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Friday, June 29, 2012

Daisychain Flower Bangle Challenge Hop

Today's the day! I was lucky enough to be one of five winners for the super talented Jo Tinley's Flower Bangle Challenge. I was so happy to get the poppy, because even though they're all wonderful - I like the poppy the best. Be sure to check out Jo's blog and etsy to see her gorgeous components and get your own bangle blank!

It took me awhile to figure out what I was going to do with my bracelet. I'm generally not much of a bracelet maker, so it was really a challenge for me. I experimented with sari fabric, and held up my other leathers and fibers, but I ultimately decided I was just going to break out my 24g oxidized copper wire and just start doing something. I started with a coil, threw on a pearl stick, coiled the other side and decided I liked that. Then I remembered some vintage pearl drops I'd received in a past Bead Soup that was sitting on my desk somewhere. I slid that on and made another coil. I was onto something! So then it was just a (multi-day) search of just the right beads to use and more & more coiling. There's an adorable vintage silver bell that I'd been saving for just the right thing, so I had to add that. It's just a mix of old and new, various metals, stones, pearls, and crystals. The coils slide around a bit, but that just adds to the fun and movement of the bracelet.







Make sure to see what everyone else has done!


Jo Tinley -  Daisychain Designs
Sherri Stokey - Knot Just Macrame
Shannon Chomanczuk - For My Sweet Daughter
Jenny - Shyme Design
Keri Lee Sereika - Pink Lemonade
Heidi Post - Ex Post Facto Jewelry

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Recently

Just a quick entry, as it's Father's Day and I should be getting ready to go over to my sister's house for the big Father's Day lunch!


Round Rabbit heart pendant, agate, carved bone, Czech glass, wood beads. And while the clasp on this piece is fun enough, it just reinforces my need to get more pretty clasps from you talented makers out there. I finally did buy two pretty ones recently, but they didn't go with this necklace, so. 


Oh my god I made a bracelet! It's so rare, and I usually am never pleased when I do, but this one's pretty cute, I think. Another Round Rabbit bead (the star), and assorted new and old lampwork, lucite, sea glass, tagua nut, crystal, ceramic - I forget the name of the clasp nut.



Dimestore Emporium patina shells, freshwater pearls. When I brought these to the salon, 
Jeanne snatched them up right away as her commission!



Daisychain Extra bangle blank I was lucky enough to win for her blog challenge! See the link on the right side of my page to read about it. The styles were randomly selected from two textures of daisy or the poppy. And the whole time I was opening the package, I kept saying "please be the poppy!" And it was! Not that the daisies aren't totally adorable - they are, but I just LOVE her poppies. Yay! I can't wait to play around with it and see what I come up with. Be sure to check back on June 30th to see what everyone's created.



And because winning is apparently in my stars lately, I was very lucky to win these beauties from Libelulla Jewelry. Be sure to check out her blog and her etsy. She makes the most beautiful jewelry and components! She just reinforces my desire to work with metal. Some day I will.



Monday, June 11, 2012

Mondays aren't good for clever titles

I wasn't super productive this weekend - 2 pairs of earrings that I didn't photograph, one finished necklace, and one necklace in process. Here's the finished necklace. It's a really beautiful Round Rabbit Extra pendant with garnets, vintage AB crystals, green glass rondelles and vintage teeny glass beads that seem like glass pearls that lost their pearl coating. I love finding those - they have such a lovely opaly inner glow to them. The green beads have a very strange luster - sort of like manmade cateye, but matte? They're a strange color too, but just the EXACT shade to match the pendant. What a bizarre chance that I'd just so happened to buy those beads a couple of months ago. And the X-hatched garnets were also PERFECT for the pendant. This is one of those necklaces that just made itself, you know?

Here are a million pictures of it :)








Friday, June 8, 2012

Alice in Wonderland Blog Hop!

Staci & Genea organized their first blog hop after discovering they were both big fans of Alice in Wonderland. I was immediately drawn to the idea, and then shortly thereafter began panicking. I signed up anyway - that's the whole point of a challenge, right? And then promptly procrastinated until last weekend.

When I was 8, my great aunt died and we ended up with tons of her old books. At that age, the one I was most drawn to was the crumbling old copy of Through the Looking Glass. I must have read it 50 times in grade school and high school. I even recall using the Humpty Dumpty bit for some illustrated project in my senior English class. I knew my mom still had the book, and I got it from her last weekend. Then I went to Michael's and found this double sided glass frame. I'd been drawn to similar frames in the past, but never really had any ideas about what to do with them - but now I had an idea!

I made color copies of a bunch of pages from the book. The color you see is all natural aging - I researched the book online, and it dates from 1908 to the early teens. So that's 100 years of yellowing!

How fortunate that the frame was double sided, because I didn't have to make the decision to go with beautiful Alice, or the funny Tweedles.


It can just be reversed based on the wearer's mood!


After that was done, I had to figure out what to do for the rest of the necklace. I tried many many different combinations, but they were either too severe or didn't match stylewise, or it was the wrong color - you know. I ultimately decided on my assorted stash of vintage AB crystals, picked mostly from little old lady cluster earrings. You know the ones? I've amassed many of those in my Heather Boxes. And while the colors may not be super matchy matchy, what those crystals represent to me is the ultimate little-girl-pretty fairies in the garden sort of magical wonderful storyland of yore. Does that make sense to anyone but me? It wouldn't be the same with new AB crystals, and I know these came from granny earrings - but to me, it conjures the time and place of what it must have been like to be the REAL Alice Liddell - like she would have loved her "stolen" sparkly jewels that belonged to some older relative. Maybe I'm a little weird. I don't know. So that is why these particular beads work for me with the necklace. I decided to add a couple of Alice Blue colored crystals as well.





I wore it to work today, it was really fun to wear. I wore the Alice side, though I imagine if I'd been in a foul mood, I might have flipped it over. Ever since I made the pendant, I've been saying "Contrariwise!" to no one, for no reason. Constantly!

I can't wait to see what everyone else has created - make sure to check out all the blogs below!





Ginger Bishop
Staci Louise Originals
Genea Beads
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Heidi Post
Donna Bradley
Linda Hanes
Birgitta Lejonklou
Libellula Jewelry & Cicada Silver
Linda Florian
Dyanne Cantrell
Nicole Valentine Rimmel
Jo in Wonderland
 Fresh Baked Designs



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