Glass, Craft & Artful Goodness: GIVEAWAY!!! - $90 to Spend in my Etsy Store

Check out her blog and the great giveaway she's got going. Glass, Craft & Artful Goodness: GIVEAWAY!!! - $90 to Spend in my Etsy Store: I am living a life full of gratitude and abundance and would like to show some of that gratitude to the wonderful people that have followed...

Also, watch for my post in the next day or two of my review of Lori Anderson's new book, Bead Soup-32 projects and my Bead Soup reveal for the Kalmbach books Bead Soup party in accord with the release of Lori's book.

Looking for some great Glass Kreationz for yourself or as gifts?  Check out my shop, KayzKreationz. I make Stained Glass, Mosaics and Fused Glass kreationz for your home and garden, along with Wire and Beaded Jewelry.

Bead Packet Design Challenge from Sharyl's Jewelry & NKP Designs

Back at the end of September, I signed up for a Design Challenge on Sharyl's Jewelry blog.  It was in conjunction with NKP Designs, using some of her artbeads.  We were mailed a packet of beads and asked to design a piece of jewelry. The idea was to see what 10 different jewelry designers would come up with using the same beads. I loved the beads.  The colors were fantastic and I had several ideas right away.  We were required to use the large focal artbead and at least 2 other of the artbeads. Then we could use the rest of the beads or beads from our stash to finish our piece. I thought my beads all complimented themselves so well, I decided to use only the beads I received in my piece along with the silk and the chain.  This is what I finally settled on. I'm loving using Sari silk ribbons in my jewelry lately and I had the perfect colors left from some silks I'd gotten from Marsha Neal's studio that I had used in my Bead Soup Blog Party piece in August.  I found this chain that just seemed to say "Use me" with these beads and the silks.  And the toggle fit perfectly, too.  What do you think?  How did I do with my beads and the Bead Challenge?  Be sure to visit Sharyl's Jewelry blog for the rest of the participants and see what the other 9 designers did with their beads.  Here's the beads I started with (I forgot to take a pic before I started designing, so this is the pic of the beads from Sharyl's website for the challenge):

And here's my finished piece:

If you're interested in purchasing this piece, let me know. I'll be putting it in my Etsy shop, KayzKreationz shortly.  And if you're looking for Stained Glass, Mosaics or Fused Glass kreationz for your Home or Garden, be sure to check my shop out.
You can also find me on twitter:  KayzKreationz 
And on facebook:  KayzKreationzGlassKreationz
And if you're interested in keeping up with what I'm doing, sign up for my e-mail newsletter on the sidebar.  I don't e-mail out very often, but you never know when I will and what might be in the e-mail.

Breast Cancer Charm-Breast Cancer Awareness

We all know someone who's either fought or lost the battle with Breast Cancer. I had a very good friend of 20 years die from it within 5 months after they found it. So in her honor I created this cute Pink Quartz, Howlite and White Coral charm with the pink Breast Cancer ribbon on it. It could be used as either a Cell phone charm, zipper pull or countless other uses. The beads are also wire-wrapped/strung on pink wire.

The Howlite appears to be like Turquoise but is painted/dyed. It is not real turquoise. This listing is for the charm only, NOT the phone.

For more Stained Glass, Glass Mosaic and Fused Glass Kreationz for your Home and Garden:

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀
Enter my shop here:http://KayzKreationz.etsy.com
❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

Softflex Knitting Spool review, Beading Contest, Vote for my 'I've Been Framed' piece

Good morning. About a month ago, I was sent a knitting spool from Softflex with the caveat I'd review it and then enter their contest. I've been frantically trying to learn how to use it and then create something with it to enter into their contest. I got it done last night. I'm not sure I'm completely happy with it, but I don't think it's too bad for my first go around with the knitting spool and entering a national contest.
I enjoyed the knitting spool, although I found it rather difficult to use. That is probably because I don't have a lot of strenth in my hands. I kept losing the beading wire when I would first start my piece.  I actually found using copper wire easier to start with than beading wire.  But I needed to use Softflex products for the contest, so I had some Garnet Beading wire and Copper Metallic Beading wire that I was wanting to use for this project and contest. I knew I wanted to knit a frame around some beads. But then I had to figure out what to do with the framed beads.  I finally decided it would be great as a leather cuff. So I kept working on my knitting frames for my jasper beads. I finally got them where I was fairly happy with them. However, I also felt that the directions for finishing off the knitting project lacked a little. I would have liked a little more information and pictures on how to finish the knitted project to get it off the spool, but after re-reading the directions and my copy of Sara's Show Your Colors book, I finally figured out how to finish off the piece to get it off the spool. Now my problem was, how to attach the 'framed' beads to the leather and then how to hook/clasp the cuff.  I just about gave up trying to sew my 'framed' beads to my leather cuff. (I had used my pinking shears to shape the edges of the leather and figured my darning needles would be heavy enough to get through the leather.)  After several attempts I finally had to put work/gardening gloves on to get my needle through the leather to attach the 'framed' beads and the button I used for the clasp.  Attaching the rivet for the leather loop to go through was another problem. I cut with a knife, scissors, poked it and FINALLY got the rivet through the leather so I could hammer it down. After pushing the leather thong through the rivet I knotted it on the back side making a big enough loop to go over the button I sewed on and Viola! I have a leather cuff bracelet with Knitting Spool framed jasper beads.  I also found it useful to number the three prongs on my knitting spool, 1, 2 and 3 so I could keep tabs easier on where I was when wrapping and then trying to get the loops off and over. That wasn't too bad, although it took a little practice to hold the beading wire at the bottom that you're working with and the wire at the top your wrapping while trying to get the loops off to 'knit' the wire.  As I said, though, if you have a lot of strength in your hands, this probably wouldn't be quite as difficult for you as it was for me.  All in all, I really enjoyed working with the spool and will keep on practicing it and trying to come up with new ideas for it.  I just won't be able to work with it for very long periods of time.  I hope you like my "I've Been Framed" bracelet I made with the Knitting Spool.  Please check out Softflex to see when the voting begins and be sure to vote for my bracelet.  Also, if you're wanting to do something really unique with your jewelry, get their book, 'Show Your Colors' and the knitting spool and have a ball.