Found Object Blog Hop!

Freeeeeeeform!!!  Oh yeah!!

Today's blog hop is hostessed by Mandi Ainsworth and Karen Williams, of Bead Circle and SkunkHill Studio respectively.   I couldn't resist a freeform challenge.  Our only rule was that we must use a found object in our piece… and you know me, I had to pick one of my rocks.  :)

I believe this is a NH rock rather than a VT rock, and that I picked it up on the side of the road with Sherwood one day while he was doing genealogy research in a remote graveyard.  (It ISN'T a graveyard rock, though!)

My rock was made as a gift for a friend, and looks at first glance to be mostly freeform right angle weave, but there is freeform peyote in there as well, and bead embroidery, as well as picot and embellishment and stop stitch.  I can't ever just stick to one stitch when freeforming, it always calls for many!

There is a little path leading up to an adorable lamp work mushroom fairy house (and I can't for the life of me find my purchase for this, if you know who made this bead, please do let me know so I can give appropriate credit), which has been bead embroidered and then beaded into the freeform with peyote stitch,

a ton of flowers scattered around the fairy's meadow (here I used 2.5mm Swarovski crystals, lovely sequins in many shades, and some fabulous lucite from The Hole Bead Shoppe),

and leaves which have fallen from some of the trees from the surrounding woods, just out of sight.

I had so much fun with this - and I have two more lamp work mushrooms, too - there will be more fairy houses on rocks in the future for sure!  One will be a wintry one, and one will be a little similar to this one, I think, although possibly more woods or maybe autumn…

Please do visit either Mandi's or Karen's blog in order to find the blog list, as I can't make it work for me here, and take the time to hop around and see what everyone made - I know I will!!  Thanks so much to Mandi and Karen for showing us such a good time!