The challenge of the European Street Team for these two weeks is from creationsbyeve and is called "Morocco".
Source: Fibula [Morocco] (1981.5.2) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of ArtThe first week I had no idea what to make; then I decided to look at my postcards with traditional costumes from Morocco. And the inspiration bubbled in my head. There is a very striking piece of jewelry, called a fibula, that is part of the Moroccan Berber costume. Fibulae were decorative, symbolic, status indicating, and functional. They were used as clasps to keep capes, mantles and other garments in place. Fibulae from the Islamic period consist of two triangular endpieces, which are pinned into the clothing, and a chain that connects them. The inverted triangle represents the female form.
Source: Fisher, Angela. Africa Adorned. London: Collins, 1984
So, I started to make a fibula from buttons. I made two triangles from heavy brass buttons by sewing the buttons together with strong brown yarn. They are connected to a golden-coloured chain at the bottom and two large golden-coloured metal rings at the top. At the back of each triangle, a golden-coloured brooch pin is sewn. It's for sale in my P8 Button Art and Accessories shop on Etsy.
This Monday's moodboard is called "The Sea".
The weather starts to be nice again, so the beach is calling ! Walking along the sea, finding some lovely shells, hearing the seagulls, seeing Peggy running; life is good !
For more monday moodboards see fleurfatale's blog.
1. TomBjornDesigns
2. emelephotography
3. ikabags
4. Chickslab
It is Wednesday again, so it's BUTTON DAY on my blog. It would be great if you could do the same; make your Wednesday a button day too. Have you seen a lovely, beautiful, stunning, crazy button or button-related thingy, or did you make something with a button / buttons, or did you even make buttons yourself, blog about it on your blog on Wednesday, and give the link here via Mister Linky at the end of this post.
There were so many buttons on the fair in Amsterdam last Sunday, that I could not withstand it (next to all the non-button goodies I also bought ::)). I bought a gorgeous handmade button by Anastasia from LAccentNou as a brooch, and got a beautiful button necklace from Swee of swiedebie. Have a look at their lovely creations, also the non-button ones !!
!!!!!!!!!! If you have something for The Button Wednesday, give Mister Linky your name and the link to your button post !!!!!!!!!!!!!
This European Street Team's weekly challenge was called "Native Tribes" and was organized by psarokokalo.
I have this fabulous book about ethnic jewellery (Ethnic Jewellery by John Mack, The Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Publications, 1988), which is full of treasures from all over the world. One of the pictures shows shell jewellery from south eastern New Guinea, which were the principal items in the Kula ceremonial gift exchange.
The soulava necklace is made of many disks bored from the shell of the Spondylus Oyster, and I could easily see very similar structure being made out of modern plastic buttons. The Spondylus disks vary from pale brown to deep red, and I have used saturated brown buttons. For the ornamentation (which is done with shells of several species in the picture above) I have used one oyster shell and eight cockle shells, that I have collected here on the beach.
Every week the European Street Team at Etsy organizes a challenge to make something with a special theme.
The theme this week is organized by Jane and was called "Combination of dissonant".
Plastic buttons versus feathers, artificial product versus nature: clear dissonants. But the result is not a dissonant at all; surprisingly these different elements fit together nicely into a smooth pattern of natural beauty.
Feathers: We find them alongside the tracks in the fields when walking the dog. We find them on the beach. We find them on the bottom of the parakeet cage at the vet's. Sometimes, we pluck them from the leftovers of an unfortunate bird that was caught by a hawk. Feathers are eery. Feathers are lofty. Feathers are magic, they consist mostly of air trapped in fairy-tale protein.
Plastic: We find it alongside the tracks in the fields, and so on -- but we don't like to see it there. It is a dissonant. But plastic can be turned into anything that the human mind can imagine, and then it becomes something constructive.
Dissonant: Plastic and Feathers -- Feathers and Plastic.
For the first time I participated in a swap. This was the Handmade Button Swap organized by PhatSheep. We had to handmake a coherent set of 6 buttons and an item of our choice that's using a handmade button. And this all before the 14th of February. I found it very exciting !
I decided to make some buttons by casting ceramic powder (into chocolate forms), drilling holes into them and painting them with turquoise and silver mother of pearl glass colour. It was great fun !
The item I made was a brooch made of one large vintage grey button in the middle with lots of small vintage grey buttons sewn around it. Everything is topped of with one of the ceramic buttons I made for this swap, turning it into a blue-silvery flower.
This was the extra item I made, using a much larger specimen of the handmade buttons I made for the swap. It's a necklace made of a sheer grey-silvery fabric tube, filled with silver painted wooden beads and knotted together with the large ceramic shank heart button in the middle.
And this is what I received today from noisette handmade. She made me a set of 6 beautiful linen buttons painted with 6 different motives: ladybird, bird, leaf, heart, apple & mushroom. They are so sweet ! Her item was a linen pouch with a blue & white striped bottom and a large linen button sewed on it; it's so cute ! And I got an extra blue felt flower brooch from her too. Moreover, she gave me some lovely piece of fabric, some pieces of trims, some red buttons and chocolate (!).
Thank you so much noisette to make this first swap an unforgettable one ! You can see all the entries coming in here.
This week's earrings are these black tiled ones by EST member Marta from martice on Etsy. I loved them immediately when I saw them for the first time. I like ceramics and tiles, and found this idea with the mini tiles building a mini mosaic for the ears fantastic ! The black color gives them a very elegant flair, but she makes them in all possible colours, also mixed.
