Thursday, November 29, 2012

NO Berries and Leaves - a personal challenge

Earlier this week I blogged about the Winterberry Pendant I made as an entry in the Artisan Whimsy Berries and Leaves November Challenge.  Today, I want to share with you my "No Berries and Leaves" pendant, which I also made from a photograph that I took at the same time as the photo used in the Winterberry pendant.

If you remember, I ended up with 6 usable photographs from the photo session in our neighborhood park. Columbia, Missouri has approximately 30 small, neighborhood parks and our neighborhood is lucky enough to have one. The park includes a children's play structure, a concrete basketball court, a small shelter with picnic tables and grill, and a 1/3 mile gravel track. It also has two giant oak trees

Photos from Louisville Park, Columbia, MO

After finishing the Winterberry Pendant, I wanted to use the tree photo next. This idea about a black-and-white photo pendant using a bare tree has been stewing around in my brain for a long time and the time of year was finally right to capture the tree and its limbs.

Using Picasa (my favorite graphics editing program), I added a black-and-white filter, a vignette border and cropped away the sidewalk in the forefront of the photo. I found a rectangular wooden blank in my stash and painted it black with silver accents, then resized the photo and sealed it with Matte finish Mod Podge. Voila! The result was exactly what I had in mind. I added a Tim Holtz eye hooks - just the perfect size for the wooden blank.

Tree Pendant

Now all I have to do is turn the pendant into a necklace. Hopefully I will have time to do that soon, but I have Christmas shows for the next 2 weekends. I am feeling some stress and trying to get everything that I have started finished, but I guess that means I should stop starting things!

2 comments:

  1. Oooh, very atmospheric piece Mary Anne... would be lovely with some fine tea-dyed lace as a choker, wouldn't it?

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    1. I was thinking about something more stark (black/grey beads on a black chain), but you might be on to something. Maybe I should play around a little bit! I may have some tea-dyed or black lace around here somewhere.

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