Bead Soup Party Coming Up Soon!

It's been like a month since I posted last.....that's embarassing!

Between lack of internet and Hurricane Irene passing over us I got behind on blogging!

I am taking part in the Bead Soup Blog Party again this year. We are assigned a partner, by Lori at Pretty Things, partners swap bead packages and make something with what was sent to them.

My partner is Karen, from Seattle, and you can check out her blog here.

Karen sent quite an amazing package.

Here are the Focals and the toggle. Karen made these focals!!! The one on the bottom right has a sand dollar embedded in it!! They are all so beautiful and my imagination is whirling thinking about all the things I can do with these.

And then there were all the other extras.....

Look at all these beautiful stones!!!! Karen told me the round disks are fossilized coral....very cool!! These pieces are all new to me since I have never worked with stones like these. So it will be an exciting journey.

The turquoise cube beads above are some of my favorites!

Be sure and come back September 17th, do the Bead Soup Party Blog hop and check out what all the amazing jewelry artists have created.

Well, I've got to go get to work, and I promise you I will be back before September 17th!

Bead Table Wednesday ~ sea glass bracelet

Happy Bead Table Wednesday!!!

Been busy, busy, busy with orders and fun stuff going on around the house so I havent been posting a whole lot lately.  Actually the *stuff going on around the house* has taken over my life!

Right now, in between everything else, I am trying to finish up the bracelet that I started a few weeks ago.

I still need to add a clasp, secure the sea glass in the bezels and then do a final polishing.

I love all these sea glass colors so much and can't wait for it to be finished.

Soon!!!

Check out all the other Bead Table Wednesday posts this week and be inspired!

Bead Table Wednesday ~ work in progress from the classroom

Happy Bead Table Wednesday!

This week I am in the middle of taking a local jewelry class. It is named Sea Glass Class, but it is so much more than that!

Here I am polishing away at my work station....

I have been making jewelry for several years now, and after doing more metal and wire work I wanted to learn how to cut more of my own original pieces from sheet silver and copper. So, about a year ago, I bought a jeweler's saw which is a hand saw with a very fine blade that breaks very easily. I tried and tried to get that saw to work and just couldn't! In my frustration I put (threw) the saw aside and out of sight!

Well, the first day of this class we had to use one! After a brief description and demo we were all sitting at our workstations, saw in hand, and I got it to work!! I was over the moon!!! If I didn't learn another thing this week I would have still been happy!

I had to go home, find my saw and apologize to it!

Here are some bails that I made from sheet silver using the saw....

On one bail I soldered on a small turtle pendant that the instructor of the class made.

These two pieces still need polishing up which I will do tomorrow.

I have also had a chance in this class to use a dual fuel torch for soldering which has made things so much easier.....once you get use to the heat!

I have been using a butane torch and having problems with it lately and it was all because there was not enough heat.

Here are a few more pieces I am working on in class.

I love these pastel colors together. Still trying to decide what to make out of these....a bracelet....a pendant.....a necklace.....any ideas?

I would love to hear your opinions!

Be sure and check out what others have on their bead tables this Wednesday over at the Flickr group, Bead Table Wednesday.

Watch out world.....here I come with my jeweler's saw!

BTW ~ Boho Bliss Class

I went missing in action for a while there because of having no internet at home.  It was off for 2 weeks!!!  So glad it is back on, but now I am playing catch-up!

One of the many things I am catching up on are the online classes I am enrolled in.

Boho Bliss is a jewelry class I am taking and loving learning different techniques with metals.

Deryn is the creator and teacher of this class and I love her jewelry style.  She offers a few other classes as well which I am looking forward to taking.

Boho Bliss is all about earrings, and these are my hoops from the first week ~

Made from a plain piece of copper (or silver) wire!

They are meant to be plain hoops, but I am in a frenzy of making those glass headpins so I have also been adorning everything with them!

Here are some plain silver ones that I did some decorative stamping on for texture ~

Over the next few weeks we will be adding more to these hoops as Deryn teaches us more techniques.  I can't wait to learn more about metal and come back and share my pieces with you!

What is on your bead table this Wednesday?

Paint Party Friday ~ Recipe Pages

Happy Paint Party Friday to all!!!

{First of all I want to send a BIG apology out to everyone at the Paint Party for not getting to read all the blog posts last week and comment.  My internet at home has been down since last week and I have to come to my husbands business to get online until the cable company decides to come and fix the problem.  This makes my online time very, very limited.}

I have had this idea in my head for sometime.

Some of you may or may not know that I am a big foodie and last August I went vegan, after being a vegetarian on and off for 20 years prior.

I love to take a recipe and veganize it, and also love to find amazing recipes that satisfy my carnivore husband!

So my idea was to do a journal/recipe pages for my recipes.  A lot of my recipes are scribbled on pieces of paper or if they are in a cookbook there are a million notes and changes made to them.

This is the first one....

I am so excited about how this turned out and cannot wait to do some more which I will be sharing with you.

Sorry for the quick post but time is limited online when I am not at home, and we have people working around the house so I have to get back.
Be sure and check out all the awesome Paint Party Friday posts HERE!

Have a wonderful and creative weekend!

What's Old is New Again

Happy Wednesday!

I am finally getting to the posting of my “What’s Old is New Again” blog challenge from Artbeads.

This set of elements gave me some challenges, which led to a bit of a creative block.

I am finally happy to show you my pieces.

The first piece I made was a necklace using the antique silver plated pewter heart pendant, rolo gunmetal chain, a sterling silver key charm, and resin azalea flowers.

I really love working with rolo chain, it is actually one of my favorite chains. In the past I have used the sterling silver, but this gunmetal one is great also and looks awesome mixed with the sterling silver.

In this piece I also included some white beads from a necklace that was once my grandmothers, some of my pink glass headpins and some silver chain.

The pink flower beads that are attached to the silver chain I doubled on a silver headpins along with the white vintage beads and glass headpins that I made.

The photo in the bezel is of my grandfather with a silver key charm and a Bahamian coat of arms from an old stamp set in resin.

I finished the back of the necklace with some soft pink, silk ribbon.

This necklace needed a pair of earrings to go with it, and this is what I came up with.

They are very light and fun.

I added single pink resin flowers on the rolo chain. There are three strands in different lengths and at the top one of my handmade glass headpins.

Also from Artbeads I got the cutest metal bicycle pendant and made this casual necklace from this piece, also complimented with some of my grandmother’s beads.

I love the mixture of metals in this piece. It is going to be great with jeans and a casual shirt.

Artbeads has a variety of these metal pendants with other themes and they make a quick, cute pendant on a necklace.

So here is where my real challenge came in……

I got some large transparent resin roses from Artbeads as well, and when they arrived there was no hole to string them or attach them. (if I would have read the description properly I would have known this before hand)

I tried to attach them to silver rings with epoxy and they didn’t hold.

Then it hit me …… add it to a mixed media piece!!

What took me so long to come up with that?!?!?!

I love how this turned out and I was sorry I didn't have anymore resin flowers to add to more mixed media pieces.

Here is a close up of the flowers. The rabbits look like they are feeding amongst the flowers.

After making this piece I thought the flowers would make great additions to an art quilt. So I guess I will have to order some more!

Hope you are all having a wonderful week!

The Artbeads.com products in this post were provided as a promotional gift by Artbeads.com, as part of their Design Partner & Blogging program. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion - good or bad. My comments and opinions about these products are my honest, personal opinion and I have not been paid for any endorsement.

Paint Party Friday ~ Morning Pages

Just a quick post today for Paint Party Friday.

I told you in my last post about the morning pages I was doing, but instead of writing, it was an artful journal page in a sketchbook.

Here are a few from this week:

These are pretty quick to do and a relaxing way to start the day.

I don't think about what I am going to paint before....i just paint!

I am using a portable watercolor set which makes it really quick.  The brush has the water in it and the watercolors dry within minutes.

Don't forget to go check out all the other Paint Party Friday posts!

Have a great weekend!