Yvette Kestlinger
East Brunswick, NJ

Finally done with Round One, and extremely pleased with my result. I'm thrilled to have made a piece that I can use. I have to say that the theme items this round were much better than last year's. Although working a camel into a project can be limiting to say the least, I loved the color of the jewel, and the wings weren't too bad either. As usual, planning the project took most of my time, and it changed a bunch of times as I worked it. I couldn't think of a single camel project, so I decided to make a herd. Though time-consuming, my band saw came in handy. I used scrap glass and sheet foil to make my camels, and stained and painted them for different metallic effects.(After I had them done, I saw WC's sale flyer --camels for $1.00 - very funny!) The camels reminded me of the desert, and all the themes I came up with were religious in nature. Somehow, in my mind, I came up with 9 camels, to symbolize the 9 candles on a menorah, multi branched candelabra used during Chanukah, which is the Jewish Festival of Lights. Eight of the candles stand for the eight days of Chanukah, and one is the Shamash, which is the helper candle that lights the others. I used neutral tones of opaque glass for the base. I used Model Magic to make the piece that I cemented the camels and candle holders (nuts) onto, and painted that a similar color. The jewel inspired me to use orange glass to make a headpiece that actually slips into the back of my base so I can take it apart easily when Chanukah is over. I cut out orange glass to fit the filigree wings (band saw comes in handy again!) and fit the jewel into the middle of my star. I backed the jewel with foil, it's hard to see, but it really helped the color to pop! I filled the base in with sand to cover the nuts and make it look like the desert.

The obstacles? Gluing flat camels onto a rounded base. I never worked with Model Magic before, and didn't take into consideration how much it would shrink as it dried. I loved the way my camels looked from the front, and then I realized at least some of them would be visible from the backsides, and so I had to paint them. Of course, as usual time was a problem. But I'm so happy with my end result, and so happy to be done!