Big Doings

When I read the listing, 23mm didn’t mean anything to me. The listing said LARGE. That didn’t phase me either. Then they arrived and I screamed out in DELIGHT!! They are enormous and gorgeous and if I could be a BEAD, I would be these. Big, bright, bold, and beautiful. These are from Mindy Moogin. Mindy lives in Scotland. And she has Mad Talent.  I don’t know that I can bare to use them. They will stay with me for a long long time.

Big doings here this weekend. I am creating an eCourse. My first one, so you have to be kind and don’t criticize it too much. But I am writing a small ebook called Asymmetry Made Easy.  It will be available for sale here on my blog and in my Etsy shop. mmm, probably in a few days.  I’m really stoked. I think people are going to dig it. It will help you conquer your fear of asymmetry and gives some really great tips on thinking outside the box.  I will have a more formal blog post introducing it when it’s ready.

Hope you are all having a good weekend. I received a copy of our book yesterday and have been lovingly flipping through it all morning. It’s just lovely. Erin, if you’re reading… we wrote one damn awesome book girl. CHEERS TO US!

Antithesis

Night Owl

I am definitely not a Night owl. It gets to be about 9:30 and I am DONE. in bed. with the Honey. Watching the tube for maybe 15 minutes before I start to drift off to sleep.  I am definitely more of a morning person. I made this necklace this morning.  I dreamt of an owl last night. Hooting in the dark inky purple sky, trying to alert me of something.  I wonder….

Inspiration Mood Board

It’s very easy to create your own mood board. Just go into your Etsy favorites, and start saving images to your computer desk top. I altered my images by turning them into Polaroids using http://www.Pixlr.com, and then put them into a collage using Picasa. Once you start seeing your current favorite beads and components in one place it will make it easier to visualize your next project. Although all of my favorites wouldn’t normally be used all in one piece of jewelry, this is a good jumping off point to get my creative juices flowing.  I think that I look to color first, then I find a focal and my design develops from there. This could be done with your favorite photography found on Pinterest or Flickr, or your favorite outfits from an online shop. What the heck would we do without the internet!? We would have to depend on taking a walk and going to the mall to find our inspiration I guess! Hey! There’s an idea!

Kindness

I got the best mail today. Unexpected and wonderful! I am so amazed and humbled by the kindness of my online friends.  Laura sent me a surprise package which included the sweet pendant above from Etsy seller Beads by Earthtones which was inspired by the current Art Bead Scene Challenge painting. I love the double drilled holes at the top- and the image of the windmill will be perfect. I am hoping to get this into a finished piece before the deadline on Saturday! Stay tuned.

She also sent this little lovely!  So sweet! This is a ceramic connector pendant from SuzieQBeads

But this is the kicker. Check out these little wooden tags she had made for me! My gosh, they are the cutest things ever! I just love them. Perfect little jewelry tags.I can’t wait to check out more from this vendor, Artchixstudio.com.
Thank you Laura, you are just so kind!
It made my day!

Gold Chain from Fusion Beads Part II

I spent a nice relaxing weekend at home and my brother, sister and sister’s boyfriend all came up to visit for a night. There is nothing better than getting back to your roots by being around some family for a few days, helped me tremendously!

And not only that but what’s better than collaborating with my always creative and talented baby sister, Franny. She is always up for a challenge, and she was instantly inspired by the current trends when I showed her the gold chain from Fusion Beads.  We sat down and collaboratively designed these three pieces that feature some large link, and double link chain.

 Franny is always good at getting me to stray from the Green.  The necklace above is a charm necklace featuring a magenta, purple and golden yellow color palette.  The polymer leaf pendant is from Humblebeads.  I used some crazy lace agate ovals, some czech glass coins, and purple lucite rounds.  We wire wrapped the beads on some bronze balled headpins and attached them all the link chain.

 The second piece is a bracelet. Franny picked out some matte glass beads in pale green, and some coral jade and pearls. We love the look of the coral and green colors with the gold of the chain.  I found a nice gold bird toggle, and gold shell bead to embellish the bracelet. The etched shell charm is from Lilly Pilly. We used the double link chain to add a second strand to this beaded bracelet. We thought the outcome was very “J.Crew”.

 And finally the last necklace… a very Nautica themed piece with blue glass, faceted blue agate, gold double link chain, and some interesting ribbon. The focal on this piece was a gift from Andrew Thornton. It’s a large faceted brio of opal glass. I used some gold wire to wire wrap the beads. At one side, we picked out a shell bead that is laser etched from Lilly Pilly. I love the interesting color palette on this one and the blue looks great with the gold chain. We doubled up the double link chain for a chunkier style.

The materials above were provided as part of the FusionBeads blogging program. The author of this blog has not received any payment from above-mentioned company. The post above represents only personal opinion of the blog author.

Friday Favorites

 Love of Jewelry

Debbie Sanders

 Bullfinch and Barbury

 Eri Pottery

 Lynn Davis

 HWC Glass

The Noisy Plume

FB sale!

you might want to take advantage being my FB friend to get sale coupon codes that happen on a whim. Like today.  Friend me!

SALE HAS OFFICIALLY ENDED. thank you for all of your friendships and purchases!! They are shipping today!

Anthropologie Design Boards Spring/Summer Edition

 what better way to cheer myself up than to put together some outfits from my favorite store, Anthropologie. Ok, just look at that dress. I mean, really!? Big ol’ birds! loooove it.

 Gotta LOVE this color palette!  I totally want this dress!and shoes! and clutch!!

 Earthy and wonderful. The first thing I spotted were the shoes. Drop dead gorgeous. The rest of the outfit came easily!

And finally, the perfect summer day outfit for work or play. Love the small pops of poppy red.

All jewelry from Lorelei Eurto Jewelry.
All other clothing/accessories from Anthropologie

Out of Darkness

it’s 6:31 am.  my eyes are burning and tired. but i feel like i am slowly coming out of this very dark place i’ve been for about a week now. i am not sure how i got there. but it’s been lonely and sad. it may be about the death that i’ve encountered this past month.  it might be anxiety building for my upcoming doctor’s appointment. it could be the frustration i feel with my DH and this crazy diet he’s on, or the fact that he obsesses about the diet and the van and the stuff going on at school. but i need him to obsess about other things, and it’s not happening.  anyway i have fallen into this trap of loneliness and quiet but i am slowly seeing the light again. i don’t like to be depressed. it doesn’t look good on me.
march is almost over, can you believe it? i like april but my favorite month is may.  it’s going to be a busy busy spring/summer season.  so i better crawl out of this hole i’m in and get ready to tackle bigger things.

since i don’t like a pictureless post, i will show you my newest obsession. i cannot wait til he arrives.
have you seen such a cute whale in all of your days?  Artist Kylie Parry, she is such a hero!

Gold Chain from Fusion Beads Part I

This month the Fusion Beads Blogging team is working with chain! I received 5 different styles of gold plated steel chain and started working with it last night. I only got 2 pieces done before I had to jet to watch The Voice. Priorities!! 🙂  SO I am breaking up my posts into parts and this is the first part. Later this week I’ll work with the small cable chain, large cable chain, large ball chain, and twisted helix chain.

Last night I designed with this Double link cable chain.  It’s a beautiful textured chain, and isn’t too bulky, so I used it in a bracelet and necklace design.

This first bracelet features a ceramic bracelet link from Karen Totten. I wire wrapped some gold plated wire and attached 2 strands of chain at each wired loop. On the ends of the chain, I attached 2 medium sized gold brass spring form clasps. The clasps attach to the wire loop on the other side of the bracelet bar.
It’s a simple piece, and I contemplated adding some dangles but I kind of like it simple and elegant. I love the look of the blue glaze with the gold chain.

Next I created an asymmetrical mixed media necklace design using some of the same double link chain.    I mixed in some pale pink silk to add some softness to the necklace. The layered pendants are from SlateStudioSupply, and Lilly Pilly Design.  I wire wrapped them on gold wire, and dangled them from a wire wrapped polymer focal from Artybecca.  Up the right side I wire wrapped a faceted green Nephrite jade, and a pink ceramic ring from Elaine Ray with some faceted rounds of Prehnite.  I like the organic flower shapes repeated in the pendants, and wanted to give the necklace a modern and organic feel to it to match.

Stay tuned later this week for more gold chain designs!

The materials above were provided as part of the FusionBeads blogging program. The author of this blog has not received any payment from above-mentioned company. The post above represents only personal opinion of the blog author.