Ostrich Egg and Ribbon Fairy Finished

The ostrich egg/ribbon fairy is finished! Well that is what I am calling it anyway. Finished, that is. I think anything else added at this point 1)might just be overkill and 2) increases the chance that either the egg or the doll will be dropped and broken. I have already pushed my luck with these two fragile little works...So the photos have been taken, and it is time to do some tasselling...and some sculpting too...have to keep those skills sharp and always seek to improve.

After the outsides of the ostrich egg panels were coated with paper clay, sanded, then covered with modelling paste and sanded (sanding alone usurped the better part of a creative work day), it was time to decoupage. The blue flowers were a decal, but I decided I wanted to have four different panel designs. At first I cut them out and rearranged them to make four separate decals on decal paper, but the acrylic sealer terribly distorted the color. So, I decided to print them and use them as decoupage...I used UV archival acrylic sealer from Krylon. I like this sealer a lot because there is no color distortion, you can spray it over glitter, crystals, or just about anything. It is a bit scary when it is first applied because it looks drippy and runny and looks like it has just ruined your precious art work. However, as it dries, it reveals everything exactly as it was - with NO FINISH - which is often what I am looking for with my projects because often even a matte sealer leaves an undesirable sheen if you do not desire one.

Alas, the colors of the flowers were wrong anyway, so I simply painted over them in a more favorable blue.

After the flowers were painted and decoupaged, I added Swarovski crystals, glitter, and ivory micro beads:

Here is how the project looked in progress of putting it all together:

Then the dilemma of adding something to hold all of the panels together in a closed position. I adressed this using power magnets epoxied to two leaf findings and a crystal topper.

Almost finished...

Some ribbon and crystal accents, white silk cord, and micro beads and voila! She is finished.

Time to add in the ribbon fairy:

where she was meant to be

on her ribbon adorned throne

This was a very ambitious project...I am not sure I want to make every project this much of a time commitment, especially because it took away from the tassel web site way too much.

Well just a couple of more pictures of the ribbon work:

and an interim project I did for my little buddy:

Tomorrow morning I will be making the tassel that I will be teaching on the web site. I can't wait to recapture the momentum I had a few months ago with the tassel web site.

Till tomorrow, in some virtual form,

Cheers!