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About 4 weeks ago, I entered a challenge on Art Jewelry Elements blog. Every month they have a designer offer up some of their components to winners chosen from the comments to design something with them. This month it was a great enameled disc from Francesca Watson. I was notified on the 12th I was one of the winners. All I had to do was design something with the component and post about it at the end of the month. Unfortunately, Francesca wasn't able to get the components mailed to us until about the 12th and I didn't receive it until about the 16th. I was out of town until then and then had 2 weeks worth of volunteer work that I had signed up for. So this has been really tight for me. And then my Dad (who is 83) had to have an emergency appendectomy last Thursday (which they tell us is very unusual for anyone his age), so I lost Thursday and Friday, being at the hospital with him and my mom. So, the first idea I had for the component wasn't going to work as it involved some cutting and torch work, which I had never done and didn't have time for once I received the disc. (I wanted to try something with an old/vintage spoon, but had never tried this before) So on to a new idea. I had started working with my new Kumihimo flat disc, and thought the colors in the braid I was working on would go great with the disc. Unfortunately, I've been so busy, I haven't gotten to work on it as much as I thought I would. And I have the dickens of a time finding endings for my Kumihimo braids. Hopefully these will work and hold up alright. Anyway, I made my Kumihimo braid, wire-wrapped some small pearls to attach to the disc, wrapped small silver chain around the Kumihimo braid and attached the disc to one of the links of the chain that is wrapped around the braid. I finished it off with a sweet little silver heart toggle clasp I won from another giveaway Blue Moon Beads. Hopefully you like it and my picture shows up well. I was running out of light by the time I got this finished. (The material I used for the braid was actually strips of material for quilting that I cut into strips. I liked all the color and design in them, although it doesn't show up as well as I was hoping in the braid.) So, without further ado, here's my piece with Francesca's great enameled disc: "All Wrapped Up"
Here's the list of the Participating AJE Contributors:
And here's the list of the Guest Designers. Please be sure to visit each blog to see what they created:
Dawn Horner - http://www.northernadornments.com/blog#
Thanks Francesca for letting me play along with one of your fantastic enameled discs. I love it.
If you're looking for some of my other jewelry pieces or my Stained Glass, Mosaics or Fused Glass kreations for your Home or Garden, check my shop, KayzKreationz. If you're looking for the Zinio magazine giveaway, check here. It goes to Sunday.
Several months ago, Lisa of Pine Ridge Treasures asked for people who wanted to order a small package of either vintage Lucite or Beads and design something with them for a blog hop. I have to say, these beads have been eating my lunch since I received them. I love them, but everything I've tried to design/make with them has turned out terrible. I've started over about 4 different times. I'm still not pleased with this design (it's not how I had envisioned it) but I was running out of time, so here it is. First is the beads I received from Lisa. It's not a great picture, but it got dark on me before I could get a good one.
And here is my bracelet I made. I had gotten a disc for the flat Kumihimo braid and wanted to incorporate the beads right into the weave, but try as I might, I could never figure out how to get those beads with the little bitty holes in the weave. I really wanted them to fit where the groove was, but they weren't holding no matter what I did. So I had to give in and make the weave (which I did twice and they both came out too short. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.) So I attached some chain I had, put the dangles with the lucite and dyed howlite beads on one end and an S-clasp on the other end for the bracelet. Since I now had another piece of weave done (the 2 together made the bracelet too long) I made some purse jewelry with it. I added one of the gold swivel clasps to one end and the lucite and howlite dangles to the other end to attach to my purse strap/zipper. I was also doing this as part of my Family design challenge. I felt these beads were the right color to fit in with the colors my daughter-in-law, her mother,Karla Morgan of Texas Pepper Jams and I had picked to challenge ourselves. We had decided to make something with these colors and post it by the end of January. My daughter-in-law had something come up and couldn't finish the challenge. But here's my piece for both challenges. The color palette we used is from Design Seeds. I love her color palettes. This one is Feathered Love. Here it is:
And here is my bracelet and purse jewelry for both challenges.
Thanks so much for following along. Hope you like it. Be sure to check out Lisa's blog for the list of other participants and see what they did with they're Vintage Lucite or Clay beads. To see what Karla did with her family challenge check out Texas Pepper Jams. (She's been having internet issues, so keep checking back if it's not posted yet.) And if you're looking for some Stained Glass, Mosaics, Fused Glass or other Copper, Wire-wrapped jewelry, check out my Etsy shop, KayzKreationz.
With the release of Lori Anderson's new book Bead Soup-32 Projects (for my review of her book, click here) Kalmbach books asked Bead shops across the country to send in 'Soup' mixes of a focal bead, a clasp and some coordinating beads to go with it. Then they asked for jewelry designers to sign up and drew names to send these soups to. I was fortunate enough to get a soup mix and it came from Wired Up Beads in Texas! Yay! We were to take that soup and create a piece of jewelry or more from it, using at least the focal and the clasp. We could use just their beads or we could raid our stash and add to it. This is the soup I got from Wired Up Beads. Isn't it great? The focal is one from Patti Bullard at Wired Up Beads.
I chose to use only the beads they sent me and added chain and fiber from my stash. This was my first time making a Kumihimo braid. I found 8 different strands of fiber/yarn that I thought would compliment these beads and went to work. It wasn't long enough, however, so I capped it off, after winding some smaller chain around it and attached it to the heavier chain to lengthen the necklace. I then attached the Teal beads to the small chain wound around the Kumihimo braid. I then added another shorter length of chain to the main part of the necklace and made dangles with the orange/red beads and the green beads to attach to that. I also used the smaller chain to make 3 dangles with one each of the beads, attached it to a headpin and ran it through the focal bead to make my focal pendant. Then I had to figure out how to hang the focal pendant. So I used the heavier chain, draped it around the Kumihimo braid and attached the Focal to it. I used the end caps for the Kumihimo braid to make a pair of earrings, hanging one each of the 3 beads on the small chain again and running through the bead caps to the earwire. Although it didn't really come out as I envisioned it, I think I like it. My mother said she thinks it's gorgeous, except that my focal reminds her of a 'fishing lure'! LOL Didn't really expect that. What do you think of my Bead Soup Necklace and earrings? I think I have enough beads to make a dangle/charm bracelet to go with it. Thanks for stopping by. This set will be showing up in my Etsy shop KayzKreationz before long, unless it sells before I get it listed. I've had some interest in it. And for Stained Glass, Mosaics or Fused Glass Kreationz for your Home or Garden, stop by my shop, KayzKreationz. Plus you can go to Kalmbach's Facebook page and vote for your favorite piece. The winner gets prizes.
Thanks for stopping by and all your lovely comments.
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