the petals so I made three petals facing in one direction and three in the other. The effect is subtle and my husband didn't notice it at first until I pointed it out to him. The outer most row of every petal usually starts down from the top and goes down the right side of the petal. In this case I reversed the wrapping technique so that the wire would remain on the back side of the petal and in doing so, I also reversed the order of the rows to run right-to-left instead of left-to-right.
It's quite possible that no one else will notice without having read this article, or else wont think it make any difference on the aesthetic quality of the piece, but I know it's there and that makes me happy, that in turn probably makes me a little off center, but oh well.
At this point I can't decide whether I prefer it as a brooch...
or a hat pin.
I guess that'll be a decision left up to the person who purchases it down the road. Both these items will be listed in my shop probably by tomorrow. I attempted to post the listing a little while ago, but had some, ahem, technical difficulties. Enough said.
