Winter to Spring Transition Outfit for SIA: Giles Newman + DIY Jewelry

Salazar at 14 Shades of Grey is the curator for this round of Style Imitating Art (SIA), and she selected the collection of wood carvings created by British artist Giles Newman, who carves his pieces from naturally fallen wood. She loves the intricacy and delicacy of his nature-inspired works. She didn't choose a specific piece as the inspiration for this challenge so we were free to pick a piece (or several) of our choice. I really liked the relative simplicity and light wood of the Ivy Series Silver Birch Spoon Carvings that Shelbee shared on her site, so I used this as the jumping off point for my outfit.

Source: shelbeeontheedge.com

While my outfits tend to be rather literal in interpreting elements from the artwork (such as the cow earrings inspired by the cow photo in the last SIA), this time I was inspired as much by my reaction to the artwork as its physical components.

OOTD 3/11/24

The clean lines and wood color of the bottom half of the biggest spoon translated into my beige pants and darker beige boots. So far, so literal.

The more complex upper half of the spoon with the sinuous ivy leaves gave me a strong sense of how some things in nature stay the same year-round while others are very attuned to seasonal fluctuations. (The ivy carvings remind me of the Christmas carol "The Holly and the Ivy," invoking two plants that remain green in the winter.) As we are now at that point when winter starts turning to spring, I decided to select some nature motifs associated with these two seasons: snowflakes (on my scarf) for winter and rabbits (on my sweater) for spring.

My all-DIY daily bracelet stack is based on a paper bead bracelet set I made to match my sweater, which I've shown you before. The tube beads feature a lovely flower design that also harkens to springtime. The oblong dusky pink bead bracelet is the original one I made to accompany this set (2 years ago). The pink glass bead bracelet with the silver rabbit charm has become a favorite companion for this bracelet set (1 year ago), while the mixed pink quartz bead bracelet is a recent addition to my collection (a few months ago). One of the things I enjoy about these paper bead bracelet sets is that I can wear them again and again but keep my stacks variable by changing out the companion bracelets I wear with them. I like how the darker pink beads pull out the bits of rose color in the paper beads. {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial} {stretch bracelet tutorial}

I looked through my small stash of silver rabbit charms to create a pair of earrings to match my bracelet set, and I settled on these inquisitive-looking floppy eared rabbit charms. From my bead soup I pulled two pairs of glass pearls in pink and beige to repeat the two most dominant colors. My outfit has a subtle mixed metals look with my rose gold glasses, gold headband and snowflakes, and silver earrings and bracelets. I added a DIY bracelet with alternating silver and gold tone beads to further the mixed metal theme.

Now for the main event: our Rabbit Imitating Art selection! I decided to go all-in with the "light beige wood with darker wood" coloration from the spoon image, picking out this curious lop-eared bunny with a sable point coat that is paler on the body with darker points on the ears, nose, tail, and feet. This rabbit looks even more inquisitive than the bunnies on the earrings...

...so I'm sure it comes as no surprise that she was very curious to see these wooden spoons laid out on the kitchen table and decided to investigate. After all, humans use spoons to eat things, and sometimes those things are Food, which is inherently interesting. But poor bunny, these spoons contain only air, which is not any kind of food category at all. However, upon examination of the spoons themselves, their chewability was quickly ascertained! Luckily birch is safe for rabbits. In fact, rabbits will happily eat birch branches and twigs straight from the tree, so for our bunny to have these spoons laid out conveniently on the table is very nice indeed. (We will assume for the sake of this post that these spoons are carved wood that has not been varnished or treated with anything harmful!)

Ivy Series Silver Birch Spoon Carvings "improved" with rabbit

Thanks for joining me today for this Style Imitating Art + Rabbit Imitating (and Improving) Art post!

To see other outfit interpretations of this artwork, check out the review on 14 Shades of Grey.

Is your weather in the wintry "snowflake" mode, the springy "rabbits and flowers" mode, or still fluctuating around a bit? I started the morning with all these layers, but over the course of the day I removed one piece at a time until by 3:00 pm, I was down to my pants and the white short-sleeved knit top I wore underneath my sweater! Vest, scarf, boots, and finally sweater had all been sacrificed for my comfort as the temperature reached 65F in the afternoon. We even turned our A/C on for the first time this year because a sunny 65F day gets our apartment warm (my husband and I were both WFH).

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