Susan Brown's Altered Spoon Bloghop

Today we are helping our dear friend and very talented artist, Susan M. Brown, celebrate her five year Blogiversary.  She has been sharing her creativity and inspiring us with her talents on her blog for the last five years, and now she has asked us to play along and bring you some more fun ideas altering wooden spoons.  Everyone is invited to play along.  You can add your own creations to Susan's page via inlinkz.  And that's not all.  One lucky player will win some blog candy.  So get youself a cuppa, sit back, and enjoy.  

After much deliberation, I finally decided to make a dragonfly with my wooden spoons.  

After trimming the handle off of one of the spoons, I glued it to another long-handled spoon to make a head for my dragonfly.  I had to drill a large hole through the bottom of each candle cup in order to slip them over the spoon handle.  (My dear husband did that for me).  I painted the spoons and candle cups (below) with Burnt Umber acrylic paint.  

candle cups

After slipping the candle cups over the handle, I then glued one last decorative candle cup (no hole) to the end, which holds all of the candle cups in place.  I used various colors of Gilder's Paste and buffed it with a soft cloth the give it a bit of a shine.  The brown base color allows the metallic paste to really pop and shine nicely.  I added the feathers to each side of the spoon to make dragonfly wings, and covered the works (where I glued the feathers) with a stamped metal decorative piece.  

Then I wrapped the candle cups with copper 20 gauge wire, tied off on the back to make a hanger so my dragonfly can FLY!!!

Now for the eyes.  Hmmm, what to do about the eyes.  I've got it!!! (Light bulb just flickered on).  I used circular wire beads that I cut in half to give him bulging eyes, but how do I attach them to the spoon without a lot of glue oozing everywhere and showing.  I know.  I will attach them with bead-decorated straight pins.  I drilled a very tiny hole in the spoon, trimmed a tiny bit of the straight pin (it was too long) and inserted it through the wire opening on top and right into the tiny hole in the wood.  VOILA!  Dragonfly eyeballs.  

Okay, I know.  I am easily entertained.  But I really love them.  I am so excited to have thought of this.  Don't you love it when a plan comes together? It simply made my day.  

And, with that said, I hope I made your day, and that you will visit the other blogs in the hop to have these very talented artists make your day, too.  I also want to thank Susan for hosting this blog hop, and for the opportunity to play along.  Congratulations and best wishes to you in all of your future endeavors.  

Presenting the artistes de spoon...