Shannondale Craft Camp

These last two years I have been able to go to Shannondale Craft Camp, a weekend full of classes teaching a myriad of skills and crafts.  Last year I told you I'd post about it, which I never did, but this time I actually took pictures, so I'll fire ahead. :)

The first night I took a class called "Garden Art with Vintage Glass".  It was very... crafty, I guess.  No skill really involved, but allowed for some design choices.  Below are what I made, a small birdfeeder, and a planter.  I'm excited about designed a miniature garden to go in the planter.  Might make some fairy furniture to go in the bottom level. 

Ha, so I was going to organize this by order of when I did the classes, but I'm not going to remember.  Here is the necklace I made in the class called "Bronze and Copper Necklace".  I got to design it, then I sanded the pieces of bronze for the swirls, then she softened the wire a bit using fire (which I was happy to not take part in.  But fire bricks (I think that is what their called) are super cool when they get hot).  I then got to shape the pieces and wrap the connections.  Sadly, the connections are a smidgen loose, so it does wobble a bit. :/

Last year I took almost no jewelry classes, and I decided to make up for it this year.  Here is the Tree of Life pendant I made:

From the same lady I did a class on a wire-wrapped pendant.  This is something that I've wanted to learn for a long time.  I don't have the best wire for it here at home, but I have made another one since then: 

On Sunday, I took another class from her (what can I say, her classes just appealed to me).  This class was cool: she laid out all of her materials, gave us some books to look through, and told us to design and make as many earrings as we could in the two-hour time slot.  Ha, that was great fun.  I completed four pairs.  Three of them are with pearls, which I must admit, I love.

Here we see an utensil dragonfly in its natural habitat:

I didn't greatly care for this class. However, I did get to solder the pieces together, and soldering is great fun.  It's called an "Utensil Dragonfly" based on the fact you use a handle from either a knife, fork, or spoon for the body.  Here it is up close:

The class on cold enameling was probably my least favorite.  Maybe I'll give it another go someday.  These pieces will eventually morph into earrings and pendants, but I have no idea when:

This penny-rug is something else I didn't finish while at the weekend, but I did finish it this week.  Jury is still out on my opinion of it:

I also made some wind-chimes.  They have a very lovely chime, and I'm looking forward to finding a more permanent home for them.  Due to the teacher's machine breaking, we had to use hack saws to cut the pipes.