Mini-Art Retreat.....on a Monday!!

My friend Karen came over first thing this morning for a little art retreat. Karen is a very talented stamper, collage artist, scrapbooker and all around great person - but she's even more talented when it comes to stained glass. She makes the prettiest things, and I'm proud to say I have quite a few hanging in my home. She brought over some pieces of glass that she'd already cut into bird and house shapes and we stood around the counter in my kitchen making art to be sandwiched between the glass.

I've always drooled over perfectly soldered pieces of art, but any soldering attempt I made failed miserably. Even after taking a class here and there my attempts looked like a kindergartner had done the job. I'm not quite sure what Karen's secret is, but I was able to solder my birdie perfectly with her instruction. THANKS Karen, I had a great time. I will admit that she soldered the jump rings on for me, I haven't quite mastered that technique quite yet.

Here you can see the MESS we made of the counter, the table was full of laptops and the studio is already a complete mess so this was the only place we could work.

My birdie before any legs or soldering was added.

That's actually a Maine sticker I'm holding, but we got a kick out of it. I was having a bad hair day today!

Here's my finished bird with the twig legs attached. I originally wanted to drill through the twigs but they split so I wound red wire around them instead to form a loop and attached them with jump rings. I love how it came out! Can you see my litte princess sunning herself in the background of the second picture?? She's absolutely loving that the weather has changed and she can be outside all day. Seems like she's always on the wrong side of the door though!

My bird was so happy she's already flown the coop to her new home! Hope you like it Loretta, you weren't home when I dropped it off so it's hanging on the doorknob of your front door!! :-) Thanks for the raspberry bushes! Well, that's all for today. Cross Country started this afternoon and they were one coach short - so I was the acting assistant coach escorting the bigger kids around the course a couple of times. That meant I was running along with them, though I was happy for the exercise! Thanks for visiting, ta ta for now.