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Wednesday, December 9, 2015
The Holidays are Here Again!
I've been busy busy busy making new things for the three markets I have coming up this season. Please stop by and say hi if you're local!
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Welcome to the third installment of the Stacked Earrings Challenge!
This time, Leah sent us a glorious selection of beads. Malin took a beautiful sorted-by-color photo of them for us.
For the last two, I made four pairs each. This time, I was determined to make more. And I did! I made seven pairs! And my shoulder is still not back to normal. I actually made some of these a few weeks ago when I was even less back to normal, so go me!!!
This pair features some beads from the necklace that started my whole jewelry making affair. The faceted purpley fire-polished beads were on an old necklace of my grandmother's. There were some other beads on that necklace that I loved even more and decided I was going to learn wire wrapping and I was going to get some sterling wire. I went all out. I never even wear the necklace I made anymore. I need to break it out. But back to these. Those, and the gold discs are mine, everything else is from Leah.
For this pair, the blue, red spacer, white flower combo are all Leah's. The rest are mine. The round red beads and silver spacers are vintage, plus some bone spacers and little faceted silver beads on top. Plus the birdies.
The beautiful lamp work focals here come from the wonderful Amber of Naos Glass fame. I'd been hoarding them for a while, waiting for the right inspiration. I think I found it! Everything above them is mine. Everything below them is from Leah.
The only thing of mine here are the blue flower spacers under those magnificent Czech focal beads, as well as the blue dangley bits on the bottom.
The copper spacers were mine, the pink piggies are actually from one of our other participants, Rebecca's etsy shop. The Greek ceramic daggers are from the aforementioned Naos Glass. The two blues, and the bottom pinks are from Leah.
I apologize for the blur here. I thought it came out better when looking at it on my phone. Other than the brass spacers, this is all from Leah. I really love how they came out!
Everything purple on this (I apologize again for the blur) pair is from Leah. The silver and black & white beads are mine.
I can't believe I made 7 pairs! And I actually really like them all! This has been such a fun challenge to participate in, and we still have 2 more to go. I encourage anyone reading this to grab a few of your beady buddies and do something similar.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Stacked Earrings Challenge #2
Admittedly, I held this one up a little by having to go and get shoulder surgery. The nerve of me, right? Well, I'll tell you what - it sucks! It hurts! And I haven't been able to make jewelry in 3 weeks.
The time in between receiving my beads from Claire - this time's host - and the date of the surgery was just a few days, so I made four pairs as quickly as I could and took the photos just in time! The problem with being the only American in this group is that I'm inevitably last to get my beads.
With any luck, by the time our next host Leah's beads arrive, I'll be outta the sling and able to get back to jewelry with ease. Though I fear it'll still be slow going. You wouldn't think making a little wire loop had much to do with your shoulder, but I'm realizing a lot about these things lately.
Onward with the reveal! I borrowed Malin's group photo, as I forgot to take one myself. But this is the collection of beads that Claire sent us. Such a fun selection!
This first pair I made was this purple number. I tried many configurations until I realized linen cord was the best way to go, and also add even MORE purple! Photographing clear beads is not the easiest, but as you can see, everything here that's not metal or the cord comes from Claire's assortment.
Next up, the green ones. I believe most of this is from Claire's stash as well. I know the copper discs on top were mine, as are the uppermost wood beads. The bottomest might be mine too. But hey, they're cute and according to the style pull out in a recent paper, Kelly Green is back in a big way. I thought Marsala was the color we were supposed to care about. I'm not as up on all the other Pantone decrees this year as I usually am.
Because I'm a girl that finds it very hard not to include at least a teensy bit of bling in her designs, I had to throw in some rhinestones here, because I thought they were a nice pairing with the pink crackle beads. The turquoise discs at the bottom are mine, as are the rhinestones and silver tiny rondelles, but the rest are Claire's. Pink and turquoise are a classic 80's color combo, throwing back to the 50's, throwing back to Deco. So the rhinestones totally fit that concept, and the 80's comeback still hasn't gone away yet, so yeah. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Finally, I made these. It was my intention to use the little mint green drops (upper right in the group photo) in place of the blue drops on the bottom, but I can't be trusted with delicate beads and wire. Alas, I broke the first one right away and cursed my brutish hands then went on a hunt for a suitable replacement. Everything else but the silver flower spacers came from Claire.
Go check to see what everyone else did now. I'm going to as well!
Friday, January 30, 2015
Stacked Earrings Challenge!!!
It's a real challenge getting me to blog. But here I am to share with you the results of Malin's Stacked Earrings Challenge!
For those of you who don't know Malin de Koning, she is an incredibly generous and talented Swedish designer. She selected a very lucky few of us and sent us all the same beads from her enormous stash.
What an eclectic selection! We were allowed to use as many of our own beads as we wished, so long as we used at least 3 of hers in each pair. The number of pairs we made was entirely up to us. I think I have the least of all, with a measly four pairs. But I've had a ton going on lately. Crazy busy at work, a root canal (ugh), and organizing a trunk show for myself and a friend - who's another brilliant designer.
So I'm actually pretty proud of myself for getting these done!
In the order they were created...
I really like these. I included some lampwork beads from bluhealer and copper findings, with my own ear wires.
These aren't really a far cry from a style I've made before. These little wooden beads just lend themselves to this sort of Asian, zen style design.
Last but not least, the wildcard. (aka, the Punky Brewster earrings) I spent entirely too long stacking these and many other beads in numerous iterations. I never could figure it out. Until I did. If you look at the original beads photo, you'll see Malin only provided us with one of those little yellow metal flowery beadcaps, and one in purple. However! She had sent me a few in a long ago trade, so I pulled the other one out and used it here! I'm pretty sure the purple color of the other one inspired the purple bead on top though. And for bonus fun, those yellow flowers at the bottom came from the amazing Rebecca's bead shop. She's amazing for many reasons, not least of which is that she whipped up 5 pairs of earrings at the last minute for this challenge. I'm sure they're fabulous though, as everything she creates is!
Claire & Leah are also brilliantly creative and constantly make the most inspirational pieces. Everyone loves Leah's chubby birdies, roses, and other adorable critters. And Claire! She's the queen of stacked earrings. Every time she blogs, I drool over her earrings. I was rather intimidated to be in such an exclusive challenge with her when Malin first asked us!
But here we are, we've all made our pieces. I can't even wait to see what everyone else did! Be sure to check them out too. And thank you Malin for this fun challenge!
Claire Lockwood - SomethingToDoWithYourHands - www.somethingtodowithyourhands.com
Leah Curtis - BeadyEyedBunny - www.beadyeyedbunny.blogspot.com
Rebecca Anderson - SongBead - www.songbeads.blogspot.com
Heidi Post - ExPostFacto - www.expostfactojewelry.blogspot.com
Malin de Koning - BeadingByMalindeKoning - www.beadingbymalindekoning.blogspot.se
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