Finished Fascinator

Here she is, all finished!

Top view of the red fascinator, all attached to the base and the headband.  I think it came out beautifully.

 

My customer asked for a little more height, so I added a small bandeau-like base, to lift it up and cup it forward, and I made a bunch more of the lavender beaded flowers to place around it.

It's all stitched together. I think glue would have added too much extra weight.

I think she's going to look wonderful!

Another fascinator!

This was an exercise in "If you can't find it - MAKE it yourself"

Here's the dress fabric I was trying to coordinate with:

But all the nicer silk flowers right now are either magenta, electric red, or screaming orange, and I really needed something sort of more in the brick to raspberry range. So I combined about four different existing flowers, and painted each layer till it looked cohesive and had depth and shading.

I think it produced a beautiful result!

I really didn't have the right color purple to do the curly feather thing that I did on the others. (which is too bad - cause I really did like that effect) BUT - I found some fabulous cut crystal beads that were the right purple with an over-wash of a red-gold tone. I knew they belonged in there somewhere, but I wasn't sure where.

So I took apart a nicer looking silk hydrangea, and added the beads in as stamen-like centers. I also made a centerpiece for the red flower out of the same beads.  

I love the purple-red combo!

And then...Fascinators!

And then sometimes....Fascinators!

I'm putting these here because I made them, and I think they are the epitome of spring. 

I like the low-key but elegant silk covered button in the centers of the first two.

Playing with these colors was a lot of fun, and made up for the not quite flowerdyness of my yard...

 Then there's this one, which has a silk ribbon flower in the center. I like that the green in the center plays as a neutral, making the piece come across as all white - but it isn't monotone. Neat trick :)

 

Sparkly flatcap

I begin to think that perhaps I like these sparklies on everything.  

Photography and Carcanet necklaces

I have a new photography studio setup for product shots!

My neighbor and dear friend Cory is a top-notch pro photographer with experience doing both portraits AND product shots, and he came over and we designed and built this frame setup and he had these used lights

I've just ordered the last few things (my own reflecty umbrellas and a proper tripod)

and anyway - Lookit what I can DO now!!

(Shakespeare needs a little hair gel, it seems)

In other news, that is only semi-related to the photography:
- I've started making some jewelry things from the ouches:

I took a jewelry making class, and have sortof exploded with these.
They are called carcanets (kar-kuh-nets) at least according to Webster, that's how it's pronounced. I'd have sure thought it would be kar-kah-neighs, but yannow. Whatever.

Here's a little composite of some grand ladies sporting carcanets.

I LOVE that they come in all colors. I LOVE that they vary in size from close around the neck to sortof wider, collar-of-state-like affairs. I love that they are so fabulously sparkly.
And I admit that although I needed a new crafty obsession not at all, I'm really enjoying it.


Now - to figure out whether they need to be off-the-rack carcanets for sale, carcanets for custom order, carcanet kits, or all three. Cause I can't wear all of the ones I've even made so far!


Anyway - that's what's going on here :)

Beaver hat - with kettle curl, jewelled band, and extrafloof!

It's been a while since I've posted, and these so much to tell you - but you'll have to settle for just some pretty pictures.

Here's a new custom order, that came out really spiff!

Super-duper closeup of the yummy beaver fur blank and jeweled hatband:

 You can kinda see the kettle curled brim on the image below - I'm learning how to do that, and really enjoying the results!

 You can see the curl here too. It takes SO much longer, but I really thing it's worth it.

 And just a nice angly shot of it, all done. With a hat this tall, I just really had to have extra floofy feathers.