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Snowy Owl walking stick2 Snowy Owl walking stick

Ooohh I love how this one turned out. I found several really nice photos of snowy owls on line. The orange eyes and black edged white feathers are so striking, I had to try my hand at painting one.
Do look at all the photos here. Especially the close up of the owls face. I nailed it!

This staff is the first one I made with an entirely covered leather hand hold. I carved it smooth as I always do, painted it black and started doing some research into how to sew a leather grip on and have it look nice.
(Anyone who knows me, knows I can't sew! I can do a lot of things, but anything dealing with thread is not my thing.) And I could not find any form of tutorial on this.
Well I found a very nice seller on etsy who spent a good deal of time with me giving me tips. I bought the feathers used in this stick and with my Eagle version 2 stick from WHITEBUFFALODESIGNS on etsy.
I also bought some black sinew, and leather needles. I already had a bunch of scrap leather I picked up at a local Pow Wow.
So armed with the right tools and a good deal of coaching from WhiteBuffaloDesigns I was ready.
The little decorative band I put on the eagle staff was my practice piece and as it turned out, was a lot easier to do than I expected. Sewing a leather handle all the way up the hand hold on this staff wasn't too hard at all.
My stitching isn't perfect, but not too bad at all. (Just a few places where I ran out of thread a knot appears. I'm sure my skills will improve with future sticks. I really like the handle covered this way and plan to do that again.)

Now the beadwork on the other hand..... WOW I sure forgot how time consuming that is! I have the deepest respect for bead workers out there. Two thin bands, (both my own design) and yet it took almost as long to make those as it did to carve and paint the whole stick.

I kept the design as minimalist as possible. I want the focus to be the owl on top. He is perched on a very dark brown branch that winds around the staff only about half way down where it is covered in white snow. The beadwork is black and white and I found orange beads that perfectly match the eyes on my owl.
Two clusters of tightly grouped feathers compliment this staff. I've used it several times and it always gets compliments.

Tall straight style. Very light and strong.

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Jenny Mehlenbeck is the creator and owner of Artmakers Worlds ©1999 - now.