WARNING!! This post is not for the faint of heart!!

 I have had a hard time blogging lately. In fact I am having a hard time doing much of anything lately. It takes so much energy to do the everyday things, that there is not much left at the end of the day for anything else. I still can not figure out what is ailing me and I sit at my computer in pain. I hate it! I love being busy and moving around. I love going from one thing to the other and getting things done and feeling a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day!

For now I will post a few pictures of the space I work in! Lol! I get into a zone and start creating and then I have so many things happening that I end up working on the floor! I honestly try to keep things tidy, but it is beyond me obviously, because here I am again! lol

Keeping in mind that I am also a HUGE scrapbooker and card maker, this very small studio is full of  my scrapbooking supplies, my home decorating and gardening books, as well as my fast expanding bead collection, I mean Beading supplies! ;)

Now you would think that perhaps I would try to separate the two, keep them in different rooms or at least different parts of the room, but this is a small room, very small. It is also the only one I have at my disposal! There are 8 of us that live in this house. Tight quarters indeed! We make do however and are quite happy most of the time :)

 So far you can see that I have stuff everywhere! What can I say! I am working on organizing, but I always seem to get sidetracked! lol. I am sure that those of you who have kids and a household to take care of know exactly what I am talking about!

This shelf right here is mostly Scrapbooking. My albums, some quite thick and others at their humble beginnings. Stamps practically falling off the shelves! I imagine someday it will look neat and tidy, but that day is not today!

This is my workbench. I have many works in progress and quite honestly, I have no idea how I get anything done! A little chaos is good for the creative mind, but this is honestly too much! lol!
The good news is that I am in the process of cleaning right now and I hope to have photos of what this room can look like soon :)

I imagine some of you are recognizing some of the supplies I have on my table ;) You just never know what you are going to find in this room ;)

Chaos and more chaos! I need a better system! Obviously I still manage to get things done, but who knows how I am accomplishing this, it is no small feat let me tell you!

I will take photos after I am pretty much done my overhaul, this could take a few more days since I can only take a few minutes here and there to get it to where I can work again. I am also trying to get my beads better organized so I can make better use of my time, but I am almost happy with the way they are right now. I just need some labels and destashing.     

I am looking forward to being done and being able to show you more. Perhaps some of your feedback will be helpful? Not much room to take good photos, but I guess we will see what happens when there is nothing left on the floor! lol.

Thanks for stopping by!

Marie

Creations and Passion!

 I was busy creating when we went camping. I don't normally bring beads or anything of the sort when I go to the mountains or away for a weekend, but it was my birthday, so I really wanted to create for myself. I wanted to create for fun and I wanted to create because it is a passion!! Those of you who do this most likely feel pretty much the same as I do. It makes you smile, you feel happy even! You may even feel more relaxed!

 I made both these necklaces while we were away. I made a few others too, but I am unsure if I should post them or submit them! We will see. I used Vintaj, my favorite, and created the Variscite and House necklace above. This is one of the palest forms of the stone, but so soft and pretty. Perfect in fact to go with this wonderful Pendant by Martha Eason of Menagerie Studio!! I will have many more pieces to show you made with her fun Charms.

On the right is a necklace made with one of my French Eiffel Tower Pendants! I loved the colour variation in the background of the pendant and added beads at the top that would bring out those wonderful colours. Filigree wrapping is now THE thing everyone wants to do with my pendants, so most of them are now coming un-drilled or custom drilled to offer more choices or variety. Thanks Jess for your wonderful inspiration ;)

Now I will bring up these fun trinkets. I created these as Key Chains or Purse Charms. They are fun, creative and unique. Each one has a little something different on it and can really reflect your personality. They come in Bronze, Copper and GunMetal grey. I will be listing some in my shop soon.

 For this particular piece, I am interested in feedback. I wanted to try something different and I kind of like it, but I want to know if you do or if you think it's a big wasted of time. Don't worry, you won't hurt my feelings, I honestly want to know what you think. I basically burnt the pendant and the image separately and the assembled them and varnished them. It makes for a slightly different look.

 This is my new Favorite! A moth! So gorgeous!! I adore the colours and the shape and tone of the wings. It almost looks soft to me. I hope to find more like these around, but for now this is pretty much the only one I have.

I also have some new "French Girly" pieces coming out. I have Corsets and French Script. I also have different Shop announcements or advertising on pendants that has a mix of images combined with them. I am hoping to have a bit of time later to post some of these fun new pieces for you.

Keep Coming Back For More Updates!!!

Marie

Big Day and Big Dreams!!

New "faux" seaglass beads in my shop!!

So today is my Birthday! I am hitting 35 and I feel for the first Birthday in my life that I have finally accomplished something! I had set goals for myself at the beginning of the year and have reached quite a few of them already! I wanted to be the Designer Highlight in Bead Trends and that happened in July, I wanted my shop to reach 100 sales and one of my shops is close to 200 and the other is over 50, so I think that counts. I also wanted to be published in anything other than Bead Trends and I have a pair of earrings going into Stringing's Winter Issue! I have a few more goals on the list that I have not quite reached yet, but there is still time before the end of the year :)

This is one of my new creations. It includes one of my new pendants and a hint of Vintaj filigree. This is something I had not really though of until I sent some pieces to Jess Italia Lincoln at Vintaj and she created some amazing pieces! I had asked her if she wanted them drilled or left alone to wrap and as I was writing it I thought, what a great idea! Of course I did not get to try it until after she had done her pieces, but they sure helped bring out the best in my final designs!

Altered Wings by Jess Italia Lincoln

Here is one of her gorgeous pieces!! I hope she won't mind me using her photo, I am giving full credit to Vintaj and Jess for this design and photo. I love how she inked the background of the butterfly, changing it completely with Alcohol inks! Jess you rock!! Thanks for creating such beauty with my modest little pieces.

On another note I have entered into a Steampunk challenge from Bead Unique and hope to have a fighting chance of winning :)  I really love what I made, this is only my second Steampunk piece ever, so I guess we will see! The Boro glass beads are from my friend Amanda of Seashore Glass, I love her beads! I have to say, I am starting to have quite the stash of Lampwork from the many wonderful artists I have found, and Boro is my new obsession!! So much movement in the glass, it is so very addictive!!

I feel lucky to be here among you on this amazing adventure!! For my Birthday, my simple wish would be to have all of you go pick out your favorite piece in my shop and put it in your cart. Lol!! Simple really :) Then maybe I can get to 200 sales!! I will be away for the weekend, but back first thing Monday!!
See you then!!

Marie

My Muse is Back!! {and she brought friends!!}

I had a request for a special necklace. A lovely lady contacted me about the necklaces featured on the Vintaj website and wanted one made similar to them. We went over details and I started with this one. I mixed the greens and creams with the brass and it came out looking fabulous!! Thanks Jess for sharing your talent with us, your pieces were a true inspiration for this necklace and the following one as well.

These are the first two that I have created without drilling into the wood. The use of filigree really adds so much to the tiles and pendants, I may have to make many, many more of these.

This is the other one I made. I wanted to give my new customer a choice in colour, so I made two! This is the one she chose, she fell in love with the pink. I made them both with Vintaj and Czech glass. I will be coming out with more styles like this soon. They are very time consuming but so satisfying!! I still have some rose tiles left in my shop, though not many. I am working on some more right now, in different styles. I can not tell you how many hours I spent looking through Etsy for the perfect rose pdf!! But I found a couple that I am really happy with!!

On another note, I have a few new pendants that have just been completed. I have a couple in the shop and some that I just finished yesterday that will start appearing in the shop in the next couple of days.

I will also be photographing my new "kits" that I have been putting together over the last couple of months and I will start listing those as well. There could be a small delay there because of the amount of time these are taking to assemble, but worry not, they shall come!!

This pendant is one of the newest ones!! I really LOVE the shape and how they look alone and even more on a piece of jewelry!! The filigree holds it quite well in place and it is a wonderful touch of whimsy. This particular one needed to stand alone! A little filigree and a little chain! Too classy to add anything!!
I hope to list it in my shop before the weekend. Do feel free to reserve any of these pieces! Leave me a note on the post and I will list it with your name on it :)

Let me know what you think of this new "style" if you will, I would truly love to get your input!

Thanks for visiting!!

Marie