ZNETShows Summer Challenge Blog Hop

Back in April I was notified that as part of the ZNETshows Design team I was part of a new challenge. This one was a Summer challenge.  The theme was 'Summer Days and Nights' and focused on their Cultured Sea Glass. We were to go to ZNETshows website and pick out the 2 colors we'd like to design with to design a daytime 'casual' set and a nightime 'dressy' set.  We were also sent a few other colors, beads, findings to go along with the sea glass we chose. I was interested in working with their red and black seaglass, so sent off my choices.  I thought I had a picture of the stash I received, but I can't seem to find it on my compurter. But what I received in the following pieces was the red sea glass, black sea glass and purple tube beads. The other beads I had received from previous ZNETshows challenge.  But these are the beads I used:

For the Dressy set these are the products I used :

Purple barrel nugget beads found here:

Jet Black Barrel beads here:

Glass pearls, Clear crystals and Oval Purple and Black beads (a type of dyed jasper).

For the Daytime set:

Anklet

Sand dollar beads in red, here:

Hourglass beads here

Earrings:

Small concave square here

Fish here:

These were all fun to play with. I hope you like what I made for my Dressy Nighttime set and my Casual Daytime set. 

Daytime (casual): This is 'Fun in the Sun at the Beach'

Nightime (dressy): This is Evening Mystique

Be sure to check out ZNETshows website for great sea glass and other beads, the ZNETshows blog for more about the design team and the other participants and the new ZNETshows magazine that has more about the design challenge and participants also.

Into the Forest Blog Hop

A while back, Lisa Lodge of A Grateful Artist sent out a challenge. She was providing beads for a blog hop with the theme, "Into the Forest".  The challenge was to see how we would interpret that theme with these beads. I signed up and love the beads I received. They look to me to be a jasper of some kind with the dark green donut that reminds me of deep into the forest.  I immediately thought of my red jasper beads that would help bring out the greens of the forest along with the changing colors of the forest as it moves into the fall months.  I love fall and the colors it brings, although we don't really get much color here in Texas.  But I grew up in the Ozarks of Missouri and miss those colors every fall.   I also had this great copper leaf chain that I thought would be wonderful with all that fall color and remind us of all the leaves, falling or not, in the forest. Here's the beads I received and my beads I added.

However, in the last 3 months, I've been gone on trips 3 times, had company for a week or more twice and ended up cutting fingers on both hands.  So my creating has been a little challenged.  But I finally got to start yesterday, so hoping I get both the pieces I envisioned finished in time.  The first thing I wanted to make was either an anklet or some more boot jewelry.  I'm not sure this is long enough to wrap around your boot, although I could add more jump ring links and make it long enough. I need to measure it.  But as an anklet it turned out great. I cut off a small piece of the leaf chain, wire-wrapped three of the stoned I received and six of the medium size jasper beads and interspersed them with the leaves. I wire-wrapped the small jasper with brass headpins so it would look like small shafts of light shining through the forest. I'm not real pleased with the closure yet, but I can always change that later.

My next piece is this necklace. I wire-wrapped some of the green jasper beads with the small glass seed beads. Then I wire-wrapped 2 small jasper beads with one of the green crystals. And finally I wire-wrapped a medium jasper bead. I joined all these links with copper jump rings to the green wire-wrapped donut bead. On the opposite side I added some more of the copper leaf chain with medium jasper beads wire-wrapped and interspersed in between the leaves. I really like the way this necklace turned out, although for the life of me I can't find my copper leaf toggle bar clasp I had for it. So I'll be switching that out when I can find it. LOL

And finally, here's a pair of earrings I made with some of the larger green jasper beads, the green crystals and the small and large size red jasper beads I had.  I wanted the large red jasper beads to dangle. I tried them on these gold toned ear wires.  But I'm not sure I like them, so I may be changing out the ear wires for copper ones as soon as I get a chance to make some.  And another pair of earrings with 2 more of the larger nuggets and the crystals and my medium jasper beads. I love wire-wrapping the nuggets and the jasper beads.  I have plans for a bracelet, but ran out of time.  Hope you like all my designs. Let me know what you think.

Here's the rest of the participants.  Be sure to check them all out and see how everyone developed the theme, Into the Forest with the beads they received. If the links don't work, go to Lisa's blog for the full list with links.



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

Looking for these designs to buy and wear?  Check them out soon in my shop, KayzKreationz.  Or looking for some great Stained Glass, Mosaics or Fused Glass kreationz for your Home or Garden? They're in my shop, too.  Enjoy.

Anklet Blog Hop Reveal

(If you're looking for my AJE reveal with SueBeads component, click here)
Well I managed to sign myself up for 4 challenges/reveals within a month time. When I was doing this they all sounded like so much fun, I wasn't paying attention to the time frame.  This is the 3rd of the 4. The last one comes on June 7th.  Sadafulee had posted about having a blog hop with anklets.  I like anklets and have a few, but always forget to wear them.  And I've never tried making one. (Or if I have it was a LONG time ago)  But I figured it couldn't be that hard.  Plus, I used to make macramé jewelry back in the 70's when it first became popular in small town Missouri where I lived and had been trying my hand at it again little by little.  I made a macramé hanger for one of my fused glass pieces and incorporated small shells. I made a macramé guitar strap for my son for one of his guitars, so I thought, what better than to make a macramé anklet.  I had won some great little tube beads a while back and had some macramé cord left over from the 70's that would go great with these beads. Plus I dug through a stash of other beads I'd won and found some great Onyx beads in the brownish/orange color in the beads and that would go great with my macramé cord.  So I picked out my orange and beige waxed nylon cords and the beads and got ready to start. I also knew I wanted to try a sliding clasp for this anklet as I'd been reading about these and had just seen one on a friend's bracelet, so found a tutorial about how to do it and got started.  I couldn't finish it like she suggested as I didn't have any needles that would go back up through my knots, but I just knotted and tied off like I used to and I think it turned out great. This way I can open it up to slip on over my foot and then adjust it to fit my ankle and have little dangles.  I used some small Czech faceted glass beads I had for the dangles in a coordinating brown color.  I love it. Now to get to wear it. And best of all I still have 3 of the tube beads left to make something else or another one to sell, give away or something.  What do you think?  Do you like macramé?  Would you wear this?

 

I never realized how hard it is to photograph an anklet or anything while wearing it, but I wanted to show it on the ankle. Check out all the participants and see how each one met the challenge of creating an anklet/anklets.  I only had time to create one anklet due to time constraints.  However I will be creating more.  For some reason I can't get the list of participants to post properly, so please visit Kashmira's Blog and see what everyone else created.

And if you're looking for some of my other Jewelry, Stained Glass, Mosaic or Fused Glass Kreationz for your Home or Garden, be sure to check out my shop, KayzKreationz.  Thanks for stopping by.

Featured HAF Artist-Tams Jewelry

This week's featured artist from the HAFteam is Tammy from Tams Jewelry.  Although she has tried many different crafts, for her jewelry is the most addicting.  She loves playing with different materials and creating artwork through her jewelry.  Although she is married and has 2 beautiful daughters which take up a lot of her time, when you browse her TEXAS! (So do I, can you tell?)  She can be found many places.  Her Zibbet shop, Tams Jewelry, her Artfire shop, Tams Jewelry, her Etsy shop, Tams Jewelry, and her Handmade Artists shop, what else, but Tams Jewelry.  She can also be found on twitter and has a blog.  Here's just a couple of pieces from her shops.  So check her out and buy Handmade.