Shawl Pins

I love variety in my work. I love to twist and embellish. These shawl pins are a good example of that. They are based on small eucalypt branches: a little more substantial than twigs as I need a nice solid core of hard wood. I carve them to shape, then embellish them with artists wire and freshwater pearls. They each have a base ring of clear plastic to keep them secure without detracting from their beauty.

This is how they look on display--because of their unique shapes, it's hard to get them to all "face the front and smile for the photo", but I think you get the idea.
Here are the pieces I've been working on recently:

I've whittled away at the basic shapes, now it's time to sand them smooth. Then comes the wire and pearls. The whittling and smoothing takes the longest time. Compared with that the wire wrapping is relatively quick, so I try to get a batch ready to go before I cover my big table with jewellry tools, pearls and semi-precious stones.