Waxed Linen Blog Hop

(If you're looking for my BSBP Reveal post and design click HERE) Recently Diana of Suburban Girl studio issued a Waxed Irish Linen blog hop. The participants were to use waxed irish linen  and preferably art beads to create a piece of jewelry. I had been wanting to try a tutorial I'd been eyeing so I felt like this was the opportune time to sign up for this. As usual I forgot to take a before picture of the linen and the art beads I got to use to try this. But I think you'll be able to tell what all they are in the pictures. I chose 2 different colors of linen, a tan and teal combo linen and got these great art beads on Etsy (I think it was from Sherry Stokey). I love the little beach house and the conch shell beads.  This is a wrap bracelet, which I've been wanting to try for quite a while. I've had quite a few challenges since signing up for this blog hop. I had non-stop company for almost a month, have had to be out of town several times when I wasn't planning it and seem to be developing arthritis in one of my thumb joints. But I've been working on it and finally got it done. Also, the instructions weren't quite as clear as I felt they could have been. I used to do macramé back in the 70's and used all of these knots, but had forgotten the half-hitch and had a little bit of a problem understanding how it was being described. But I googled the know and finally got instructions that I could understand.  I enjoyed getting back to some macramé and will be doing this wrap bracelet again with changes to it to make it my own design. I love the colors in the waxed linen and the numerous opportunities with macramé to make unique jewelry and other items. (I've even used macramé with my Stained Glass, Mosaics and Fused Glass kreationz like this piece below)

So here is my reveal for the Waxed Linen blog hop. Hope you enjoy it. And be sure to check out all the other participants in the hop either below or at Diana's blog, Suburban Girl Studio. (Hopefully I got the links all right)

Diana Ptaszynski - Suburban Girl Studio

Kelsy Vincent - Jill of All TradesCraft

Susan Kennedy - Suebeads

Linda Landig - Linda Landig

Kashmira Patel - Sadafulee

Jenny Davies-Reazor - JDaviesReazor

Vanessa Gilkes - Culturezine

Sandy Huntress - KeepSakeCrafts

Kay Thomerson - KayzKreationz - (you are here)

Sarajo Wentling - SJDesignsJewelry

Kari Asbury - HippieChickDesign

Rebecca Anderson - SongBeads

Melissa Trudinger - BeadRecipes

Ann Schroeder - BeadLove

Shai Williams - ShaihasRamblings

Blanca Medina - Peru-MeDesigns

Cheryl Brown - DragonFlyBeads

Johana Nunez Rivera - Artincendi

Lori Bowring Michaud - ArtfullyOrnamental

Kelly Morgan - SilverParrotDesigns

Barbara Bechtel - SecondSurf

Kristen Stevens - Kristen-BeadJourney

Heather Boardman - HeatherBoardman

Janet Bocciardi - HoneyfromtheBee

Kathy Lindemer - Bay-Moon-Design

Lesley Watt -TheGossipingGoddess 

Susan Kolovson - BeadInspired

Jayne Capps - MamasGottoDoodle

Michelle McCarthy - FireFlyDesignStudio

Cynthia Deis - ShinyLittleThings

Karla Morgan - TexasPepperJams

Erin Siegel - ErinSiegelJewelry

Becky Pancake - BeckyPancakeBeadDesigns

Kelly Hosford Patterson - TravelingSideshow

Sharyl McMillian-Nelson - SharylsJewelry

Inge von Roos - IngeTraud

Carolyn Lawson - CarolynsCreationswa

Linda Younkman - LindysDesigns

Sandi Volpe - SandiVolpe

Toltec Jewels - JewelSchoolFriends

Michelle Mach - MichelleMach

Jen Cameron - GlassAddictions

Dorothy Winchell - Winchell-Clayworks

Darlene Mansue - D7StudioBlog
Cory Tompkins - TealWaterDesigns

And if you're interested in any of my Stained Glass, Mosaics or Fused Glass kreationz for your Home or Garden, check out my shop, KayzKreationz. Thanks. Happy hopping.

My Bead Soup party Partner and my Soup reveal

I'm finally getting a chance to post about my great partner for the Bead Soup blog party.  Her name is Katrina Taylor from 'Is the Babysitter here Yet?' blog.

She's a veterinarian from Pennsylvania, which is cool, since we do Wildlife management on our small Texas ranch.  She loves metal work which is great, because I love metal, especially copper and she created this great flame-painted copper clasp for my soup. But she hasn't been able to work as much as she likes because her work area is in a cold area of her house and the winter there has been exceedingly cold. But she put together a great soup for me.  Isn't this great?  (And she kindly left out any BLUE, since I told her I'm not a fan of blue.)  It contains a Natural stone focal bead, Czech glass beads and pearls, Swarovski butterfly, copper and brass components (clasp, beads and chain) and amethyst chips.  I love it all.  Now the challenge is what to do with it all to do it justice. (As usual I forgot my before pic, but Katrina had a great picture of the soup she sent me so she let me use it to show you this great soup.)

And here's the soup I sent her.  I wanted to send her a Texas themed soup, so I cut out the state of Texas with my saw, flame painted it (it turned out a great red, which I felt was very appropriate as we're always HOT here in Texas, LOL)  and riveted it to a textured brass background. I enclosed some lava beads, some hand created copper double-balled headpins, some Picture Jasper beads, some of what I call my Texas Tornado copper wire beads, a small brass clasp and a hand created Texas Yoke toggle clasp that I hammered and also flame painted, plus some teal leather.  I wrapped it all up in this Orange bandana, since we were/use a lot of bandana's in Texas. My thought was she could use some or all of the bandana in her creations, but she told me her son loved the bandana and confiscated it and she may not be able to get it back to use. LOL  So for all of you wondering what the theme was to my soup that I posted on facebook, here it is: TEXAS!  :)

Be sure to come back on May 3rd for the reveal of what I made with my soup. And for more of my jewelry kreationz or my Stained Glass, Mosaics and Fused Glass kreationz for your Home and Garden, check out my shop, KayzKreationz.

Kalmbach Books Bead Soup Blog Party

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.

CharmBarn Link Challenge

Back in July I signed up for a 'Link' challenge from Peggy of The Charm Barn.  I wasn't really sure what acrylic links were, but it sounded like fun.  We had to e-mail her if we were interested, and if we were one of the first 20 people to sign up we were in.  I made it!  She sent me 25 acrylic links with 3 weeks to create a jewelry masterpiece with them.  When I received my 25 black acrylic links I knew immediately what I wanted to do with them. It took me a little while to figure out how to link them. Actually, my daughter in law and son were here visiting, and she figured it out. I was afraid I'd break them, but she just kept working with them and got them linked. Once she figured it out (and that they wouldn't break) we went to town linking them together.  I wanted to wrap them with leather and then add some charms. I picked Teal, Purple and Green leather. I wasn't sure what I wanted to use as a clasp, but when we went to Hobby Lobby to get the leather, I thought, Hey, buttons would be great as a clasp with the leather.  It took a while to figure out the 'right' button to use, but I finally found it, a purple one to match one of the leather colors.  It was a little harder wrapping the leather around them than I figured it would be. I had to take it apart twice, since I kept wrapping it too tight and the links wouldn't lay flat or curve around my wrist.  Plus, I couldn't keep the links laying the same way as I was wrapping the leather.  Once I got one side finished (on the third go-around, LOL) it was easy peasy.  It was also a little bit of a challenge to figure out how to leave the loop in the leather for the button clasp without it getting smaller and smaller as I worked with the leather, but I finally got it.  The next challenge was what to use as charms/dangles and how to put them together and attach them. My daughter in law loves Ladybugs, so she picked out that one.  Then we saw this cute little silver envelope charm.  I found a little silver charm that looked like a letter/card to attach to it and some co-ordinating beads to use for the rest of the charms.  Then I made my own jump rings, wire-wrapped all the charms and attached them by the button clasp.  So without further ado, here's my Link Challenge Leather wrapped bracelet.  Please go to The Charm Barn to vote for my Leather wrapped bracelet, so I can get a chance to win a gift certificate to Peggy's Etsy shop for some more great components.  Not sure if I'll put this up for sale in my Etsy shop, KayzKreationz, or keep it for myself.

And here is the list of the rest of the participants, be sure to check out what they made:

Ilenia Ruzza - http://ile1974.blogspot.it/

Shelley Graham Turner  -  www.shelleygrahamturner.blogspot.com

Tania Spivey -  www.moobiegracedesigns.blogspot.com

Ambra Gostoli -  http://chicandfrog.wordpress.com/

Kashmira Patel - http://sadafulee.blogspot.com/

Linda Florian - http://lilysofthevalleyjewelry.blogspot.com/

Jami Shipp - http://celebratinglifewithdamamashipp.blogspot.com/

Terri Gauthier - http://terrisbloomingideas.blogspot.com/

Miranda Ackerley - http://mirandack.com

Mischelle Fanucchi  - http://thesecretlifeofmicheladas.blogspot.com/

Mary Govaars - www.mlhjewelrydesigns.com

Sarah Goode - www.pookledo.blogspot.com

paula hisel - http://simplybeadiful.weebly.com/simply-stated.html

Shai Williams - http://shaihasramblings.blogspot.com/

Jennifer Reno - http://jenrenjewelry.blogspot.com/

Kay Thomerson - KayzKreationz (you are here)

Denielle Hagerman  - www.somebeadsandotherthings.com

Janeen Sorensen  -  http://wildvanilladesigns.com/

Emma Todd  -  www.apolymerpenchant.blogspot.com

Audrey Bélanger  -  http://esperianterra.blogspot.com/

Michelle Andrade - Micheladas Musings

Don't forget to vote for my bracelets, here.  Thanks.

New Featured Shop of the Day

Good morning, the new shop of the day is http://threadedgoodness.etsy.com/

She's got some cute crotcheted items for adults and babies. Love this red:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16595497

And the baby mittens.

Also, just listed, cute fused glass magnet at: http://kayzkreationz.etsy.com/

Cute glass magnet

Just listed the cutest little fused glass magnet on Etsy. White glass with blue, teal and mauve polka dots swirled all around.

And check out this Teal magnet with French Vanilla polka dots swirled all around.

They make great little add-on gifts.