Bugs and Botanica

ATASDA is celebrating its 35th anniverary in 2009 here in Australia and we're having a travelling exhibition entitiled "Exotica". Individual members are making wall hangings, masks, and headdresses in the theme, but collectively we are designing vines in a "Bugs and Botanica" theme to decorate the stands. We have been organised into groups of 4 with each member making a basic vine (from any medium) with one attachment (flower, bug, whatever). Each month, the one of the other 3 members makes another attachment and sends it on - a sort of round robin.

My basic vine and flower attachment is felt and bead based but as yet I have not received any other attachments for it - watch this space.

One of the other members of my group has a vine that is in blues and other pastel colours so I made her this flower. I made about 7 petals from machined lace which were set into liquid Sculpey that had been pigmented with Pearl x pigments. the petals were formed into a flower and held with beading. The finished vines and attachments will have to be packed/unpacked about 5 times as the exhibition tours Australia over 2009 so have to be fairly robust. This flowere is actually quite flexible and squashy because of the rubbery Sculpey - hopefully it will cope with the packing.

This month's attachment to the third member's vine had to be a black or greenish bug that would fit in with his plastic vine made from bag ties, computer tags, etc. I came up with my waspy kind of bug - felt based with small discs of pigmented Sculpey (as above) beaded on , overlapping to make an armoured body. The wings are from machined lace in variegated thread.