Gallery 3 Cabochon Work, Image 4 Designed and Beaded by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
LEA'S MOTH AND SCARAB CABOCHON SET
Lea struck again. She found herself this beautiful blue moonglow moth cab at Embellishments. It was a button and I had no idea what to do with buttons at the time. The man at the Susan Clark button booth showed me how to remove the shank, fill the hollow back of the button with glue, set the button face down in a bed of rice to keep it level and let the glue dry--voila! A cab. This is easier with buttons that have metal shanks unless you have a glass grinder. I want one.
Once I made the button into a cab, I set scarabs on either end and on either side sewed some of those little triangular eye beads that look like the Mason's symbol but are actually rather Egyptian. Then it sat for awhile. Finally I reinvented the peacock feather stitch, not realizing it already existed, of course. I used coppery colored Swarovski crystals in the centers of blue, purple, teal and gold embroidery and kept working with it till I liked the shape. Since I had already glued all the cabs down on an oval piece of Lacy's, I had to keep gluing on extra bits which makes the surface a bit more multilayered than is tidy, and makes things a bit off kilter, but Lea didn't care. At the time I made it, I thought it was the prettiest and classiest cab necklace I'd made to date.
All images and patterns © copyright 2004 Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. All rights reserved.