Gypsy Fayre–April 2016 Challenge at Our Creative Corner

This month of April 2016 I have the absolute privilege of hosting the challenge over at Our Creative Corner. I have always a deep fascination with Bohemian/gypsy culture and sometimes consider myself somewhat of neo-Bohemian with a gypsy soul.

This month's challenge invites you to let us see your gypsy nature.  

Gypsies are wanderers, purveyors of exquisite things, mysterious things, free-spirited bohemians curating the beauty of life and sharing the wonders with you as the travel along.

So for the challenge let your creativity run wild and free like a gypsy 

I want you to create interesting items you might imagine finding at a traditional Gypsy Fayre.

You may create whatever your gypsy heart desires, but it must....

contain at least 3 colours from this featured colour palette 

or

show us how your project is inspired by this gorgeous ode to the gypsy soul!

The sponsor this month is

What do you think?  Do you have the soul of gypsy?

Play along with the rules of the challenge like with your gypsy soul and you could be the curator of some fabulous gyspy loot too from them.  Remember to submit your project at the challenge page on

http://ourcreativecorner6.blogspot.com/2016/04/gypsy-fayre.html

I always imagined that Gypsy carts would have loads of bright colourful and interesting accessories.  

Every month I try to get out to a little gathering of Bohemian free-spirits and neo-hippies in the province that I live in, I thought it would be an awesome idea to wear the OCC April challenge theme to get some extra publicity for the OCC blog as well - as it happens that at these events there is a lot of trading and sharing and communion of creative energy and colourful souls.

I created a collection of Gypsy

accessories in the form of a headdress, earrings and a ring.

The entire collection was created out of odd bits and bobs I had in my collection of trim, wool, yarn, feathers, ribbon, beads and shells I picked up here and there on my gyspy wanderings and tradings.

To create the flowers – I cut 5 to 6 little petal shapes out of organza ribbon and threaded them, and the pulled the thread taut so that the ends bunched together and pulled the petals into a flower shape.

I stitched gorgeous rich coloured upholstery beading onto a long headband elastic and added a few metal belly-dancing discs for gypsy interest.  This was the front of the headband.

For the back, I wanted it to be an effervescent effusion of colour and joy and sparkling interest.

I used an embroidery hoop to keep a length of fleck yarn taut and added various lenghts of interesting embellishments to it. 

I braided, knotted, drilled holes with my Dremel through pieces of shells and mother-of-pearl that I had picked up sometime or the other.

 

I sewed on two loops to the sides of the headband elastic where it would sit just behind my ears and two clasps onto either end of the back part of the headband to make it easier to attach the back part of the headband to the elastic.

For the ring – I made another organza flower and added a few feathers to a ring base.

Finally for the earrings – I pretty much bundled a few feathers together, tied them up with fleck thread and did some fancy wire designs to attach it the the earwire.

That completed my project and it was all ready and it was a hit at the “Harvest, Zuvuya” gathering. 

–and here we are, gypsy camp all set up and ready to flaunt our gypsy nature.

 Thanks and that’s it for now – looking forward to seeing your gypsy creations at Our Creative Corner