During the first training day with Linette, there was a gentleman there who made Bonsai trees. They looked spectacular! So nothing being off limits, I decided to have a go. I soon realised that I needed a lot more wire strands than I had cut and of course, I had to use a variety of colours (Magpie again!). I had a couple of goes with the following results. Here’s the first one. I also had fun with the roots!

Here we have the second one, using other colours of wire. I still need a lot more strands, will my hands have the strength to twist them? I’ll need to have a go. Just one more tree to show you under this heading, although I did make it with beads.

Just one more tree to show you under this heading, although I did make it with beads, and mounted it onto a lovely piece of wood

I still have lots of ideas for different kinds of trees, so which one next? Butterfly tree, it fills the void for different colours, that’s a surprise, right? Also, I’ve been learning about the process of metamorphosis, from the caterpillar to the butterfly. Yes, I’m going to do a teachy bit!

The caterpillar, when it enters the cocoon stage has to completely die to everything it was, in order to be transformed into a beautiful butterfly. The caterpillar literally becomes a protein soup that contains only a few stem cells that will grow to become the butterfly. Even in the final stages the butterfly has to break open the cocoon to emerge, nothing and no-one can intervene at this moment or the butterfly might not have the strength to emerge from the darkness to the light. Sounds a lot like life, doesn’t it?

Anyway, teachy bit over!

So I used the original tree pattern of thick garden wires, wrapped with the thinner wire, then splitting the thick wires to form branches and making smaller ones as I went. At the end of the small branches I attached a 100 wooden butterfly buttons, guess what? They were all brightly coloured, there’s a surprise!

The roots were woven with coloured wires, making a nice flat base. (This one is not for sale, however the second one is! See my shop).

Here is my second attempt at a Butterfly Tree. I used the same techniques as for my first one, but finished it with a different coloured base.

One day as I was browsing through some photos of real trees, I came upon this picture of a tree.

It really spoke to my heart, why? To me, it represented life coming from death. So I decided to have a go at my interpretation of the tree. Much harder than I thought.

Firstly, I had to tackle how to make an open tree trunk with a through and through. I ended up wiring individual pieces of heavy duty wire together in a circular fashion, allowing me to create a holes front and back. I then wrapped the tree and started to paint it. However, my lack of painting skills meant that it came out a horrible brown camouflaged look. I really didn’t like it. So I started again with the paint.

Colours, I love colours, REALLY! My husband Malcolm calls me a magpie! So I threw away the idea of having tree like colours and went for something bright. Job done! I’ll show you the pictures in a moment.

Next I thought of ways in which I could get water running through the tree. I thought of building a reservoir and using a small pump. I discarded this as I realised the water would eventually ruin the tree, unless it was fully contained. So instead I used silver and blue wire and wove the blue wire between the silver strands, to represent a meandering river that twisted and turned. I wanted to highlight the river area and so I added a set of warm LED lights.

Finally, more colour, red and green moss, just to be different, lol!

So here are the pictures of the finished tree. Much happier with the outcome this time! Try, try, and try again!

For my next venture, I wanted to try to make a wrapped tree and paint it, following the style that my friend Linette (Penney Lane Studios) had introduced to me.

I must admit this tree took a long time, longer than I had thought, but I pushed through. I also included the idea of having a cabochon in the open void in the trunk.

I found a lovely pick cabochon, that shows a vein like pattern when the light shines through it.

Oh! I did say I liked colours, didn’t I? So I painted the leaves in multiple colours of metallic paint. The main trunk I used metallic silver and then to pull the leaves and roots together I dabbed the trunk with the different metallic paints that I used on the individual leaves.

Here are the roots and a picture of the finished tree. It hangs in pride of place in our home office. (Sorry not for sale!)

My husband Malcolm had bought me a lovely glass heart pendant. Unfortunately, the top ring broke off and I was no longer able to wear it. I really loved the glass heart and so I held onto it for a good number of years.

Just after I had learnt to make the wire trees, I came up with the idea to take the tree making further. So instead of making a straight trunk, I split it into two, leaving a heart shape void in the middle of the trunk so that I could wrap and insert my broken heart into the middle. I highlighted the heart with gold wire, so that it would stand out.

My Broken Heart in the middle of the trunk.

The branches I filled with all sorts of beads, trinkets and even satin flowers.

The roots I made multi-coloured. (Did I say I like colours?).

So here is my Broken Heart (nope it’s not for sale, it’s just ‘cause I like showing off!!)

Well, now it’s a few months until Christmas, can’t really believe it’s that close!

So, I started to wonder what kind of trees and ornaments I could make out of beads and wire.

I found an easy angel ornament that I could make out of Heart shaped glass beads, I tried various colours of hearts, with large 44mm silver wings, finishing with a crown on their head and a large beaded loop so that it could be added to a tree, or hung elsewhere as a nice gift for a friend.

Well, now it’s a few months until Christmas, can’t really believe it’s that close!

I only have the purple and green ones for sale at the moment in the shop. Keep an eye out I’ll be adding some more soon!

I found another type of angel to make and I’ve called them Dancing Angels, here are the first ones I made.

I enjoyed doing them so I made some more.

And, yes, you do indeed see some small Christmas trees too. Again, these were just the beginning of various types of trees I developed up until Christmas.

So here a few pictures of the multitude of trees.

The ones above are for sale in the shop. The ones below are some of the other styles I tried which have already sold. Amazing!

So that was just the beginning of the Christmas trees. More will be added to the shop soon.

And now it’s time to try something else! As you can see I like to make a few of one thing at a time, then move on.

I have lots of ideas and in talking to other artists, they usually have several pieces on the go at once and all the time their head is already thinking of the next piece they are going to paint, draw, etc.

I wanted to make some trees that could be easily hung on a wall, so I came up with the idea of making small wire/bead trees that I could mount into frames. I had a lot of fun making these and giving them away to friends. These are the ones that I have left.

They are mounted in 7” x 5” frames of various colours, rose gold, pink, white, black and oak. I used a variety of coloured seed beads and small pearls along with multi-coloured wires.as can be seen in the photo.

These are on sale in the shop.

This blog will be very short, I promise.

So after my trials and errors, I finally took the courage to do a painting. Mind you, it was just a trial and I followed a set of online instructions, even down to the colours and everything else.

Now remember my original story (check out my About page) of being sidelined in art class and so to even take a chance, whether following someone else’s online teaching or not was a big deal to me. The fact that I’m even sharing it with you is an even bigger deal.

I want all of you to realise that when someone says you can’t, God says you can! You are created unique, with your own individual character. So, even if it takes a lot of time, try doing what you were told you couldn’t. Thumb your nose up and say I can, but stop comparing!

Anyway, I did say this would be brief! So here is my very first attempt at painting a picture.

Even my husband was blown away!

Trees on boards

My mind started working overtime. I wanted to try painting, at least playing with it. Remember this was a long time since I had put any paint on anything other than walls or ceilings!

So I started with a black background on a 8” x 10” board, easy peasy, lemon squeezy! Then I twisted a small tree from red, green and silver, finishing the branches bonsai style. I figured out where it would sit and then challenged myself further by stencilling in a verse from Psalm 1.

Put it all together and here you get the final product. Finishing with the stencilling was harder than I thought and I think I painted over it a least 2-3 times. Learning a little more each time.

So yes it’s for sale in the shop.

So onwards and upwards as they say!

More board ideas that I tried.

I wanted to make a tree against a heart background 10” x 14” and call it the Scarlet Thread, and it would have a red wire running from the bottom to the top of the tree. At the very top of the tree is a key, representing the key to your heart.

So I started making the tree first. This was much more in the fashion of my first tree, with thick garden wire and wrapping the trunk and branches with the thinner wire, then making individual branches, with all sorts of trinkets attached, beads, and charms, whatever I could find. I made small roots for this tree, trying to make them more like a ball than individual roots.

Then I had a go at painting a background, mmmmm, not so good, very rough and childlike, I thought, but then I added lights up and down the tree and it took on a life of its own. So here it is! Yes it’s for sale too if you are interested.

Not finished with the board ideas yet! Tried one more.

This time I took three coloured wires, purple, gold and blue and twisted them into the trunk and branches of the tree. I tried a finer wire but found I preferred the slightly heavier one. I finished the canopies with the three different colours, in a bonsai like fashion. This tree was then mounted onto a painted acrylic abstract background. Tahdah!!

Yep it’s for sale too, check out my shop!

So here we are, we’re in lockdown. Although it doesn’t disturb us too much as we work from home and our work is mostly over the internet anyway! However, it did increase the amount of time we had at home and all our travelling stopped. Yeehah, more time to put my head into trees.

I had ideas for butterfly trees, more willow trees, framed trees, and wicker heart trees, all sorts, but which ones first? I made a plan of the ones I wanted to make first and so I tried another willow tree. This time in pink. Every time we went out to a shop, I’d have my eyes peeled to see what I could use to enhance the trees. (Glad B&M stayed open, during the lockdown). I found some round mirrors, which you can see here. They reflect the beauty of the tree below and I tried a different root system. I was getting bolder, just a wee (that means little for you non scots!) bit at a time.

So this one is called Willow Tree – Pink with mirror and is on sale in the shop.

I had one more idea for a willow tree. I had seen beautiful silver lined multi-coloured (Did I say I like colours?) seed beads and I had also seen the LED lights that Linette had given us at the workshop. So the combination began, following the patterns of the ones I had already made. Lo and behold I had a third willow tree with lights, WooHoo!

Again this is for sale in my shop, called Willow Tree – Mixed crystal with lights.

This was the end of my willow trees for the moment, time to try something different! But what? Catch up next time!