BayMoonDesign: Art Charm Swap for Beads-of Courage and Fundraiser Auction

Friday, September 30, 2016

Art Charm Swap for Beads-of Courage and Fundraiser Auction

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to thE Galaxy (1979), Chapter 16

I am very excited to be participating in an Art Charm Swap and Charity Event with the theme --fairy tales! Simply put, a fairy tale is a children's story about magical creatures. Fairy tales can have dwarves, elves, fairies, giants, gnomes, goblins, mermaids, trolls, or witches, and usually magic or enchantments.

I selected fairies as my magical creature to use as an inspiration for an art charm. The term fairies can describes any magical creature, including goblins or gnomes. At other times, the term only describes a specific type of more ethereal creature. In modern fairy tales, fairies are usually depicted as tiny human-appearing creatures with wings and the ability to perform magic.

I wanted to build a house for a fairy. The above photo serves as an inspiration for where my fairy house would be located. I wanted to make a fairy house that blends in with this setting. I designed one that looks rustic and made from nature. I created an acorn like roof. The house looks like it could be made from clay found in the earth. The colors I used are colors found in nature with a magical sparkle added.

Fairy House created by BayMoonDesign

I began by cutting dark annealed steel wire 22 gauge. I love the rustic and earthy look it gives. I used round pliers and wire pliers as well as carving tools. I cut 4 to 5 inches of steel wire.

I then made a loop at the bottom and attached one of the tiny, rustic acorns that I purchased from Maya Honey. I love the small size and the fact that the design is on both sides.

To create the fairy house, I mixed a tiny bit of emerald green color polymer cay with a yellowish green shade of clay. I rolled the clay into a round ball and put my steel with the charm through the bottom center to the top center. I squeezed the polymer clay ball gentle to form an oval shape and used one of my tools to press down the clay on the bottom half of the oval. I ended up with a mushroom like top for a roof.

I textured the roof with this part of a pine cone and applied bronze PearlEx that I had on hand for the caps of the acorn. Next I used brown, yellow, and orange clay for the door, windows, and door knob. I made the doors and windows and then applied them onto my fairy house. The bronze PearlEx was then applied with tools. I heated the charms for about 45 minutes at 265 degrees.

11 Fairy House charms ready to ship

Each participant makes 10 charms to swap, plus 1 extra to be auctioned off later with 100% of the bid price going to Beads of Courage. If you would like your very own fairy house like this one and want to help this good cause, you are in luck. This fairy house is being sold for this Beads of Courage fundraiser. I love their mission, which is "providing innovative, arts-in-medicine supportive care programs for children coping with serious illness, their families and the health care providers who care for them." What's not to love about this?

Here are the 10 charms that I received in this exchange.

I love each charm that I received in the exchange and I can't wait to see what else folks made. There were lots more than 10 participants, but 10 is all I received in the exchange. I will need to checkout all of the blogs below to see what else is being auctioned and to see the rest of the charms that were created. I will give the details of the auction in a future blog.

A special thanks to the organizer of this event --Jen Cameron.

Please visit each participant's to find out about their experience and to see what they made for the auction:

Alenka Obid