Work in Progress Wednesday - Fit for a Caterpillar belt buckle

Hallo.

Today is Wednesday, which means it's the day that I let you peek inside my studio to see what I've been up to.

A belt buckle.
A mushroom belt buckle.
A mushroom belt buckle with mushrooms inspired by Alice in Wonderland.

I do believe this will be my last piece in my latest Alice in Wonderland series. 

Oh, I also made the belt to go with the buckle...I'll show you the step-by-step of that, too. 

Materials: leather, sterling silver sheet
etched with my hand drawn mushrooms, sterling wire. 

Cutting the end of the belt.
There's probably a fancy word for this procedure, but I don't know what it is.

Superimposing a mushroom onto the back plate via fire and solder.

Back to the leather - punching out holes.
That's a  mug of Japanese green tea there. 
...the kind with roasted brown rice that you get at a sushi restaurant.  
I bought a bag of it from my favorite sushi restaurant. I drink it every day. Yum.

Trimming the edge.

Applying the dye. It's eco-friendly, non-toxic dye.

Buckle again. Soldering on all the components on the back in one shot.

I decided at the last minute to add an extra mushroom.
This psychedelic looking fluorite stone was the perfect
shape and size for a mushroom cap.

Finished belt.
It's a super-rainy day here in Atlanta today.
The area to the right of me is the low lying part of my backyard and it will be teeming with mushrooms tomorrow.

Fit for a Caterpillar  - mushroom belt buckle and hand made leather belt.

Original hand drawn art inspired by Alice in Wonderland.

I will be listing this in my Etsy shop.

But right now it's time for SweetPea and I to don our rain boots and rain coats.  We're going outside for an early evening stomp in the rain puddles.

Hope you enjoyed this week's WIP post.

Bye for now!

Oh, P.S. - If you want to see some truly incredible leather work, go check out Allison's blog at Sunny Rising Leather.

One of the things that I love about blogging - it's allowed me to meet and become friends with some of the most phenomenally talented artisans around.  So inspirational.