Bella Crafts Creative Team First Blog Post: Copper Wire Butterfly Bracelet Tutorial

Today is my first blog post for the Bella Crafts Creative Team - woo-hoo!  I wrote a tutorial for this copper wire butterfly bracelet, and you can check out the whole story on their blog here.

December Art Bead Scene Challenge

This month, Art Bead Scene gave us two paintings to use as inspiration for our challenge piece, both by John Anster Fitzgerald:

 

 

"The Storm"

 

"The Captive Robin"

 

What captured my eye in both of these pictures is the use of color to bring the subjects to life, and that's what I tried to do in my piece.

 

The piece I submitted is one I made a few months ago, but fit this challenge perfectly:

"Robin Redbreast"

 

The focal is made from an etched and soldered bezel with a digital collage topped with antique watch parts and filled in with ICE Resin.  The chain is made from Picasso finish glass lentil beads from Artbeads.com, and copper beads from Rings & Things.

 

As the cutoff is December 31st, it isn't too late for you to enter.  Check out the Art Bead Scene blog for more information and get creating!

Creative Sparks Friday and Another Totally Twisted Design: "River Through The Canyon"

Happy Friday!  Another Creative *sparks* Friday is upon us, so without further ado, here were this week's *sparks*:

•Theme Color Palette•

I took the opportunity to incorporate this week's *sparks* into my version of "Framed" from Kerry Bogert's book, "Totally Twisted".

I found these beautiful beads at Shimmering Light Creation's etsy shop, and knew they would be perfect for this project.  Little did I know how perfectly they would fit into this week's *spark* as well!

Here's how the finished piece turned out:

"River Through The Canyon"

The beautiful colors of the beads reminded me so much of the inspiration picture.

I love the copper with these colors - so warm and earthy.

As always, big thanks go out to Becky of The Gritty Bird for all her work in hosting this weekly challenge. 

If you would like to purchase this bracelet, you may do so in my etsy shop. 

I hope you all have a fantastic Friday!

Totally Twisted!

OK...I FINALLY picked up Kerry Bogert's book, "Totally Twisted", and I just LOVE it! 

If you aren't familiar with Kerry and her work, she is an absolutely FABULOUS lampwork bead artist whose beads are both beautiful and whimsical.  Her blog (http://www.kabsconcepts.blogspot.com/) is great as well - check it out!

I love the book so much that I've decided to work my way through all of the projects, putting my own spin on them.

Here's the first project I finished, "Twisted Love" that you can find in my etsy shop:

Now, those of you who know me know that I am a copper freak.  I wanted to use all copper for this first project, so the presence of brightly colored glass beads and wire are notably absent in my version of "Bang Gals".  I incorporated one of B Heart Ranch's fun copper heart buttons and one of my favorite copper beads from Rings and Things.

On to the next project!