This year I’m hosting a swap for my friends who love to solder. I’m part of another Christmas swap and it closed before my friend, Pam Munns, could join, so we came up with some ideas for a swap for soldered ornaments with some of our friends we’ve met at the classes we’ve taken with Sally Jean Alexander. I’m so thrilled that not only did our Sally Jean friends join, but a coterie of other talented artists signed up to be in the swap as well!

It’s called Winter Wonderland and the guidelines are to create a soldered Christmas/Holiday ornament that is inspired by the beauty of winter. This leaves plenty of room for each artist to create an ornament inspired by their favorite part of winter and the Christmas holiday. I’m envisioning falling snowflakes, icicles on trees, adorable little woodland creatures hopping through the snow and all kinds of other gorgeous images.

I’m a big fan of vintage and shabby chic so I’m suggesting that all the artists create in a style that is somewhere between Antique Chic to Vintage Grandeur, with Antique Chic possibly being free spirited, lacey, made with linen, a little bit bohemian or a little bit primitive. Vintage Grandeur could be a little bit more dressy than Antique Chic, with chandelier crystals, rhinestones, and maybe a little bit of velvet or silk.

The color palette will consist of white, cream, silver and a hint of a muted winter color.

We have 20 talented ladies participating in this swap and I’ll be dividing us up into 2 groups so that we’ll make 10 ornaments each. The shape of the ornaments is wide open to whatever their hearts desire. There are so many shapes to choose from, like simple squares or circles, to house or dove shapes, vials and small perfume bottles and even stars or three dimensional shadow boxes or reliquaries.

The Ornaments are due to me by December 5 and then I’ll divide them up into the groups and mail them back out to all of the artists.

For inspiration I’ve been doing my research online and finding a lot of gorgeous soldered ornaments on Pinterest. I’ve created a board called Winter Wonderland to give myself some ideas about what shape I want and different colors and sizes.

Since it’s been so warm in Southern California it’s difficult to get in the mood for winter and Christmas so I found a great blog with pictures of beautiful shabby chic decorations to get me going.

Here are some of my artist friends in the Winter Wonderland Ornament Swap who have blogs, teach soldering or sell their soldered jewelry:

I’m excited that Rochelle Gaukel, of Whatever Lola Wants Lola Gets, will be joining us. As I was going through Pinterest I saw several of her beautiful pieces pinned to other people’s boards.

Lonnie Jenck is a sweetheart whom I met at Kim Caldwell’s glorious creative events. Lonnie teaches classes and is a wonderful artist.

Also joining us is the fabulous Lori Dams, who creates amazing jewelry! If you get to meet her, ask her about Hugh Jackson! And recycling! LOL

Alanna George is an artist I’ve never met in person but I feel lucky that I got to know her through the 12 Days of Christmas Ornament Swap that she hosted. She is a super versatile artist with talents in so many areas!

We also have Hope Ellington, an inspirational artist whom I’ve never met but we were in Alanna’s ornament swap together. It’s fun to meet new artists through swaps and get to know them via Facebook.

And I’ve volunteered to teach my friends, Julie and Jeanine, how to solder. I hope I’m able to give them the instruction and encouragement to create some beautiful ornaments!

I’m counting down the days until I get to see all of these beautiful ornaments start arriving at my house. In the meantime, I’m brainstorming ideas so I can create some delightful ornaments that will grace the trees of my talented friends!

Thank you so much for stopping by!

xo,

Christine Barker