More New Photos

First of all, thanks for all your comments on my last post. Good to see I'm not the only one who LOVES pink. Since I signed up on Facebook, a friend got me hooked on playing that game Farmville and I'm dying to buy a little pink house for my farm...so sad!

As I am writing this post the husband and his mother are on their way here to Las Vegas. Hopefully he is not too stressed out. He has been calling me all the time while he has been away. Mostly because of his mother, though also because he misses me and of course, I miss him. Last Friday I went and stayed with friends which was great because we spent most of the time in the pool or making jewelry. Works for me. My friend Jenny had ordered me these pieces and I managed to get some shots before I had to move my "photo studio" to the closet since it is in the bedroom the MIL will be using. I just love the little pillow.


I definitely think that on the whole my photos are improving all the time. There are some that when I've taken them I though they looked okay until I put them on the computer. No problem though as I'll just keep taking more.


This last one is one of my favorites. I think it really shows off the square wire rings of this piece and that (to me) is the high-light of it. Though I do love the chainmaille weave which is called Full Persian.


Hope everyone has a great week.

A Bit Of Beadweaving

As of late, I haven't been working with wire or jump rings much. Mainly I've been doing a bit of beadweaving. Here is one of my latest projects. Once it is finished it will be a necklace. I still have a bit of tidying up to do and add a clasp which has been an issue as I'm not quite sure which type would suit it best. Needless to say it is a double spiral stitch using pink and gray seed beads.


It was made with a purpose as I have a dress which has similar colors as well as black and white in it so it is meant to be worn with this particular dress. I have to say that I love spiral ropes whether in beads or jump rings. Both have such a lovely look to them. One day I shall really play around with different sizes and shapes of beads to make this rope. Spiral stitches always look gorgeous with a few Swarovski's thrown in too. I'm hoping to get a nice big shop in for some new jump rings soon. I know I can't be the only on out there that loves to make the odd item to keep all for myself. Share one of your items you made just for you.

Favorites For Friday

I had intended to do this post last week but got side-tracked, as I do. So this week's favorites are actually last weeks favorites though they are always favorites....make sense? All of this weeks faves come from a few of my favorite Entrecard blogs. Blogs that I stop by regularly to see what is new and exciting. Obviously these are just a small handful but here they are. Clicking on the photo takes you their listing but I've also added links to their shop (top link) and blog (bottom one).

Summer Stripes Peyote Cuff by Random Creative
The Beadings and Buttons of Randomcreative


Sweet Strawberry Swirl Cold Process Soap
The Life of a Mad Soaper


Oval Silver/White Pendant - Contained Series
nfall2rt designstudio


Vanilla Cake with Mint Creme Miniature Charm
Miss Millificent's World


Going Green Bracelet
Beadsforever - A Beading Heart is a Happy Heart!


I'm away from the computer over the next 2 days so won't be dropping by. Don't forget, Sunday is the last day to enter to win those lovely earrings made by ME over on the EJDSS Team blog. Enjoy and have a great weekend!!

A Few New (and old) Designs

Currently, I have an abundance of square copper wire that I bought to use for wire wrapping the cabochons that I had been making. The first photo is of a pair of earrings I made with a few lampworked beads I bought at a bead show in June. This wasn't the design I had envisioned for the beads but it was how they ended up. Always the way, I start off with good intentions and they never work out...lol. Though I am happy with the end result. I think those will be listed in my Etsy shop by the end of the week.


This is one of the cabochons I made and the design will include (once I'm finished) a chain linked to the two loops at the top. I've been on the hunt for some steel wool to get rid of some of my tool marks which aren't too bad considering how frustrated I was getting with this piece. The chain will be chainmaille and not ready made chain, I just haven't decided on which weave I'd like to use since I want to keep it simple since the pendant is the focal point. Plus, I have to look in my stash and see if I have enough rings to make a chain for it.


This is supposed to be the Golden Gate Bridge and since I had to hand-draw out the graph for it I think it came out pretty good. I thought I had shared this previously but when I was going through all my photos I realized I hadn't even taken one of it, it was done a few months back. This one was woven in peyote stitch using black and orange seed beads, size 11. If I had that beading software then I would insert a real photo and do one. One day I hope to do that as well as do one of the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle, England where my husband is from. That would be a cool series to do actually....beaded bracelets of bridges all around the world. Or a series of landmarks from major cities around the world.


This last bracelet was another of those projects that started out as one idea then got ripped apart and ended up as this. I seem to have quite a few of those lately. I had been wanting to play with those lucite flowers for ages and finally found some that I liked over on Etsy. The initial design was using the green seed beads (size 8) which I had bought ages ago at a bead shop here in Las Vegas which, sadly, is no longer open. It was called Lov-R-Beads and they had a fantastic assortment of seed beads. My first attempt was with a peyote weave band and then I was going to add the flowers. It did NOT work at all. So, after ripping it apart I decided on a tubular herringbone weave which wasn't as stiff as I wanted it so after putting the flowers on it still wasn't "right". Then it hit me, I had some 16 gauge craft wire which I inserted through the tube and added a few big spacers at the ends, made a few loops and added a clasp. Much better than the first attempt but still not exactly how I would have liked it. There are still a fair amount of the flowers left over and I have a few cool ideas for earrings with them so keep your eyes peeled as I'm hoping to get those done soon and get them listed somewhere.

Got My Mojo Back

Part of the problem, when I hit my "creative fork" in the road, was that I was having a B*t&# of a time trying to figure out how to wrap the cabochon in the above necklace. You see when I initially bought the seed beads I wanted to do a peyote wrap around it but it's actually a very big cabochon and it was so fiddly and, well, it just didn't work. Then I knew that I probably needed to do some kind of netting around it. My first attempt was to do four rows of netting around and to connect it but I soon realized that too was just not going to work. Frustration was seriously setting in and my friend Jennifer gave me good advice "set it down and forget about it". Well, I did put it down and started to go through all my old Bead & Button magazines in the hopes that something would jump out at me and lo and behold it did. I found a pattern for wrapping a button using netting and that was the answer. The pattern used only one row around to connect THEN do the rest to "capture" the cab. Yeah, I know, easy peasy right? Why didn't I think of that to begin with? I think I was so hell-bent on doing peyote at first that I wasn't able to see the woods for the trees. I should get a photo of the back since it actually is kinda pretty too but I wanted to at least show this off. By the way, the cab is one I made and is glass fused using dichroic glass to get that beautiful effect. The rope is a twisted herringbone which isn't very thick but does the job. When I finished this, I put it on to see how it looked and my husband says "It's kinda big isn't it....bold?" like that is some kind of bad thing....lol. The cab measures almost 3"/7cms across at it's widest point and is 1.5"/4cms tall, so yeah it is big but that was kind of the point!


The next piece uses more beads from Sorta Flowering Designs, they are their seeds called Karma. I wanted to do something that would not take away too much from the beads. Despite the fact that they are a smaller bead they are just gorgeous and the colors are so pretty. I ended up making waves with argentium silver wire and then adding the beads with Swarovski crystals in violet and aquamarine AB. I actually even made the clasp and hook on this one too. I have to admit that the wave sections were initially meant to be an 'S' section but I used a 2" piece of wire since it was already cut and the wave happened instead. Happy accident since I prefer this look.

So now that I'm not standing in the middle of the road anymore I shall continue to play. Planning on going to the SNGMS shop today and work on some more cabs to wire wrap. I have a rivoli that I have all wrapped but just can't find the right crystals to go with it, so that is one that I have put down and will get back to.

Also, thanks to all for the information about Artfire, I have now opened a shop there, one of the free accounts. So far, it looks like a great place and I'm really hoping it goes better over there. I do think they seem to be more attentive to what sellers AND buyers want from a site. I'll be putting up my Rapid Cart on my blog as soon as I get a few more items listed.

One last thing too, apologies to Jerri over at Gems By Jerri and Wiggy over at Wiggys Musings. Both tagged me and I have yet to get to them. Sadly my anxiety over not being able to figure out what to create overtook me. So thanks to both.

Creative Fork in the Road

The sign should really have 3 prongs on it for this post. Now I'm not talking about a creative block, that would be when you just can't come up with anything. The ideas just don't flow. When I refer to a creative fork in the road I simply mean, I have too many ideas. My mind just can't stop thinking about different jewelry designs. Sure, that could be a good thing but here is why there should be 3 prongs on my fork - do I work on a chainmaille design? or something with wire? or maybe do some bead weaving? OK, so I could do a little bit of all three at once but my anxiety would take over and I'd have to finish one project before I could move onto the next one. I really want to get back over the the Gem and Mineral Society's shop too. If I did that then I could work on some wire wrapping. I have been working on one beadweaving project but it has had me ripping my hair out so I keep having to put it down and then get back to it later. I'll post pics of that one once I get to a good point to show it off. So, do you ever get like this, too many ideas, not enough time or supplies? Or just can't decide which project should come first?

On the other hand, I could be negative and say "Well, the economy stinks, no one is buying much jewelry so why bother with anything". Nah, I just can't do it.....the compulsion to create just overcomes me. Sadly, you could say I'm like the heroin addict looking for their next fix. I NEED to BEAD or make chainmaille. Considering my analogy, I guess there could be worse things to be addicted to.

Now, since I'm on the subject of bad economy and slow sales, what are other Etsy sellers opinion of the site right now? I know they finally caved in on the whole SEO debaucle but I still am starting to feel like it just isn't really a great place to waste my money on, listing and re-listing. I know there are many people who have gone over to ArtFire and I really like the way they look and how attentive they are to sellers but I really can't afford to spend $12 a month to list all my jewelry with no guarantee of any return. I suppose if I was working, then I might consider it. I've been told they have a free account which has a limit on how many items you can list but I can't seem to find any information on how much the fees would be if I did sell something. I even asked Artfire John over on Twitter and he just referred me to their unlimited $12 a month plan. I don't think it is too much to ask to be able to try it out. Obviously if I were happy and selling then I would upgrade to the other account. I did see someone had on their blog the PayPal widget which looked pretty cool. It certainly would cut out the middleman and no more fees other than PayPal's. Any opinions on all these sites and where to sell?

Hobby Versus Obsession

I admit it, I'm obsessed with chainmaille. Most of my jewelry designs revolve around it. I do have a hobby though, well, really a few but this one is what I do second most to chainmaille. Bead weaving. When I have my moments where I can't seem to come up with a design using chainmaille then I pick up the seed beads and weave. I have quite a few bead weaving projects that I have started when in a chainmaille funk only to put them down to get back to the jumprings. I will eventually get back to them but for now they sit waiting for me....patiently.



Every trip to the bead shop ends up including seed beads of some kind. I just can't resist them, all those gorgeous colors and shapes and sizes. Well, I usually end up with some shade of pink or green since those are my favorite colors but I have been trying to curb that and go for other colors. Of course bead weaving isn't always just seed beads, you have to add some pearls or crystals too. Take the blue and topaz necklace above. That middle bead is a rivoli from Swarovski. It has no hole and you have to bead around it. So much fun to play around with colors and designs. Again, I have about 5 rivolis sitting in my bead stash just waiting for me to come up with some cool way to play with them. I have another that I have already finished but haven't actually attached it to anything yet. I'm thinking of making it into a cuff, sort of like a corsage. So that is one of the reasons why I decided to start adding some of these items to my shop on Etsy. I know that the Etsy Beadweaver's Team aren't going to be running over to ask me to join and that is fine. I could never compete with those designs they come up with. I'll just stick to my hobby and work hardest on my obsession.