Oh So Blue...

I have always had a soft spot for all that is green. I have been trying to expand my horizons and so I have been trying to to use the rest of the spectrum. Blue is one of those colours. Here I have some Montana Blue swarovski crystals with antiqued brass. Baby steps...

Here I have some blue glass and glass pearl with a fun little starfish. This is one of my last dolphin bookmarks, they are selling fast and the supplier is out of stock.

I came out with "Tea in Paris" a few weeks ago and it sold so fast I decided to make more. I of course am making them all different, the first has a green stone and I have made red and now blue.

Last but not least a new watch done with the same blue glass and glass pearls. I added a few silver leaves and some clear glass cubes. I love this one. These were my wedding colours. My dress was white with navy at the top and so I co-ordinated everything to match the dress. Good memories.

Hope you have a great week :)

Marie

Mixed Metals and finding time!!

I am always amazed at how fast the week goes by and how little time I have managed to find to do the projects I have envisioned. I have seen so many lovely projects on all the blogs and in the magazines that involve mixed metal. Two artists pop into my mind instantly, Lorelei Eurto and Erin Prais-Hintz. So many of their projects have inspired me to try new things and to go outside my comfort zone. This is the result of such inspiration. I made three pairs of earrings, 1 using antiqued brass and shiny brass and the other two using copper and brass. One of the three pairs will not be on this post but you can look for it in the April issue of Bead Trends magazine.

Once again my lack of photography skills shine through. lol.

Anyways, moving on. For both pairs of earrings I made my own ear wires and spiral links. I added some fun dangles made with crystals on the first as well as these sweet little fan charms. The second pair I made to co-ordinate but not to match. One holds the keys and the other holds the lock. I wish the picture was clear enough that you could see that I did with the earwires.

Here, I found one that is a little clearer. I made the earwires with a bit of a wiggle {for lack of a better word}. I added copper daisy spacers and gold crimp beads in between, one to add contrast and two to keep the spacers in place. The to "s" swirl links are different sizes so that the earrings are about the same length and the charms are added at the bottom on jumprings. The one with the lock also has a couple more spacers and crimp beads to keep the dangle from coming loose and to add balance to the whole thing.

I also made this very basic simple necklace. I had this pendant from Michael's for the longest time, and I could not get inspiration from it. I just all of a sudden thought that it just needed a simple but large chain. Something that would stand out and add continuity to the pendant. This brushed gold chain was just perfect with it's large circles and thin links. I also added a little Vintaj bird charm to complete the necklace, because after all, anyone can hang a pendant on a chain, its the finishing touches that count.

Thanks for visiting

Marie

Tutorial Exchange with Shaterra Clay Studio!!

This is a tutorial exchange with Shaterra Hosted by Totally Tutorials.

This lovely Leaf Pendant was made by Sharleen at Shaterra Clay Studio. I chose this pendant because of the lovely mix of greens with hints of brown. I could envision it with textured ribbon and yarn in similar shades and with Leaf charm dangles. So here is what I did...

I chose these two strands, one thin sheer brown organza ribbon and some green fibers I has in my Scrapbooking stash.{never throw out anything, you never know when you might use it ;)}.

I chose these clamps for the fibers because they were the right width and matched the bail on the pendant.

I joined the two fibers and folded them together at the ends, with the ribbon on the outside.

I placed the clamp over the folded ribbon and used my chain nose pliers to crimp the clamp.

I tested it for strength and the repeated the process at the other end, first winding the ribbon together.

Closeup of the two fibers.

I added jump rings to the loops on the clamps.

I then added the chosen clasp. I chose this particular one because the leaf reminded me of a grapevine leaf.

The completed clasp

I then added a fancy SP jumpring to the bail. I wanted to bring it down a little from the fibers since I was going to be adding some dangles.

You can see here that I added two more fancy jumprings to the first one and I hung these onto the fibers.

This is the start of the dangles. I used eyepins and glass bicone beads with a nice shimmer.

I made a loop with my round nose pliers

and wire wrapped it. I repeated this process 5 times making two of them double dangles.

I then attached the leaf dangles with jumprings.

These are the finished dangles. As you can see, I used three different leaves. One large, two small sp ones and two antiqued silver ones.

I hung the large leaf dangle onto a jumpring, on one side I placed the double dangle with the antiqued silver leaf, on the other side I hung a single dangle with a sp leaf.

I then attached the large jumpring directly to the double fancy jumprings. I added the last two dangles directly onto the fibers one on each side alternating the sp leaf and the antiqued silver leaf.

Here is the finished pendant hung onto the fibers.

The finished Necklace

You will be able to find this tutorial on "Totally Tutorials" soon, as well as many other wonderful tutorials. Please visit Sharlene on her blog "Shaterra Clay Studio" and her Etsy shop as well, to find more wonderful pendants and other supplies.

Something about Pink and Red...

I had no idea what I would be getting myself into when I started making these watches. What started as an experiment has now become an obsession. Not mine though, I have orders coming from everywhere!! Everyone that bought one has a friend that wants one!!{or almost} The funny thing is, my favorites are the greens and the ones that I can not hold onto are the red ones and the pink ones. As soon as I make one, they are gone.

I love how this one turned out with the coral and mix of glass beads.

This one is in the softer pinks, with the pearls and Rhodonite.

Another view of this one. I mixed heart and key charms.

Bright pinks and more hearts. This was the first one to go along with this next one in red.

I had to make a special order from my supplier and I hope to be getting what I need this week or early next. I have a lot of chain, but I am almost out of watch faces and I am very low on silver charms. I just stocked up on red and pink beads, so I hope to have enough. I will use other colours as well, but considering how well the pink and red are doing I may have to make the majority in those colours.

This was one of my faves with the green and the natural feel. I have the hook at the end instead of the middle on this one, which was my most original ideas and one of the only ways I was able to use this chain. One of my hostesses ended up with this one and I feel it went to the right person, I know she will cherish it and wear it well. I have a few new ones I need to take pictures of, I may be posting them later this week as well as two tutorials I am working on.

Stay Tuned!!!

Marie

Working with Sterling

I have been working more and more with sterling silver, as per customer request, and I am having great success with it. So far it has been the basics, just beaded earrings with Sterling findings, but they are selling. I am going to get a little more adventurous, but one step at a time. Remember, I have not been doing this for a year yet. I used some of Sue's awesome lampwork beads, added some spacers and did a little wire wrapping and used a 5mm jump ring to attach it to the ear wire. I really like the look of the larger jump ring. I feel like it modernizes the whole look. I was lucky enough to win these gorgeous beads at almost the very beginning of my jewelry designing career on one Sue's giveaways. I imagine it was a very worthwhile giveaway since I have bought a ton of beads from her since then.

Sea Sediment Jasper. It is rich and has so much to it. I combined these rondelles with Sterling spacers and wire wrapped them. I also added an extra bead at the bottom for to give it more movement. I was trying to find a picture that was not fuzzy, unfortunately this was the best one. lol

Have a great weekend

and a great Halloween!!!

Marie

OMG!!! I am on the Bead Trends Blog!!

I was visiting the new Bead Trends Blog and I was looking at past posts and there was my bracelet!!! I had no idea it was even there. It was posted by Charlotte whom I assume is one of the photographers.
Thanks Charlotte!!

I hope you go check it out HERE and let me know what you think :)

HUGS!!

Marie

Ocean Jasper

This is what you get when you have no natural light for days. Dark pictures with a strange "shine" on your beads because you have to use your flash. What can I say, at least I never claimed to be good at this photography thing.

I have had pretty much no sleep. I have been up most of the night because of my little Noah. We have this weird sore throat light fever thing going on and he is the next one to get it. I had him on the sofa all night and I was on the other one, and I have Never! Ever! heard anyone carry on so much for so long. He moaned alllll night. He would not let me do anything for him either!!We took him to the doctor yesterday afternoon and he said "no Tylenol". What??? Are you kidding me? I was not giving it to him for the fever, I was giving it to him for the pain!! How frustrating. That was the same as hearing "Don't Comfort your Child!!!" So I listened to the doctor and I had a long night with virtually no sleep. That is my life.

This picture is a little better!! I wire wrapped this three piece set with Bronze wire and Ocean Jasper stones. I added copper/bronze toggles and jump rings{earrings}. I could have used silver, but I wanted to go against the grain. It looks really nice on. Something you could wear on an evening out or with a pair of jeans. I am happy with the way it turned out, I enjoyed making it. I am pretty sure I made this set sitting watching a movie with my kids. My three favorite things!! My family, a movie and my art. Life could not be better :)

Thanks for stopping in, I hope you all stay healthy

Marie

Aquamarine Dreams

This shield pendant is one by SummersStudio. Some of you may recognize her unique and fun style.

I am constantly getting stuff from her Etsy shop, because her pieces are highly addictive. lol.

I know I am not the only one out there who thinks so.

He is a close up of the pendant with all it's bits and pieces attached.

I used Vintaj Brass and real aquamarines. I also used some small green glass seed beads.

Of course I was almost sad to see this one go yesterday, I did not get to hold onto it for very long.

That is a good thing and a bad thing. Good part is that someone loved it as much as I do, bad part is, I am going to miss this one. I was still debating on making that one a keeper.

But hey! you can't keep them all right??

A slight close up of the dangle. Picture looks too yellow, but at least  this one is not too blurry ;)

Marie