August AE COM

The Art Element component of the month for August has been provided by the amazingly talented Caroline of BlueBerri Beads, and this time I remembered to photo them before I started.... 

Arn't they stunning!

As soon as I saw these beads I started singing "fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars...."  and I just could not get the song out of my head and then I started playing with my stash and out came this beautiful Raven cab by our very lovely Jenny Davies-Reazor and then this....

I made a part bezel part prong setting for the lovely Raven and then hung the beautiful star bead on some really thick silver wire with a couple of melted silver bead caps.

I intend to hang this off a really thick silver snake chain, there is even a little surprise on the back....

A cute little hare gazing longingly up at the stars!

Thank you so much Caroline I have throughly enjoyed emerging myself in making this little treasure! I hope everyone will join me hopping around the rest of the participants 

Guests

Cheryl Zink

Kelly Rodgers

Art Elements Team

Diana Ptazynski

Cathy Spivey Mendola

Niky Sayers

Laney Mead

Susan Kennedy

Claire Fabian

Lesley Watt

Caroline Dewison

AJE Buried Treasure - the "Use your stash" reveal!

It will come as no surprise that Hoard beads, I buy these wonderful little handmade treasures and then I stash them away (and occasionally I take them out and stroke them).

So joining in with the use your stash hop was a must! Here is (some of) what I am dealing with....

The print tray on the wall is for my larger beads that will not fit into the little draws on my print chest.

Here's an inside view of some of the draws.... lots of lovely treasures!

Now I was hoping to have lots of pieces to show you, I was set to really tackle my stash and use some that I had held on to for a while (maybe as long as 5 plus years). But life got in the way and I only came up with the one piece, but I love it!

I used this AMAZING raven focal by the ever so talented Jenny Davies-Reazor and super cute glass drops by our wonderful Jen Cameron. I absoloutly love the colours Jenny has used in the focal it is just so me, so I made a piece for me!

Here I tinkered a little with the placement of the glass pin (moved it up a little) Ideally I would have loved a black tavernier cut stone set in silver to the side of this focal but I don't have one of those (yet)!

I may well tinker with this one a little but I really like how it turned out, It's very me!

Shot of the back. I do hope you will join me in seeing what everyone else has created....

AJE team:

Lesley Watt

Lindsay Starr

Caroline Dewison

Jennifer Cameron

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Susan Kennedy

Niky Sayers

Guests: 

Terri - Terrri’s Blooming ideas

Shai - Shai’s Ramblings

Melissa - Bead Recipes

Tammy - Paisley  Lizard

Sarajo - SJ Designs

Kathy - Bay Moon Designs

Karin - Ginko et Colquelicot

Lola - Bead Lola Bead

Samantha - Wescott Jewelry

Mona - Bijoux Gem

May Year of jewelry project

So I seem to have pretty much given up on the themes but here are my Year of Jewellery makes for May
Week 18 (May 2) - Birthstone of the Month: Emerald (it has green in it?)
This piece was made for the Bead Peps Swap n Hop....

Week 19 (May 9) - My Mom's Favourite Colour (Can't say I know what my mum's favorite colours is!!)

Week 20 (May 16) - The Elements (they came from the earth?)

Week 21 (May 23) - Victoria's Secret (secret locket)

Week 22 (May 30) - Mixed Media (glass by the lovely Jen Cameron of Glass Addictions, peridot and silver)!

April Year of jewelry project

Week 14 (Apr 4) - Birthstone of the Month: Sparkly like a Diamond, well they do sparkle but not a diamond in sight! This pair of earrings were made for a tutorial on Art Jewelry Elements blog.

Week 15 (Apr 11) - The Story of Me, of course coins! This pair of earrings is currently giveaway on the Artisan Designers Jewelry Buy and Sell Facebook group.

Week 16 (Apr 18) - Made of Thick Wire well made of wire but not that thick! This necklace was made for the Art Jewelry Elements component of the month.

Week 17 (Apr 25) - Embrace Nature, wooden bead! And of course this pendent was made for the Bead Peeps blog hop.

Happy making lovely people and have a great day! x

Make a Statement Challenge

Today I am joining in with the wonderful Sally Russick's Make a Statement Jewelry Challenge.
This one really was a challenge for me as I find that I am normally drawn to making small delicate items of jewellery not really Statement pieces!

A while back I made a ring using one of Jen Cameron's beautiful Lampwork head pins and when the amazing Jen saw it she suggested making a stacker ring with one, so plucking up the courage to part with yet another of my beloved lampwork head pins (You all know I have hoarding tendencies) I got to making and here it is....

I absolutely love the colours in the lampwork, it really is so beautiful. It started off being 3 rings thick but I had to keep adding rings until I felt that the width of the all rings balanced the size of the cab, so six thick it is!

I added a small 5x7mm amethyst cab to bring out the purple in the glass, and a small silver blob with two hammered bands to add a bit of texture and interest.

The only problem is as I have not mastered the art of measuring rings yet, and these ones after all the hammering ended up being too big for my child sized fingers, so into the Hallmarking pile they go!

Still I learnt a lot while making these that I will apply to the next set I make, and I found out that I really rather enjoy making rings!

Thank you so much to the lovely Sally for hosting yet another great blog hop, Please take a moment and see what the other participants came up with!

Sally Russick 
Kim Dworak 
Terri Gauthier
Elizabeth Bergesen
Karin Grosset Grange
Paula Kramer 
Patti Vanderbloemen 
Therese Frank 
Beth McCord
Niky Sayers 

and have a wonderful day x

Haberdashery Blog Hop

Today I am joining in with Melissa Trudinger's fab Haberdashery Blog Hop, a lovely friend of mine saw this hop and thought I would enjoy it, and how right was she!

As a young child I spent alot of my time in Haberdashery shops as my mum and grandmother were avid embroiderers, when I was not in the shop looking and beautiful coloured silks and ribbons I was spending hours watching them embroider! Any who now to show you my treasures.....

You may well notice a bit of a theme with all my pieces, buttons, I do love buttons! 

This is a simple macrame wrap bracelet I made for my oldest daughter, using leather cord, string, seed beads, a cute butterfly charm and one of my painted farthing coin buttons. I liked it so much I had to make one up for myself....

This one is much more me, in my favourite colours! I used the same macrame technique but instead of seed beads I used 4mm serpentine heishi gemstone beads (they are so beautiful) with a really cute heart charm from Daisy Chain Extra and another of my painted farthing coin buttons.

These look really lovely on, and before I knew it I was making another macrame bracelet....

I have had these beads for so very long and although I love them could not for the life of me think how to use them, then this design just happened! The lovely lampwork drops are by the amazing Laura Sparling and this time I used a silver sixpence shank button. 

It has a really nice glassy cuff look to it, but alas is very hard to photograph with out a model and my model has gone away to the coast for a couple of days! 

My last make is made up from some of the many baby buttons I have cut off my children's clothes (after they have destroyed them as only children can)....

Baby buttons mounted in silver made into earrings (they are not as big as they look in this pic, I just have freakishly small hands), I really, really love these! I have used a thin 0.3mm silver wire to look like thread.

I have decided to use some more of my baby button stash to make charms for a bracelet with the children's initials on the back and maybe even with gold thread!!! Now I am bursting with ideas!!!! 

*Shameless plug* if you would like to see more of my coin buttons they can be found here in my Bits Of NikNats etsy shop!!!

Thank you so much Melissa for hosting such a fun blog hop. I am now off to make a nice hot coffee before I take a look to see what everyone else has made, If you wish to join me here is the list of participants.... 

Melissa Trudinger                                           http://beadrecipes.wordpress.com 

Ann Schroeder                                                 http://www.beadlove.wordpress.com

Tammy Adams                                                http://www.paisleylizard.com/blog.html

Amanda Wacasey                                           http://mandyinmystic.blogspot.com

Dolores Raml                                                   http://craftydscreations.wordpress.com

Divya N                                                             http://www.jewelsofsayuri.com

Michelle McCarthy                                         http://www.fireflydesignstudio.BlogSpot.com

DiYana Brooks                                                 http://agapecreationsjewelry.blogspot.com/

Robin Kae Reed                                               http://willowdragon.blogspot.com

Andrea Glick                                                    http://zenithjade.blogspot.com/

Karin Grosset Grange                                     http://ginkgoetcoquelicot.blogspot.fr

Mitzie Crider                                                    http://needfulluxuries.blogspot.com

Janine Lucas                                        http://www.esfera.me/travel/blog/travel-stories (Will be posting on Sunday)

Rosantia Petkova                                           http://bairozan.blogspot.com/

Susan Kennedy                                                http://www.suebeads.blogspot.com

Leithleach Alainn Seodra                http://alainnjewelry.wordpress.com/

Kathleen Breeding                                          http://99bobotw.blogspot.com/

Shiraz Biggie                                                    http://secretsongdesigns.blogspot.com

Chris Eisenberg                                               http://www.wanderware.blogspot.com

Heather Richter                                              http://desertjewelrydesigns.blogspot.com/

Lennis Carrier                                                  http://www.windbent.net/

Rebecca Anderson                                         http://www.songbeads.blogspot.com

Jenny Kyrlach                                                   http://anafiassa.blogspot.com

Rita Toltec Jewels                                 http://www.JewelSchoolFriends.com (Will be posting on Sunday)

Mischelle Fanucci                                           http://www.micheladasmusings.blogspot.com

Karen Mitchell                                                 http://overthemoon-design.com

Carol Briody                                                     http://Cbriody.blogspot.com

Karla Morgan                                                  http://TexasPepperJams.blogspot.com

Carolyn Lawson                                              http://Carolynscreationswa.blogspot.com

Lori Anderson                                                  http://www.prettythingsblog.com/

Jami Shipp                                               http://www.celebratinglifewithdamamashipp.blogspot.com

Lili Krist                                                             http://pcbylik.blogspot.com/

Evelyn Shelby                                                   http://raindropcreationsbyevelyn.blogspot.com/

Raissa de Guzman                                          http://www.abloro.com

Niky Sayers                                                      http://silverniknats.blogspot.co.uk

Keren Panthaki                                                http://vasdea.wordpress.com

Have a great day

Bead soup

Hello lovely people and welcome to my Bead Soup Post, firstly I would like to thank our fabulous host Lori who has been totally amazing managing to set this all up even with every thing she is going through she is an inspiration to us all, and second I would like to thank my wonderful partner Kristina for sending me such a lovely soup and being a wonderful partner!

As seems to be tradition with these soups I got most of the work done last minute even when they are put back, quiet literally I finished my pieces at midnight and have only just finished photoing!

So I should properly start off by showing you what I got sent....

Aren't the colours beautiful! My first thoughts were to wire wrap the focal and hang it off a simple chain but that did not work (my wire wrapping skills are not as good as I had hoped) so in frustration I put it back in the bowl and started playing with the clasp instead....

Never one to do some thing easy and liking to be different I decided to use the clasp as a focal, I flipped it over, hammered a texture onto it, then popped it into the liver of sulphur and buffed it up, added a few amazonite beads, a lampwork spacer by the very talented Laura Sparling and a tiny ball chain (here is another photo as I don't really like this one on the white background)....

So back to my focal and I just kept thinking how lovely it looked with the light shinning through it and it would be such a shame to put it on a necklace as you would not get to see that, this thinking lead me to the idea of making it into a sun catcher!!! Then I saw the beautiful card that Kristina sent with my soup and inspiration struck....

How cute are these owls! 

Well we have been having a problem with mess maker having night terrors, to the point where bedtime is just full of stress for all of us, so maybe instead of a sun catcher how about a dream catcher?

I sawed out a little owl shape and added the detail using a mini flat head screwdriver and a hammer (this was a lot of fun and I will defiantly be doing this again!)

I talked the idea of dream catchers through with mess maker and then she informed me of how this will work (she has such a great imagination and loves explaining things)! If she has any nightmares then the owl with catch them and fly them away while she sleeps and if she has any good dreams they will get caught in the bead so they stay with her and she can have them ones again, how sweet is that! 

We will be trying it out tonight, It will hang from the bottom of her bunkbed so in the morning it will still act as a sun catcher, keep your fingers crossed for us please. I also made up these too...

I used one of the green spacers and the lovely stripy green bead in this bracelet along with a butterfly by Mandrel beads and clasp and wingding by The Fab Genea, I made the copper hoop from Cindy Wimmers missing link book and gave it a salt water patina and then added a little hammered copper lentil bead, I do like this bracelet it's very me, an eclectic mix of lovelies that is great for fiddling around with. I also made a pair of earrings....

With the headpins and a couple of the spacers, simply hung on my fancy ear wires and I still have plenty of leftovers to play around with, Please do go visit my increadbly talented partner Kristina, I just had a peep at what she had made and WOW you will not want to miss it!!!

I hope you all have an amazing day and enjoy the hop!