Monday, May 31, 2010

Big June 1st Sale in My Shops!!!

First of all, tomorrow I am having a big sale in my Jewelry shop!! BOGO 1/2off on ALL Earrings and a free pair of earrings if you spend over $60!! These two things will be combined!!

So starting tomorrow, and lasting for a week, get your favorite pairs of earrings!! Or anything else your little heart desires!!
I hope to be able to add more as the day goes on to give you an even bigger selection!! So check back often and add hearts to your faves!!
 Second, I am also having a sale in my Supply Shop!! BOGO 1/2off all Charms and Pendants!! This includes wood pendants and charms as well as resin charms and Lampwork heart pendants! So mark off your faves and keep checking back to see if I list more before tomorrow!!

I hope you take advantage of this sale and help my shop reach 100 sales!!
These charms have now been featured on the Vintaj blog and the  Beads of Clay blog. I am looking forward to seeing some of these pieces in future issues of Bead Trends, two have been accepted so far. So please visit my shop and buy some of these sweet little tiles and include them in your own jewelry!

Thanks so much!!

Marie

Saturday, May 29, 2010

New Treats in the Etsy Shop!!!

 These fun pendants are custom drilled, so if you like them as is, I don't have to drill them. You can use these in scrapbooking or in your jewelry as a pendant, a link or even a cabochon!  I have been looking for fun images and I love this owl from Piddix. It came with a set that was steampunk style and there are a lot of fun images I look forward to using.
 As some of you may know I was recently featured on the Beads of Clay Blog and I made a necklace that had a funky clock pendant {same sheet of images as the owl} I had some requests so I looked around for more clocks and found a great sheet with these clocks! So I made them into pendants for you and I have listed a few in my More Skye Jewels shop.
 I will have more that I hope to list during the week, I have a lot going on right now, so it may not happen, but I do try to sneak a few minutes here and there to add stuff to my shop and post things on my blog.
I also have some dragonflies that I am listing, they were originally from a special order, but they were left too long so I decided to relist them.

These two charms are a new item. These are going to go into my shop to see if they do well. Someone asked me if I had thought of making double sided charms. So here they are. This is one example, birds on one side and a flower on the other. The images are from Piddix and are some of her newest sets. I thought they had a nice vintage feel to them and a lot of nice bright colours :)


I hope you enjoy the new items, feel free to request something or just go straight to More Skye Jewels for all your shopping needs ;)

Thanks for being here!

Marie

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Happy Birthday Little Sister!!

My little sister has a Birthday today!! Not that she is that little anymore, but she will always be my little sister :)
She had a show a couple of weeks ago and for good luck I let her borrow this bracelet. She loved it so much, she wanted to keep it, so I told her it could be her Birthday present. Well today is the day, we have supper tonight at my mom's and we get to spend some time together. I hope she has an Amazing Birthday!!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Featured on Beads Of Clay!!

A few weeks ago MaryAnn of MaCarroll invited me to be one of the featured artists on the Beads Of Clay Blog. I am never one to turn down a wonderful opportunity, so of course I accepted! The Interview is up now and I hope you will go check it out :)
 Interview on Beads Of Clay 

just a sneak peak...










All the pieces in the feature are now listed in my Etsy shop.
SkyeJewels

And if you are looking to get some of your own handmade components like the ones featured in the Interview, please visit my other shop
MoreSkyeJewels



Feel free to contact me if you have any other questions or if you want to have a custom piece done!

Thanks so much to everyone

Marie

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Art Beads and a Spring Bracelet

I have been a beading blogger for over a year now and I just love getting new treasures in the mail. The best part is I get to choose them! This last time we were invited to get Spring items to celebrate the arrival of spring. Well, time got away from me and I am only now getting to this post. Thanks for the reminder Duchess, what would we do without you :)

I started with a pre-made sterling silver bracelet that I already had. It was just easier than measuring a piece of chain and it already had a clasp. I ordered these gorgeous dragonfly pendants that are the perfect size for a large charm and the sweet little butterfly charms.  I added these with some 4mm sterling jumprings at somewhat random intervals. I then wire wrapped these little Swarovski flowers directly to the chain. They are called margarita beads and they come in a broad range of colours and sizes. I used Erinite for the green, Light Rose and Amethyst
Here is a detail shot of the sweet little margarita beads.
I love how delicate this bracelet is. It is also very light weight.

Perhaps someone with more delicate hands will end up owning this one?? Lol.

I had originally intended for this bracelet to have this butterfly toggle on it, but when I got it I realized that it was a three strand toggle, something I had failed to notice when I chose it, and it was much too large for the intended bracelet anyways. Fortunately, I think I can still find something to do with it ;)
It is awfully pretty :) I think I may need to use this in a very complex lampwork and crystal bracelet perhaps...

You can find all the Sterling Silver beads, toggles and finding you want on the main Silver page. They have a wonderful selection and some good sales too!

Come again real soon!

Marie

I received the products free of charge from Artbeads and I am honestly reviewing the products and have not been paid for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Photos are working!! Here is some glass...

I had to make sure the photos were working today before I could post! I was lucky enough to have my husband give me all of Thursday last week to go play in my beads. I decided that it was the perfect time to go to the Tiffany Glass house and rent some torch time!  I have been trying to expand my bead making by trying a few new things. So last week I tried playing around a little with some more heart pendants and some Double Helix glass.
Excuse the poor lighting, I was outside in the cloud cover and all of a sudden I got sun! lol. Not that you will hear me complaining about the sun, but the cloud could have stayed put for a few more minutes until I was done my photos! lol. These top beads are Raku glass rolled in fritt. It was an experiment, but I really like the way they turned out! I tried some blue/green glass that turned out nice, but I am saving those for a bracelet I want to make. I also used some purple glass named Chaos! That was fun, it turned all silvery in the flame :)
These are just simple ivory glass rolled in my own fritt mix of turquoise, sky blue, cobalt blue a little black and green in there too. I really like these and will be listing them in my Etsy shop soon.
I also made some nugget beads in bright colours. These I also rolled in my own fritt mix or orange and red. I believe the base for the bead was an amber colour, but I can not remember for sure.
This sweet little heart I made a couple of weeks ago and used an ivory base and some enamel powders on top. I added some fine silver to it for a fun shimmery effect.

This one I am saving. I think I may make myself a sweet little necklace with it. That is the front, but it is mostly double sided.
that is the back, I am calling my little hearts "Twisted" Hearts. This is a mix of purple/red glass with white enamel and fine silver. I love the twist!! I have a few of these listed in my Etsy shop as well.

Hope you do a little shopping this morning!!

Marie

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Time Flies!!

I can not believe it has been almost a week since I posted something on my blog!! I don't think I realized how busy I was this week. It makes a difference too when the weather warms up and you spend so much time outside! My kids had cabin fever I think because now, I have trouble keeping them in  :-)

On another note I made a few new things recently. I have been working on some lampwork beads and pendants. Heart pendants to be exact! They are kind of fun and twisted. I just listed a few in my shop so I hope you will go take advantage ;)

I would show you pictures, but it seems that Blogger is not cooperating tonight. So much for pictures!! darn it.

I hope it works better tomorrow...
Marie

Monday, May 10, 2010

Butterflies for Spring

Through all of my experimenting, I created these earrings. I thought to myself that I had created necklaces and bracelets with my tiles, but never earrings! Now I don't know how many of us would be bold enough to wear these, but I do think that they are fun! These contain Vintaj findings and some really fun lampwork beads by ArtbyLisi on Etsy. Go check out her shop!
I have always loved nature and all it's beauty. One of my favorite things is the Flighted Creatures. Not the nasty mosquitoes or wasps, but the birds and butterflies and maybe even bees. Of course I like to bring this passion out in my work.
On these, I used all Vintaj findings added my tiles and a Faceted Turquoise Rondelle, that I honestly think is most likely Howlite. I wish that bead vendors would stop deceiving us with false Turquoise, but it is almost impossible to tell true Turquoise from false without bio tests. It's too bad that they also add the high price of Turquoise to the Howlite, making us all dupes. Either way, the Turquoise in these earrings matched very well with the butterflies and so we move on. I think I will try a few other fun things with these tiles, I am not sure if I will make very many more earrings, at least until these sell. You can find my tiles and add them to your own creations in my Etsy store More Skye Jewels.

See you later this week!!

Marie

Friday, May 7, 2010

New Designs!!

I had a bit of an off week, just the weather getting me down I'm afraid. I had a little sunshine poking through today so I am feeling a little better :)
I did get some things done! I made a couple of pairs of earrings that I submitted to Stringing. It is my first time submitting to them and I am really nervous because one of my goals this year is to be published in something other than Bead Trends, although I am still wanting to submit to them too. So I sent in pre-submissions for two pairs of earrings and a bracelet so far and I have a couple more things I want to send in too.

 This is one of my most requested necklace styles. Picasso Jasper and Vintaj Brass. Every time I make one it sells. It never fails. Which makes me happy because I really LOVE making them. I am getting low and I need to order more, so I am on the search for more perfect pendants and beads in the shapes, colours and styles I love.
This closeup really shows you what kind of variations you can find in this gorgeous stone. Soooo many rich colours. The Striations in the gemstones are amazing and I can not get enough of the movement in the stone itself.





Hard to believe this is all the same stone! This is a different one and I sold it right after I posted it on my facebook page! That is only the second time that has ever happened to me, and I hope it won't be the last!

 More Vintaj, this time I added a lovely lampwork glass bead from Elesha Designs on Etsy. Really colourful beads :) The pendant you may recognize as Chinook Jewelry! I made a large order sometime before Christmas and I am slowly using them in my designs. This one just worked so well I could not resist!!
Here is a closeup of this amazing and colourful pendant!! The music notes on it are a wonderful idea!! I hope to be able to order more of this type soon :)














I hope to come back and post a couple more goodies for you this weekend, I just have to see what I have time for. It is Mother's day weekend after all and I am looking forward to all the little surprises that might happen! I will try my best not to leave it so long between postings though :)

Have a great Mother's Day Weekend!!

Marie

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Art Show Major Sucess!!


I went into the show with mixed feelings yesterday, only because when I got there, there was a huge line up of people waiting for a free clothing exchange!!! Ugh! I think this is a great thing for the community, but on the same day as an art show?? Well, we had some shady characters moping around, but all in all we had some fantastic people come about. The traffic was light, but steady. First thing in the morning, we had lots of time to set up and visit each others booths. I got to see some amazing art, including metal clay, lots of lampwork, fused glass, stained glass, polymer, metal smithing and tons of jewelry. I found that even though there was a lot of competition in Jewelry, we were all so different that in the end, it was not that much competition at all!

I am a member of the "Tiffany Glass House" which is the only place to make lampwork in the city. This show was hosted by them. I was lucky enough to be one of the first there, so I got the front table right next to the Amazing Irena Laird, proprietor of Tiffany Glass. She is an outstanding artist and I truly enjoy her lovely and sweet personality. Now if only I could convince her to open a second shop a little closer to home...
The photos attached are a few of the numerous pieces I was lucky enough to sell. I actually sold a lot of stuff!! I ended up with two tables because of the amount of stuff I had. I could have spread out on two more!! All the other tables were sparse compared to mine. Even though it was a little overwhelming, it did attract a lot of people who spent a fair amount of time at my booth.
I was really pleased with the results. I sold some pieces that I have had for about a year and some brand new pieces as well. I even had a lovely man buy something for his mom. I really hope she likes it!! He got her the lovely Green Amethyst necklace above.
These pieces all went to good homes. I hope they are happy with their new "Jewels" and contact me for more. Oh! I almost forgot, a few of the other artists bought my tiles and pendants as well as some customers. I would love to see pictures of what they create with them!!

Have a wonderful Sunday!!

Marie