Bast the Cat Goddess

So here's what I've been up to lately...the ArtCharms group is having an Ancient Egyptian swap.  As soon as I saw the swap announcement, I signed up & ordered the brass Bast charms.  I knew just where to get them...from StampDiva, who has awesome stamps & supplies, including a very wonderful selection of unusual charms & beads.  I already had one of these beautiful cat charms, so I got to work designing around that. 

Since spirals are a big motif in Egyptian artwork, I took the plunge & attempted to make a wire spiral...my wire working skills needed some polishing up...so I jumped in & tried the coiled spirals.  To my surprise, they were easy to make & it was fun to hammer them flat to work harden the wire & give each coil a bit of personality.  I'm no longer intimidated by wire after making so many spirals for this swap.

After struggling with some tiny seed beads that I loved, I had to admit defeat & switch to a slightly larger bronze seed bead to use with the chunks of turquoise for the final element of my charm.  I do love how the elements came together in this charm & they're now all completed & will be shipped off to the swap hostess soon. 

I went a bit crazy with the packaging for this swap, too.  Years ago, I was in an ATC swap where we were each assigned a letter of the alphabet to use for our ATCs.  I was lucky enough to get "B"...so I created the ATC you see above...without the charm, of course.  I simply scanned in my ATC, resized it to fit in the small zip bags I use to package each charm, & used those as my ID tag.  The back has a sticker with my name, email, blog & Etsy shop links on it so each swapper will know who created the charm.  The Bast image on the ATC is from 100 Proof Press & the column is Stampington & Co.  The cool brass safety pin gizmo is from SkyBluePink.

I'll be making additional Egyptian charms for my own use & will need to decide what to create with the swap charms once they return home sometime in March.  This has to be one of the most interesting swaps I've been a part of in a long time...and I'm looking forward to many more this year.  If you're looking for a fun & challenging swap group for art charms, be sure to check us out here.