Muffin Tin challenge

Starting the year with an artsy-creative challenge; what could be better?

Right before the year ended (last year, that's it - 2014, of course), Heather Powers of Humble Beads posted a little challenge: you're supposed to fill up at least half of a muffin tin with all the ingredients for a project and then... finish it!

Finishing projects is what I am not so good at ~ mostly because I am still experimenting a lot. I do the experiments, then never add the details to be 'done and wearable'. However, I figured I was behind with some Christmas gifts anyhow, so... muffin tin it is!

Oh, I don't have one - we don't eat muffins :)
Hopefully the doughnut tin will work:

Since this is really a mini-doughnut tin, I could not add the wire and findings to it. The exercise of gathering all the main items for projects together was an excellent one, though. My modus operandi is usual: grab some focal and then start working :) This was completely different: the time spent to figure out how to put the little angels together (as in what goes best where) cut the actual production time by a lot. It really separated the time into 'design' and 'implementation' (I will always be a software engineer at my core, sorry!) and made the implementation so much easier than usual. Funny that after 20 years of doing this in real life I never was organized enough to apply the system to jewelry making. Thank you, Heather, for such a huge eye opener!

As you can see, these are really 8 projects, not all different. One of the sea glass pieces (the one on the far right) has been replaced in the meantime by a shell, I haven't added it. So it's really 7 completed projects, and 3 designs. I hope that works for the challenge :)

The angels are the cutest thing ever! I'm glad I had left exactly 4 pairs of wings to make them, and that I got those large lucite flowers recently (couldn't resist them). At first I wanted to use some of the girls' (the intended recipients) birthday Swarovski crystals... but an angel with a blue or green face is not something I found appealing :)

Recently we have visited a friend, whose wife just published a book for children. A fantasy book. I gifted each pair of sisters with the said book - and what goes perfectly well with a book, but a sparkly, fancy bookmark? Mind you, one pair of sisters got their angels, but I forgot the bookmarks at home :) I'm getting old and I need to start using other ways of organizing myself than my own brain...

I love all the pieces, but that sea glass wrapped in copper is truly special! The colours the glass picks, and those light opaque streaks through... they give it a very interesting aspect.

This is the story of my first muffin / doughnut tray challenge (and I'm sticking to it!)

Thank you, Heather for pushing me (I thought I'll never be done by today, considering it was a few days before Christmas and I touch almost no artsy anything until about mid-January) and for making me realize the system should be employed (even if not within a muffin tin) with all the projects. I should put more time into designing start-to-finish and I'll probably have more finished pieces :)

Thank you for visiting!

You can check other 'art' muffins at Heather's place, come check them out!