8th Bead Soup Blog Party Partner and Soup Teaser

I've signed up for Lori Anderson's latest Bead Soup Blog Party. I love these. This is the 8th one. She pairs you with a partner, you e-mail back and forth so you can get to know each other a little bit and the you create a 'soup' of beads and other materials to send to each other to play with and create something with. I've always been in awe of all the talent I see while blog hopping all the other participants in the Blog Hop. (By the way, that's a requirement. You have to have a blog so that on a specified day, you blog about your 'soup', what inspired you and what you created).
This time around I was paired with Katrina Taylor. This is her first time to participate, so I'm doubly honored to not only get to participate, but be able to help/have fun with someone new to the Party!  She just started creating jewelry again about a year ago and most of what she makes right now is for friends and family. But after checking out her blog, I wanna go out, you wouldn't guess she'd only been doing it for a year.  She loves Metal beads, Polymer and Metal clay and glass, but says she doesn't really have a style. She mainly just lets the beads and materials 'speak' to her about what to make. She makes some of her own beads and focals and loves BLUE! LOL  As many of you know, blue is one of my least favorite colors, although I seem to be using a lot of blue lately.
She is a veterinarian, so we have something in common, since she likes working with animals and we do Wildlife management here on our small Texas ranch. She also likes to eat out a lot. LOL  So here is a teaser of the 'Soup' I put together for her.

And here is the wrapping it was sent in. Can you guess the theme for her soup?  

Come back in a few days and you'll get to see the soup I sent, the soup I received and find out the Theme behind the soup I sent. And don't forget to check back May 3rd for the Reveal. Be sure to check out my shop, KayzKreationz for my other jewelry, Stained Glass, Mosaics and Fused Glass 'kreationz' for your Home and Garden.

Beautiful Leather Jewelry book Review

Here's another great book from Kalmbach books. This one comes to us from Melissa Cable, called, Beautiful Leather Jewelry, timeless techniques for today's trends. Melissa is a mixed media artist who love to develope new designs and techniques with traditional and non-traditional materials from metal, leather, wood, clay and found objects. Since I, too, love leather and metal this book really called to me, putting leather, metal and other components together in great jewelry pieces.
She starts off with the Basics for Leatherworking using her 'key' to how leather works and how you can use it in your projects. The first section covers the different types of leather besides cow leather. Things like Snakeskin, Fish leathers (which I've been hearing more and more about and what to try as soon as I can find some) and even Ostrich leather. Melissa also covers the different types of tanning, dyeing and grades of leather besides how to purchase it and even recycle it.
The next section covers the different tools to use as well as equivalents you may already have at home to use on your leather. This includes things like stamps, corrugators and even mallets/hammers to use to texture/shape your leather. Next is a section on hardware to use to finish your leather or decorate it and then finishing it to make clasps/closures for your pieces. There's even a part on Special Effects for your leather like dyes, paints, and sealants for your leather pieces.
Then she moves into Making Leather jewelry starting with Technique Tutorials and then the Jewelry projects. I really like cuff bracelet, so the tutorials on cuffs really intrigued me. The Mesa Pendant was interesting to me, too, since I love texture and the stacked pieces were cool.  2 of my favorite projects were the Four Seasons collar since I also really like collars and the textured leather discs and metal discs together combined 2 of my favorite mediums.

The next one is the Laurel Necklace, because I really love nature and loved the shape, look and texture of the leather leaves in this necklace.
Finally at the end is a section on Beads and More Jewelry from leather. I especially liked the Rolled Leather Column Beads with the rivet decoration in them. I can see myself using these a lot in my jewelry projects. If using leather is something you've wanted to learn more about in your projects, check out Kalmbach books for Melissa Cable's book, Beautiful Leather Jewelry.
Here is a Leather/Metal bracelet I made for my Patina challenge I was in that was inspired by my reading Melissa's book. It uses Leather, metal, rivets, chain, patina and cogs/gears in it.

If you're interested in my 'Find Your Way to My Heart' bracelet or any of my other jewelry check out my shop, KayzKreationz. There you will also find my Stained Glass, Mosaics and Fused Glass 'kreationz' for your Home and Garden.

Hot and Cold Jewelry Connections Book Review

I recently received this book from Kalmbach Publishing for review. It's written by Kieu Pham Gray.  This is a fantastic book describing how to make jewelry with and without a torch. So many of us don't have the place to use a torch in our homes or are afraid to fire a torch in our homes.  So I love Kieu's approach to this. She teaches you about the materials, tools and techniques in using metal to make jewelry so you can choose which approach works best for you or the piece, with or without a torch. 

She covers connections with wire, metal tabs and other cold connections plus heating your metal with a torch to make the same piece. 

She starts out with the Basics on materials, covering different metals, wire and wire gauge and strength as well as tips on how to save money on recycled jewelry wire and using less expensive metal/wire especially when starting and practicing.  She then covers the Basics in tools, starting out with the 'must have tools' moving on to tools to add over time and finally the 'luxury' tools we all would like to have. Finally she moves into the Basics with Techniques.  This section covers making loops, cutting and piercing metal, riveting with tube and wire rivets, metal stamping, adding color or patina, annealing and soldering, sawing, texturing, filing and sanding, gluing and finally polishing.  Whew!  That's a lot of information. 

Then we get to the 'Projects!'  And what wonderful projects they are.  And my favorite part is that they are always in pairs, made with hot connections, i.e. soldering and cold connections in so many different ways.  The funny thing is, that in each of these projects I had a favorite, but it wasn't always the same. Sometimes it was the hot connection and sometimes the cold connection. So I have my work cut out for me in making some of these projects. LOL  I really like the little Pod pendants on the cover of the book.

And these little Memento pendants are adorable.

But my favorite project is the Flourish bracelet!  And I like it both ways, hot and cold. So I may have to make one of each.  

I can't wait to get started with my projects, inspired by her love of connections and teaching in this book.  Plus, she's coming to my local bead store in Killeen, Texas, Bead Bistro!  So, I'm planning on getting my book signed AND hopefully taking a class from her. I can't wait.  So, if you've been unsure about how to use Connections in your jewelry to enhance it or weren't sure of which way was best, be sure to get over to Kalmbach books and get your copy of Hot & Cold Jewelry Connections.  You'll love it.

For some of my wire-wrapped and beaded jewelry I've already made, check out my shop, KayzKreationz.  I also have Stained Glass, Mosaics and Fused Glass kreationz for your Home and Garden.

Art Jewelry Elements May Component of the Month Reveal

Every month, Art Jewelry Elements does a Component challenge and giveaway.  One of their talented contributors makes up a number of components, people comment to signup and then they pick from among the commenters a number of people that will receive one of the components and design something with it, along with their AJE Team.  This is actually the second time I've been chosen as one of the participants. This time around the component was from SueBeads blog.  I love her beads and discs.  Check out her Etsy shop, Sue Beads. As usual, I was so excited when I got my package, I forgot to take a picture of my Ruffled Disc. Now most of you know, I don't do blue. Just not my thing. But she asked us to let her pick the disc for us and not ask for a specific color or disc.  So, when I got my disc, guess which one it was? LOL  Yep, all blue.  But I immediately knew what I wanted to do with it. (Well, kind of, because it was either going to be a brooch/pin or bracelet) But the bracelet won out.  I'd won a slider bracelet using the Cousins new slider bracelet finding recently and really liked it. One problem, I can't find their slider bracelets anywhere around where I am and didn't have time to order one. But Hobby Lobby had something close.  So now I needed to decide on colors to add. I decided to basically stay with the main colors on the color wheel, i.e. reds, blues, yellows, greens. So I got out a piece of copper/brass metal I had, textured it and a piece of green leather/suede I had.  I had just read about using my Big Kick to texture leather and wanted to try this, so I ran it through my Big Kick and it turned out great. Although you probably can't see the texture here in the picture, you can see it well in person, close up.  I made my 4 stamens for the flowers, using copper wire, punched holes in the metal and the leather, ran the 4 lengths of wire through all three pieces. Then I wrapped the longer piece of wire from one of the stamens around the other 3 to wire them all together, curled the shortest piece of wire to keep it from coming out and proceeded to wrap the other 3 pieces of wire around the band of the bracelet.  I was going to do curly-q's with the wire but decided against it.  I finally got my measurement for the leather, cut it and glued the clasp on to it.  It's not quite like I first envisioned, but I think I like the way it turned out.  Thanks so much Art Jewelry Elements for sponsoring this giveaway and reveal. And thanks SueBeads for the wonderful component and picking me to be one of the challengers.  At long last here's my bracelet with my SueBeads Ruffle Disc.  Tell me how you think I did.

 

 Here's the list of the AJE Team participants and the guest bloggers/participants. Be sure to check out what everyone did with their disc.

Guest Bloggers 

Lorelei Eurto   http://www.lorelei1141.blogspot.com/

Birgitta Lejonklou   http://lejonklou.blogspot.com/

Heidi Post   http://www.expostfactojewelry.blogspot.com/

Lola Surwillo   http://beadlolabead.blogspot.com/

Kay Thomerson   http://kayzkreationz.blogspot.com/ (you are here)

 

AJE Team

Jennifer Cameron  http://glassaddictions.com/

Jenny Davies-Reazor   http://www.jdaviesreazor.com/blog

Susan Kennedy   http://www.suebeads.blogspot.com/

Linda Landig   http://www.lindasbeadblog.com/

Melissa Meman    http://melissameman.blogspot.com/

Rebekah Payne   http://www.treewingsstudio.com/

Kristen Stevens    http://kristen-beadjourney.blogspot.com/

Jo Tinley     http://daisychaindesignsjewellery.blogspot.com/

Francesa Watson    http://francescawatson.com/

Lesley Watt    http://thegossipinggoddess.blogspot.com/

Looking for other Jewelry, Stained Glass, Mosaics or Fused Glass Kreationz for your Home or Garden?  Check out my shop, KayzKreationz.

Rustic Wrappings Book Review

The second of the books I received from Interweave/F+W Media , On Sale Now, is Rustic Wrappings by Kerry Bogert.  I had been eyeing this book for quite a while. It looked so interesting and I love wire/metal work.  Kerry is a jewelry maker that focus' on glass and wire. She has authored Totally Twisted, as well as written numerous articles for more than a dozen trade publications.  She has also contributed designs to five other books.  She lives in upstate New York.  Every time I see some of her work, I fall in love with it all over again.  It's fantastic.  And she doesn't let the reader down with this book, Rustic Wrappings.  This book is fantastic. She starts out in the intor with what inspired her to go with rustic jewelry and the things she'll cover in the book to get that rustic feel. (I love rustic)  Then Kerry writes about the basic tools we'll need to re-created these rustic beauties.  And she's all about using what you have around the house in place of some tools.  She describes each one briefly and pictures them so you know what you're looking for/at. She goes into 'Beyond the Basics' after that.  The next chapter is all about the metal. She explains the terminology and what gauge/type she recommends or likes. There's a wide variety here, Sterling Silver, Copper, Brass, Steel, even Anodized Color copper wire which is becoming widely used/loved.  It adds that POP of color.  She then describes Basic Techniques and has quite a few short tutorials on how to make your own loops, ear wires, clasps, etc. to make your jewelry not just your own, but unique.  One thing she mentioned that I really liked is to find a style of clasp you really love and use it all the time in your jewelry as a 'signature' for your jewelry.  I love this idea and intend to implement it in my jewelry design.  After that we get into the Patina recipes. I love patina (especially on copper, which is my wire/metal of choice) and have been wanting to figure out different types of patina for my jewelry.  This chapter is great. She tells us what is the best patina for the wire we're using and how to do it.  Most are very simple, easy methods, although care is always needed as all the chemicals can be harmful.  One of the next things she discusses is Wire Embroidery, which she has been experimenting with for a while, but saved for this book.  I actually have done a couple of pieces using this technique, but not to the extent she describes and uses in the book. It will add a very unique look to your jewelry.  She then describes exploring rustic color and places/things to use to get that rustic color.  For instance, Seasons, Places, the Elements, even Emotions.  Finally we get to the projects. I have to say, they are all so wonderful, I had a hard time trying to figure out any one 'favorite' project.  I can't wait to try them all in one degree or another.  A great thing about her projects (to me) is that while reading about how to create them, you immediately start thinking about how to 'tweak' this or that to make it different or your own.  That is what a great book/teacher is all about and this book had me doing that immediately.  It helps you create your own look.  One of my favorites though, was Aurora Necklace.  I loved the wrapped loops, the beads, the technique, everything. I can't wait to try this one, as well as the Sprockets in Pockets bracelet. I have actually tried to make the loops she has in this bracelet, but with the tips in this book, I think my next try will turn out much easier to do and much better looking. The Western Ways bracelet at the end of the book is another fantastic design I can't wait to try especially since it adds fiber to the piece.  I've started using silk, ribbon in my designs and love it.  This is a must have book in your library. It is available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Interweave. Here's a sample page of some of the fantastic projects in this book.

(The book above was provided by F+W Media for review. The author of this blog has not received any other payment from above-mentioned company. The post above represents only personal opinion of the blog author.)

Check out my shop, KayzKreationz, for my wire-wrapped jewelry, Stained Glass, Mosaics and Fused Glass items for your Home and Garden.  If you're looking for my review of Steampunk Emporium and the giveaway, go here.  Giveaway will end tonight.

Beaducation Class-Hammered Textured Metal and Giveaway!

Ever wanted to take a Jewelry class of some kind, but couldn't because there wasn't anyplace within 60-100 miles of you that taught any classes?  Or couldn't because they were so expensive, you couldn't afford the drive and the class?  Then this website is for you.  It's called Beaducation.  And it's wonderful.  I first heard of them when I entered a giveaway for a class on another blog.  I checked them out and they have a multitude of classes.  From free classes on how to make your own ear wires, or even introduction to Chainmaille, to classes you purchase on Metalwork, Chainmaille, Mixed Media, Seed Beads and so much more.  After winning my class, Kate from Beaducation contacted me about doing a review.  I love metal, so I checked out their classes and they put the Hammered Textured Metal class in "My Classes".  After watching the class all the way through (they recommend that so you can become familiar with the class and everything you'll need)  I printed out the PDF sheet which tells you all the steps and all the materials you'll need.  The great thing about the Beaducation classes is, that once you purchase/win your class, it's always yours and you can watch it anytime and as many times as you want.  After gathering all my materials I "took" the class. I have to say, Kim St. Jean is a wonderful teacher!  She explains everything very thoroughly and even gives extra tips.  I LOVED this class!  My hubby says he thinks it's one of his favorite pieces that I've made. And the best part is I can watch it again and again.  Some of their classes even have DVD's you can purchase now to have it right in your home.  I think every time you watch one, you pick up something you may have not caught the first time or that you've forgotten.  The texturing was easy to do. Although I didn't have but 2 texturing hammers, Kim explains very easily how to texture and enough ideas/tips so you can figure out how to use what you have to make do.  Also, I didn't have any LOS (Liver of Sulphur) to patina my piece, so I just left it.  It will patina itself eventually, and I don't mind the bright copper look for the time being.  I'm hoping to use these techniques to add to my Glass Kreationz and Jewelry for my Etsy shop, KayzKreationz, shortly.  So without further ado, here's my Bracelet I made with my Hammered Textured Metal class from Beaducation.  I did make mine a little different.  Being from Texas, I couldn't resist stamping my center piece with "I ♥ Texas" (I love stamping metal too, and they offer the classes and the stamps to do this.)  In fact, I'd love to have some more of their stamps for my metal work.

Now for the good part.  You can win a class of your choosing from Beaducation. 

First, you have to become a follower of my blog, then go to Beaducation and come back and tell me what class you would take if you win.  This step is mandatory.  Leave one comment telling me you're a follower and what name and then your class choice.

For extra entries:  Follow Beaducation on twitter and let me know what name.

Follow KayzKreationz on twitter and let me know what name.

Follow Beaducation's Blog and leave them a comment telling them KayzKreationz sent you.

Share this Giveaway with your friends/family and come back and let me know how you shared it. You can do this once a day till the Giveaway ends.

You can't leave anonymous comments and must leave a way for me to contact you if you win. Make sure you leave separate comments so I can keep track of how many entries you have, Thanks.

This Giveaway will run until Friday, Sept. 9th.  I'll post the giveaway winner soon after that.

I did receive a class from Beaducation to review for this post and giveaway.  I did not receive any other compensation from them.

Another Great Giveaway from Beaducation

Here's another great giveaway from Beaducation.  You can win all kinds of goodies like this.  So check it out.  Click on the title to take you to the giveaway page.  But you better hurry.  It ends tonight/tomorrow.

And for some great Glass Kreationz, check out my Shop, KayzKreationz on Etsy.  And stay tuned for some wonderful new things made from the classes I've taken from Beaducation.

New Giveaway for Metal Stamps

I've just started metal stamping with my jewelry and Glass Kreationz.  So I found this great giveaway for a set of metal stamps.  They're from PJ Tools and Supplies.  It's for a set of letters, The Ballroom boogie font in lowercase letters.  They look fabulous.  Lori was asked to review them and then a set will be given away.  Her earrings and pendant turned out so cute.  So check out the Pretty Things blog for this giveaway and see her items.
Also, if you're looking for Stained Glass, Mosaics, or Fused Glass Kreationz for your Home or Garden, or some cute beaded and wire-wrapped jewelry, check out my Etsy shop KayzKreationz.  I just added a Pink Breast Cancer charm for your cell phone or as a zipper pull.

I Won!-Sit and Spin Riveted Pendant class from Beaducation

Woohoo! I won the Beaducation giveaway.  I'm getting set to take my online class for the "Sit and Spin Riveted Pendant"  It looks like it will be so much fun.  They've got lots of great classes.  They even have some free classes for beginners and those interested in getting into another aspect with their jewelry making.  So check out Beaducation.
 I've always thought riveting, soldering and welding metal would be interesting so this class should be so much fun.  Although, as my family knows, torches and I don't really get along.  I forget there's fire there. LOL  But we'll see if I can get through the class without any major mishaps.  When I get my pendant finished I'll post it here so everyone can see it and tell me what they think. 
In the meantime, if you're looking for some great Glass Kreationz for your Home or Garden check out my shops at Etsy: KayzKreationz or Artfire: KayzKreationz or Zibbet: KayzKreationz.
You can also sign up for my newsletter on the left sidebar here on my blog for new items and news.

KayzKreationz talks about a Soft-Flex Wire Giveaway

If you love craft wire, you'll love this giveaway by Soft-Flex on Andrew Thornton's blog.  He's giving away 6 spools of their craft wire this Tuesday.  It is peel and scratch resistant and also is clear coated to prevent tarnishing.  They have over 20 colors of craft wire, plus bare copper and vintage bronze.  This wire is great if you have metal allergies, too, since it is lead and nickel free.  And, it's made in the USA!  So check out this giveaway.  But don't leave too many comments, because I'd really like to win those 6 spools. LOL

Purses-What do we do with them and What would we do without them.

Purses! We have to carry them. But boy do they get in the way. Go out somewhere to eat or something and where do you put it and feel safe about it or keep it clean? Have I got the answer for you. This Fused Glass Purse Hanger! Small enough to carry in your purse, but whip it out, hang it on the edge of your table and hang your purse from the hook underneath. Out of the way, off the floor and safe where you can see it.

Check it out at http://KayzKreationz.artfire.com