Leaves

(Above:  Six, framed pieces ... each just $50 plus SC sales tax and shipping.  Click on any image to enlarge.)

(Above:  Olive skeletal in white frame.)

Last week I transformed an older piece from my PLAYA Series into a new one called High Noon.  It was easy and fun.  I liked the results even better than the original.  Yet, I cut off one end of the older work.  That end/scrap was just sitting on my studio table, almost begging for me to use it.  So I did.  I added copper metallic foiling and an olive skeletal leave that was recently sent to my stash by my Canadian cyber friend Margaret Blank.  I cut a mat for it, one sized to fit into a "scrap frame".

(Above:  Blue Skeletal Leave in a rustic steel frame frame.)

"Scrap frames" is term that probably sounds pretty awful, but it really isn't!  At the end of every year, my husband Steve and I count things in our frame shop. It's called "inventory".  There is no sense in counting short sticks of discontinued moulding.  Steve simply builds lots of "little frames", maximizing what we have.  It then becomes my job to create something small and affordable to fit them.  It is a great design challenge.  I had so much fun with the scrap, I decided to take another PLAYA Series piece apart, cut it into five pieces, and transform them into five of the scrap frames.  These are the resulting pieces.

(Above:  Pressed four-leaf clover in a mottled gold/green frame.)

Margaret Blank sent me three small packages of different colored skeletal leaves.  So, there might be more of these small pieces in my future.  I also found this four-leaf clover in an antique photo album purchased at a recent auction.  

(Above:  Olive skeletal leaf in a rustic tan frame.)

In addition to a touch of metallic foiling, each one got a little free-motion stitching and a selection of beads.  

(Above:  Olive skeletal leaf with tiny shell beads.)

Margaret Blank also sent along the tiny shell beads used on this piece.

(Above:  Red skeletal leaf with red metallic foiling.)

I wasn't really sure that the red leaf would work out ... but it did!