a sad story ...

I've been sitting on some packages of Fimo for a while.  Literally sitting on them because I bought them some time ago and they're a little dried out and tough to work with.  I can soften them up while I'm doing something else.  Multitasking at its finest.

I layered translucent and cream to make a faux ivory kind of pattern and then I made them into facsimiles of some of the antler and bone pieces I love to use.  Grunged them up with a little burnt sienna paint and then polished the hell out of them.  The solid pieces survived, but the larger amulets with the indents - well - let's just say they lacked structural integrity.  Which is too bad because I really liked them.

The shields that survived my loving touch got made into earrings.  Lightweight and completely vegan.  Except for the bone beads.

I decided that I didn't really like working with plastic.  It felt like it had no soul, compared with the old, natural materials.  So for now anyway, the Fimo goes back into the storage bin.

I usually don't get so creatively stagnant until halfway into the month of August, but my Summer Doldrums came along early this year.  I gathered together beads with a red theme, thinking of Women's Mysteries - in particular, Croning.  The dictionary definition of "crone" is "an old hag" or "dried up old woman", but fortunately it's one of those words which has been reclaimed by the Goddess revival in the last couple of decades.  Now a woman who has gone through menopause is celebrated as a Wise Woman.  Two women I admired greatly as embodiments of the Crone, Maya Angelou and Margot Adler, passed on recently, and so the two necklaces that were born from this little flicker of creative activity are dedicated to them.

The reds are really more rusty in person.  They look kinda cherry red on my monitor.  This piece could be worn everyday.  To the office. Or the supermarket.  And everyone would know just by looking at you, what a juicy woman you are.  "Dried up", my ass!

The other one I picture being worn at a Croning Ritual.  With all black clothing.  Or all white.  Or best of all - sky-clad!  How magnificent that would be!