KayzKreationz: November 2013

Recently Lisa Lodge of Pine Ridge Treasures sent out the call for another blog hop. This one is a Clay and/or Lampwork Blog Hop. We signed up and received either a Clay or Lampwork set of beads to work with. I received some wonderful Lampwork beads from Bastille Bleu. Again, I forgot to take a picture of the beads before starting, but later in the pictures I'll pinpoint the 3 wonderful beads I received. I knew I wanted to do something that would either be a multi-strand necklace or have the appearance of multi-strands. And as I played around with the beads, I didn't like the looks of the small blue bead in between the 2 larger lovely flower beads. So I decided they should be the focal for the lower strand of the necklace. But I wasn't sure I had enough beads to make 2 or 3 full strands. So I started playing around with one main strand, done with 2 strands of beading wire and then splitting right at the center to use the 2 larger beads as the focal and the smaller blue bead above it in a shorter strand to make it appear to be 2 strands. The more I played with it, the more I liked it. I had just received all the glass pearls and faceted beads I'd won from ZNETshows and their last challenge I was in. It was great, since I'm not much of a blue person and don't usually have much blue in my stash. There was some wonderful blue beads along with the greens, clear, yellow faceted glass beads that matched the colors that were in the larger lampwork flower beads along with some white glass pearls. I also bought some pink round and faceted round glass/shell beads to bring out the pinks. I wanted this to be a very 'blingy' necklace to make the Lampwork flower beads shine. Then I had to make sure 2 strands of beading wire would fit through all the beads I was using. And finally I had to figure out how to finish off the strands. I had this lovely Silver colored leaf toggle bar clasp that came in my winnings from ZNET and thought it would go well with the 'flower' beads. But I couldn't get the crimp beads to take both strands of wire up through around the jump ring and back down through the crimps. It was too much. So I had to divide the 2 strands on the one main strand and crimp them both to a jump ring. Then I made another strand to make the necklace appear as 3 strands in the center and had to crimp them to another jump ring and attach the 2 jump rings to the leaf toggle bar clasp. It was a little more difficult than I had imagined, but I finally got them all crimped and attached. I love the way they turned out. And of course I had to have earrings to match. So I hope you enjoy what I made with my lampwork beads. In the first picture the 2 larger flower lampwork beads and the small blue lampwork bead in the short strand just above are the three beads I received. Let me know what you think.

Lampwork Beads

Lampwork Beads Necklace

Lampwork Beads earrings

Lampwork Beads Necklace 2

Then, because I got done so quick with this set, I asked for another set and got these gorgeous lampwork beads fromStudioJuls along with the small pink/orange seed beads. And as usual, forgot the pictures, but if you look close at my bracelet, they're the large round lampwork beads. There's 4 of them in this bracelet. I paired them with some great Jasper I had, some gold glass pearls from ZNETshows, the small pink/orange seed beads and some small black seed beads I had. This was my first go at a memory wire bracelet and I knew I wanted it to be 3 strands. It took me 3 times of stringing, removing and restringing the beads to get enough on the memory wire. I had laid them all out and thought I had enough, but NOT! LOL. But I think it turned out great for my first Memory Wire bracelet. Hope you enjoy it.

And if you're looking for more of my Beaded or Wire-wrapped jewelry or Stained Glass, Mosaics or Fused Glass Kreationz for your home or garden, check out KayzKreationz.
Also, be sure to check out what everyone else made with their Clay or Lampwork sets.

Your hostess: Lisa Lodge, A Grateful Artist

Mary Govaars, MLH Jewelry Designs

Melissa Trudinger, Bead Recipes

Kathy Zeigler Lindemer, Bay Moon Design

Laurie Vyselaar, Lefthand Jewelry

Annette Rivers, MamaOwl's Mess

Karin King, The Sparkle Things Blog

Shaiha Williams, Shaiha's Ramblings

Mimi Gardner, Baubles, Beads and Other Curiosities

Dee Alcalde, Agape Creations Jewelry

Kay Thomerson, Kayz Kreationz

Karla Morgan, Texas Pepper Jams

Lori Jean Poppe, Lorillijean Creative Corner