SOCIAL MEDIA

3/30/15

Cousin Creative Circle Blog Hop

Welcome to this fun blog hop with my unbelievably talented fellow Cousin Creative Circle ambassadors!  The premise for this hop is that all of us received this same bead haul:


Beautiful, right?  Lots to work with!  We could use whatever pieces and parts of the beads that we wanted to use, and then add to them with our personal stash.

Here are the pieces I made with mine:

"Southwest Summer":


If you have seen my jewelry before, you know that I love to combine copper with, well, just about anything!  One of my favorite combos is turquoise with copper, and so that's what I did here.

The necklace is made from beads and chain from the haul, along with a length of my handmade chain.  In addition, the focal hangs from a handmade soldered and textured copper ring.  This is my favorite set of all of the pieces I made, and plan on wearing it out and about later today.

The next two pieces are made with a Steampunk-y vibe:

"Soft Steampunk"




"Sweet Summer"


For both of these pieces, I used my handmade copper focals and hung them from 18" chains made from the Czech roundels and the earthy brown gemstone beads.  I love the juxtaposition of the girly sparkles with the rustic earthy copper tones.

The next piece is a simple but striking l-o-n-g (and I mean really long) necklace:

"Peace"


I've already worn this once, and plan to again!  The antiqued brass of the chain and focal keep the rustic tone of the piece, while the leaf and peace sign add the needed pop of color.

Ok...confession time.  I almost didn't post this next piece because I didn't like the way it turned out, but I really wanted to show off the new "beaded bead" technique I learned:


I used the black bicone beads and paired them with some smaller aqua bicones to form the focal.  I'm not sure exactly what I will end up doing with the beads, but I don't think I will leave them like this. Any suggestions as to what to do?  I'm at a bit of a loss!

Over the next few weeks, I plan on posting some tutorials on how to make these necklaces - I hope you will come back to check them out!

Meanwhile, please take a minute to check out the amazing work of my fellow Ambassadors:

Ambassador Dawn Doucette
Ambassador Shelly Owen
Ambassador Rachel Nielsen
Ambassador Molly Moore Alexander (you are here!)
Ambassador Rebecca Grafton Untermholen
Ambassador Carolina Moore
Ambassador Lisa Crone

Thanks so much for hopping with me!


1/11/14

Into The Forest Blog Hop Reveal

Welcome to the 'Into the Forest' blog hop reveal hosted by the fabulous Lisa Lodge of A Grateful Artist blog fame!  For this hop, Lisa sent participants bead kits with deep forest-y colors and we were to make something from our selection.

The selection of beads I received is from the 'forest at night' palette, and has a ton of beautiful deep purple agates, Czech glass and dark ceramic beads with some beautiful large purple and green wheel-shaped beads that I don't know the name of - lol!  Without further ado, here is my finished piece:

"Hope Is The Thing"

I'm not a symmetrical person, and really have a difficult time designing symmetrical jewelry, and this design is no exception.  I used some of all the types of beads Lisa sent to me to create links and made a fun, unique chain from those links.


The biggest thing to keep in mind when designing asymmetrical jewelry is to make sure that the piece stays visually balanced to let the eye flow through the design.


This sweet bird focal from Green Girl's Studios line at Lima Beads is the perfect accent to bring all of these beautiful beads together with the forest theme.


* If you are interested in purchasing this necklace, it is listed in my Etsy shop here.

As always, thank you to Lisa for hosting this fun event!  Please take a few minutes to visit these other artists' blogs to see some more beautiful artwork:
Your hostess:  Lisa Lodge, A Grateful Artist
Melissa Trudinger, Bead Recipes
Kathy Zeigler Lindemer, Bay Moon Design
Eleanor Burian Moore, The Charmed Life
Jo-Ann Woolverton, It's a Beadiful Creation
Chris Eisenberg, Wanderware
Christine Stonefield, Sweet Girl Design
Carolyn Lawson, Carolyn's Creations
Janine Lucas, Esfera Travel Blog
Jasvanti Patel, Jewelry by Jasvanti
Shaiha Williams,   Shaiha's Ramblings
Kay Thomerson, Kayz Kreationz
Karla Morgan, Texas Pepper Jams
Veralynne Malone, Designed by Vera
Toltec  Jewels, Jewel School Friends
Christie Searle Murrow, Charis Designs Jewelry
Molly Alexander, Beautifully Broken Me
Monique Urquhart, A Half-Baked Notion
Janet Bocciardi, Honey from the Bee
Dini Bruinsma, Angaza by Changes
Heather Richter, Desert Jewelry Designs
Christina Miles, Wings n Scales
Elizabeth Engriser, Bead Contagion
Alice Peterson, Alice Dreaming
Alicia Marinache, All the Pretty Things
Kay Mallery,TBD
Catherine Yvonne King, Catherine's Musings
Alice Craddick, Alice's Beads and Baubles
Ema Kilroy, Ema K Designs
2/22/13

Bead Soup Blog Partner and Challenge of Music Hop Info From A Very Bad Blogger...

I looked at my blog and am embarrassed to see that I haven't updated it since October of last year!  You would assume that it is because I've been so unbelievably busy that I just haven't had the time to write, but this just isn't the case.  The truth is that I've been extremely unmotivated to write.  That's it. No big event or anything - just unmotivated.

Until today.  Today I finally feel like writing again and it feels great. I've got a lot going on, and am looking forward to sharing regular updates again, so here goes:

I am participating in a couple of upcoming blog hops, and I'm really looking forward to them!  The first I'll share with you is Lori Anderson's 7th Annual Bead Soup Blog Party, with the reveal date of March 30th.  My fabulous partner this round is the amazing Laura Bracken of Laura Bracken Designs.  She sent me this beautiful soup mix:

Such beautiful packaging!

LOVE these colors!
I've got a ton of ideas as to how to use these beads, and I can't wait to start working on them!  Here's the soup mix I sent to Laura:
Beautiful poppy beads with accents by Tanya McGuire and gorgeous lampwork beads by Kaz Baildon of Cheeky Cherub Designs and Mary Cobble of Firebabies.
I can't wait to see what Laura makes!

The other hop I'm participating in is the 2nd Annual challenge of Music Blog Hop hosted by the lovely Erin Praiz-Hintz of Tesori Trovati Jewelry:


The reveal for this hop is on Friday, March 1st, and there are 48 fabulous participants.  I've been working on choosing my music and creating my piece, and can't wait to share both with you!

That's about it for now.  Have a fabulous night my friends!
9/23/12

Pine Ridge Treasures' "My Bead Table" Blog Hop



I am excited to be one of the lucky ones participating in Lisa Lodge's "My Bead Table" blog hop on October 13th!

For this hop, Lisa took various beads and components from her bead table that don't necessarily go together, but were all on top of her table, and packaged them up and sent them out.  The challenge is for us to add some of our own beads to make fun new designs.

I'm really looking forward to revealing my pieces, so hop on back on October 13th to see what I made!
3/3/12

Welcome to the March 2012 Bead Soup Blog Party!


What is a Bead Soup Blog Party?

 Each beader was paired up with another jewelry designer and tasked with sending the following:

A focal
A special clasp (not just a lobster claw)
Some coordinating spacers or beads

Using the focal and the clasp was mandatory, but we could use anything from our own stash to round out the rest, and choose to use the coordinating beads or not.


Here is another picture of the beads I received from my fantastic Bead Soup partner, Melinda Orr:


With so many amazing beads to work with, I barely had to add anything from my own stash, and I didn't even use up all of them!

I am sure the design process is different for every one of us, and so I'll give you a little insight into mine in this post:

Originally I had wanted to create three necklaces that could all be worn together or separately.  This seemed like a great plan, but after starting to work on the designs, I ended up throwing that idea out of the window and instead created one earring/bracelet/necklace set and 2 other necklaces.  

Here's the first necklace I made, using the  lovely Sue Beads lampwork beads from Sue Kennedy, the sweet bird charm from Lisa Petraka, some of the amber resin beads, the handmade bead caps, some of the copper and the stone beads:

"Bird"

A close-up of the bird charm
Originally this was going to be the shortest of the three necklaces, and I wanted it to be fairly simple, which it is.  It is actually the one I will probably wear the most, as I tend to wear simpler designs myself.

The second necklace took on a life of its own, and it was during the construction of this piece that I decided to create three very separate designs:

"Forest"
I absolutely love the handmade clasp Melinda made, and knew I wanted it to act as a focal in one of the designs, and it fit perfectly with the beads I used here.  The coin pearls and jade are both large beads with the holes through the middle.  I wanted to show the height of these beads and not the width as much, so I had to come up with a way to wire them to "stand up", and here's what I came up with:


Basically I put a small length of wire through the center of the beads and created a simple loop on each side of the bead.  Then I created a kind of wire cage by putting a length of 16g wire with loops on each end on either side of the bead and wrapped wire around each end, effectively sandwiching the beads between the wire lengths:


This added heft to each link and gave the necklace substance.  I worked in the large hammered hoops from Melinda to break up the links.

The last design I made incorporates the beautifully patinaed components from Melinda, along with one of the glass domes and one of the beautiful photographs she sent:


The colors in the patina and the photograph are truly amazing, and reminded me of out trips to Rocky Point, Mexico.  For the focal I riveted the handmade bands Melinda made to the patinaed copper base plate, sandwiching in the domed glass piece with the applied photograph.  I knew this would be a long piece, and I felt that the focal needed more substance, so I added strips of antique lamp banding to the top and bottom of the pendant and used that to dangle some charms on the bottom.

"Rocky Point"

Then I started in on an asymmetrical design that features the patinaed circle and square links on one side and  wire-wrapped stones on the other side.  The necklace measures about 35", so there was no need for a clasp in this design.

I had tons of pieces and parts left over, so I decided to make coordinating earrings and a bracelet:



I love this set, and will be wearing it to church this weekend!


Melinda, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for sending me such a treasure trove to play with in this bead soup.  I loved being your partner, and can't wait to see what you made with the beads I sent you!

Lori Anderson, thank you for being the mastermind behind this phenomenal event.  I know you put endless hours into making sure we are all taken care of, and I appreciate you so very much!

Please take some time to check out Lori's blog, Pretty Things, as well as the other participants in this blog hop:

Hostess, Lori Anderson Special Book Sneak Peeks, Cindy Wimmer

1.  Adlinah Kamsir (Singapore) and Hajer Waheed (Kingdom of Bahrain)
2. Adrienn Lukacs (Hungary) and Agata Grygiel (Poland)
3.  Agi Kiss (Hungary) and Carolien Muller-Genger (the Netherlands)
4.  Agnes Asztalos (Hungary) and B.R. Kuhlman
7.  Alicia Marinache (Canada) and Dita Basu
15.  Bonnie Coursolle (Canada) and Fay Wolfenden (Canada)
16.  Carmel McGinley (Australia) and Tracy Stillman (Australia)
21.  Cheryl Brown (Canada) and Diana Ptaszynski
22.  Christina Stofmeel (the Netherlands) and Eva Kovacs (Hungary)
24.  Cilla Watkins (Canada) and Elaine Robitaille (Canada)
25.  Sabrina Straub (Switzerland) and Kathy Combs
32.  Dee Elgie (UK) and Joanne Lockwood (UK)
33.  Dian Hierschel (Germany) and Eniko Fabian (Austria)
37.  Doris Stumpf (Germany) and Eszter Czibulyas (Hungary)
39.  Elke Leonhardt-Rath (Germany) and Marjolein Trewavas (UK)
41.  Erika Nooteboom (the Netherlands) and Giorgia Rossini (Italy)
43.  Evelyn Duberry (Canada) and Gaea Cannaday
45.  Ginger Bishop (military, Okinawa) and Martina Nagele (Germany)
48.  Helene Goldberg (Australia) and Karen Vincent
54.  Joanna Matuszczyk (Poland) and Julianna Kis (Hungary)
55.  Joanne Tinley (UK) and Michaela Pabeschitz (Austria)
65.  Kristina Johansson (Sweden) and Penny Neville (Canada)
66.  Krisztina Erlaki-Toth (Hungary) and Nicole Keller (Germany)
76.  Lori Finney (Canada) and Marie-Noel Voyer-Cramp (Canada)
78.  Marta Kaczerowska (Poland) and Milla Starchik (Canada)
81.  Melinda Orr and Molly Alexander (you are here!)
83.  Michelle Jensen and Sandra Young (Canada)
92.  Rosa Maria Cuevas (Mexico) and Tejae Floyde
93.  Sabine Dittrich (Germany) and Sally Russick
95.  Shanti Johnson and Tracy Mok (Canada)
97.  Sonya Stille and Traci Zeller (Canada)
98.  Stefanie Teufel (Germany) and Tania Hagen (New Zealand)
9/17/11

Party On!


Welcome to the September 2011 Bead Soup Blog Party!  


What is a Bead Soup Blog Party?

 Each beader was paired up with another jewelry designer and tasked with sending the following:

A focal
A special clasp (not just a lobster claw)
Some coordinating spacers or beads

Using the focal and the clasp was mandatory, but we could use anything from our own stash to round out the rest, and choose to use the coordinating beads or not.



Here is another picture of the beads I received from my fantastic Bead Soup partner, Magda Sikora of Poranna Gazetta Blog:


And here is the first piece I made:

I used the brown mother-of-pearl rectangles, baby shells, copper-colored glass pearls and the circular coiled clasp, and added beautiful amber chips (a gift from my mother from Poland), darker bronze glass pearls, brass headpins, antiqued brass chunky chain and antiqued brass bead caps for the shells, and I came up with this fun bracelet with a bazillion danglies.


I love the color variation in the brown and amber tones, and the shells are a perfect accent to lighten up the design.



And here is the second project I made with the rest of my soup ingredients:


I used the beautiful heart focal and accented it with the creamy mother-of-pearl rounds, the  pressed glass leaves and the Swavorski crystals, and added deep purple glass pearls, vintage brass links, handmade brass bead caps and a hand-dyed silk ribbon from my personal stash to make this necklace and bracelet set.


The design of the necklace is asymmetrical, with the bead links, dangling leaves and crystals making up one side of the chain, while the ribbon ties to a vintage brass hoop to form the opposite end of the chain.  I made the necklace long enough to slip on over my head, so I didn't need a clasp.


The design of the bracelet is an echo of the necklace, and showcases the gorgeous brass clasp from Magda.


I had so much fun in this Bead Soup blog Party, and want to send out extra special thank yous to Magda for my beautiful soup ingredients and to Lori Anderson for being the perfect hostess!

If you have a chance, take some time and check out these awesome bloggers and their fabulous 'soupy' creations!
__________________________________________________

The Hostess, Lori Anderson and her partner, Manuela Wutschke


19. Anna Sabina­­­­ and Erin Siegel






















121. Lois Moon and Melissa Muir
124. Lupe Meter and Mags Saari






154. Pat Haight and Mary McGraw