A Crown Fit for a Cat

Last week I went to Art and Soul in Portland, Oregon and took three classes.  Art and Soul is a conference centering on mixed media with loads of classes  This little crown was the project for the first class I took entitled, aptly, "French Beaded Crown."

Debbie and Shea, the owners and creative forces behind their company, A Gilded Life, (see http://www.agildedlife.com), designed and taught the crown project.  In addition to being gifted designers and business people, they are good teachers - not something you always find!  Everyone finished their project without a snag!

We began by making the beaded flowers and leaves.  Once those were done, we assembled the crown.  How clever that the base is actually two plain metal bangle bracelets.  We glued rhinestone cup chain around one and wrapped it with ribbon.  The second one, we just wrapped with ribbon.

The crown itself was cut from a Spellbinders die - also Debbie's and Shea's creation- and given an aged look with "Silver Black," a patina solution.  The final assembly just took glue.

It was a sweet little project, relaxing and fun, and I learned about some products that I hadn't been familiar with before as well as learning beaded flower basics.  By the way, the wire for the flowers is 38 gauge - so tiny and not at all easy to find!

I was hoping to get a photo of one of my cats, Mopsy, wearing this crown.  But, not surprisingly, she didn't cooperate.