Busy, Busier, Busiest

I have actually gotten into the Craft Room to play with creating earrings. I love earrings, I believe that's a well established fact by now. So, preferences aside, here are some pics of what's been happening lately. (as you can see, I was having some serious fun ~snork!~) (I believe it's also been established I love Halloween!?)

 

ZNet Shows and On-Line 'Zine

I was able to be creative recently and it's something I haven't been able to do in a long time. First because I had no ideas, no desire, no Muse speaking to me. Second, when I finally felt I was going to hear from my long-absent Muse, I went and broke my ankle (in three places, no less) and had to have surgery on it. I wasn't confident/controlled enough on my crutches to get down into my craft room (even if it was only one step) because, the one time I tried, I lost my balance and fell again (without the same consequences as before, thank God!) so I wasn't about to try until recently.

That said, I was one of the group of designers for ZNet.com asked to participate in designing some jewelry for their upcoming on-line 'zine and received a bunch of lovely beads to work with. Me being me, I made earrings. I love earrings. I think I've mentioned before how much I love earrings because they are so feminine and swing-y. Here's what I managed to create using ZNet's recycled sea-glass beads (and some of my own). Enjoy! )Also, here's the link to the On-Line E'Zine and a link to the sea-glass page on ZNet's web site)

Clockwise from top: Dolphins, teal sea-glass
tubes and sea-foam pearls, light blue starfish
 and baby blue tulip-style beads all of
recycled sea-glass and a few of my own beads.

Top right; black recycled sea glass, multicolored
findings, orange sea glass.
Bottom left; teal sea glass tubes, orange sea glass,
garnet pearls on copper wire.

Top right;  pearls in black, gray, & white with
red sea glass and red crystal accents.
Bottom left; red and blue sea glass, white
pearls, & green crystals.

Top to bottom; two green sea glass squares,
teal sea glass tubes; green sea glass square,
yellow Czech glass squares; green sea glass,
white pearls on copper wire. 

Hope you enjoyed seeing them as much as I enjoyed making them.

(addendum) I wrote this right after I made these and I've since made several more earrings from ZNet's sea glass. I'll post them later.

The MUUUUUUSE!

Woo Hoo! My muse came out of hiding for awhile, today, and my 109 lb "fur-baby" let me do some work. I played with Relique Ice Resins today. I made some sample tabs to see what they would do & look like, then I made a pair of earrings. (squeeeeee! I made some jewelry!!)
Anyway, here's some pics. Enjoy!

Top left; Chartreuse, German Silver, Turquoise. Top right; Raspberry, Ivory, Gold. Bottom; Amethyst, Pewter, Ruby.

Used Chartreuse as companion in all but one mix set. Top; C & Raspberry, C. & Turquoise, C. & Amethyst. Right; C. & Pewter, C. & German Silver. Bottom; clockwise from top of pic, Carnelian, C. & Carnelian, C. & Ruby, Carnelian-Turquoise-Ruby.

Earrings; Turquoise, Carnelian, Ruby (hard to see the difference in the red & orange in this pic). Set my colors & ran a toothpick thru them while still in a melted state. I call them "Molten" because I feel compelled to name my stuff. What can I say, I'm weird. :)

Creative Spark E-Zine & Spring Challenge

A few weeks ago, I mentioned there was a surprise coming up. I may have mentioned beads and Znet Shows (I don't remember at this point) but there were (obviously) beads involved and they were from Znet as a part of a blind Spring Challenge (blind, as in I didn't know what beads I'd be working with until I opened the box they sent). Boy, what a box! It was crammed! It was packed! I got the box and giggled for at least twenty minutes.



A beautiful mix of Spring colors to work with



More....



More....



There were actually a lot more beads than this, and I made a whole bunch'a earrings, but only so many could be entered in the challenge. You see, they were going to be published in their E-Zine, Creative Spark. YES! ME! WOO HOO!! First time I've ever been published for my hobby. I love beads and I love getting free beads to create with. Znet Shows has some awesome beads to play/work with. Please, take a moment to go here to check out their 'zine (I'm featured starting on page 83) and feel free to enjoy the beautiful work of my teammate designers.

We're All Ears February Design

Oh, no! I almost (well, I did) forgot about Kristi Bowman's February Earring Challenge! I won't make excuses and I'll apologize that I only have the one photo of my earrings. I decided to go with the Damsel Flys as my buggy inspiration. That, and I'm currently having a crush affair with Ancient Egypt so I decided to try something "scarab-y" looking. I know there was only the faaaaaaaintest touch of yellow in the picture Kristi gave us, but my scarabs (such as they are) have yellow bodies, copper "wings" and flower bead caps for the heads. The blue bead is an accent and because it's the closest thing I have to lapis in my hoard. Go here to check out Kristi's design (and inspiration photo) and see what everyone else has done. (and, next month, I'll try to stay on top of it... and more pics!)

A Little More Work Last Evening

I was able to sit down for a little while last night, after work, and make a few things. Hope you enjoy:



Fishes & Loaves Asymmetrical Dangles
copper & green seed beads plus the new
way I'm curving in the tails. Seems to work!



Fishes & Loaves Bracelet
Lapis-blue beads (not sure if real or just made to look real)
Copper wire and short bits of necklace chain. I'm going
to play with several designs before I settle on one.



Summer Iris
Again with the earring style learned from
Kristi  Bowman's Aladdin's Lamp earring tute
but using my own little twist. This time I added
a couple beads, top & bottom, as accents and
I used lavender tulle instead of ribbon.

And, for those who want to enter my magazine destash giveaway, go here.

Seed Bead Phobia

I have a friend at work who also makes jewelry, but she uses the seed beads where I use the larger glass or stone beads (or, soon I hope, made-em-myself polymer clay beads).  She has made numerous creations in the last few years that I've known her and I just feel my jaw unhinge every time she shares a photo of what she's working on or has entered in this fair or that contest.  Dorothy is just so creative. And WAY more patient than I am. I just don't believe I have it in me to sit down and work with those teeeeeny tiiiiiiny seed beads the way she does (and can). I just know myself well enough to know I'd get frustrated in a short amount of time and I'm not sure where the seed beads would end up, but it wouldn't be my table or a design (lol).

Anyway!  Dorothy is in the process of making me a bracelet and I tho't I'd share it with all of you and brag on her abilities just a little bit.

She tells me the main focal stone is plume agate and the side
stones are blue lace agate. Isn't this just GORgeous!?!?!

I LOVE (making) EARRINGS

Okay, so, I played around a few minutes last night (was a busy day!) with some glass wineglass tabs I bought over at Pier1 Imports.  I'm telling you, folks, they have some great glass keepers/tabs that can be repurposed for earrings or bracelet charms or whatEVer you can come up with.  I went with simple since I'm just an earring making fiend right now.

These keeper/tabs are glass and look a bit like a bowl so I decided to put a couple of hot pink, pressed glass "stone" dangles on them. Simple. Easy (as long as I don't over-pressure the pressed glass beads). Cute! Tell me what you think?
(Oh, and, I'll be putting up pics of some of the other glass keeper/tabs in the next few days.  I'll have a bit of a contest with them and see if anyone's interested in winning something, hey?

   

New Year, New Work

Okay, I've been working this last week on some more jewelry for my store and was finally able to take pictures.  Happily, I was able to use my new Canon Rebel camera for the pics and they look pretty good. Semi-happily I was able to set the items up in my table top studio. Sadly, only part of the studio was in working order (one of the lights refuses to work which means we're going to need to take it back and get a new one... which may need to be ordered... which means I won't get to use my studio for a while longer... sigh)

Oh, well.  It'll get here eventually.  Until then, here are some of the pics I took.  I'll work on some more this weekend and see what I can set up outside, around the house, etc.  You never know! :)

I kept these, but I'm going to make
another pair to go into my store.
Cute, eh?

~Earth Metal~
Now in my Etsy store

My first attempt to play with copper
tubing and some wire I had. Debating
whether to put this in the store or wait
until I've made a few more attempts at
any kind of wire/metal work.



~Forest Wisdom~
Again with the Autumn colors. This
is the necklace I restrung with the
cute little hooty-owl. Going into my
Etsy store soon, too.



I bought these from Lima Beads. I tho't
they made cuter earrings than they
did necklace or bracelet embellishments.

Set 2, this time with a
little blue dangle used from
Michelle Mach's snowflake
challenge box. Cute, eh?

Pearl Fans - simple pair
of earrings made with gray
and charcoal pearls.

EARRING MADNESS!

Well, I went back to Pier 1 Imports last night and bought out all the daisy wine glass tags I could find. THEN, sadly, I found some cute little butterfly tags.  I say "sadly" because there were only two sets so, six pairs of butterfly earrings.  I also found some great lampwork flowers that I'm turning into earrings, too, and I have plans to go back and buy up the glass bead tags as well.  On the negative side, it cost me a little over $80 to buy all those (about 14 boxes of tags).  On the plus side, almost all of them were on sale so it only cost me a little over $80 to buy all of them.  On the plus-plus side, half of the ones on sale were on a better sale than the red tag led me to believe!  I just LOVE saving money! (if I only don't go broke saving it ~HA!~)
Anyway, here are three more pairs I made from last nights' haul, but they're not daisies this time.
Enjoy! (and, as always, feel free to share this link with anyone! *wink*)

Blue Swirl

Flowering Hope
~for my Spina Bifida line~

Hope Floats
~also for my SB line~

To paraphrase my Etsy description, those with SB aren't really that different from the rest of us.  They're no less fun-loving or any more serious than we are.  I want some of my SB line to reflect more than "serious" jewelry, I want fun and funky as well.  Hope Floats and Flowering Hope start that portion of my line.  Enjoy them, too. There will be more!