Month: May 2012

Ok, you never see this! And you may never see it again! Today is Erin Prais-Hintz’ Challenge of Literature Blog Hop Day. And I participated! But I didn’t only do one project like I usually do, I did two!

My first project was based on the book Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.  I know, it’s not a new book.  I only just found the series, though, and I love them!  I am Scottish, and love all things Scottish (especially a Scottish accent – when I read the book, I imagine Jamie’s voice – *chills*)!  The button I used as a closure is a Scottish thistle, of course.  I used purple waxed linen cord to highlight the purple in the button, but also because it’s the color of Royalty, and in the book, the Scots were fighting for their freedom from England.  I also used pearls because of the pearl necklace Jamie gave Claire.  This was the first time I tried doing this bracelet, and let me tell you, it’s addicting!  I’ll be doing more, for sure, but want to use my own buttons at some point!

This second project was based on a quote from The Wizard of Oz.  The quote is as follows:

I asked the lovely Miss Erin Prais-Hintz to make it for me, because i wanted to make something for my boyfriend.  The Wizard of Oz is his favorite movie of all time, and purple is his favorite color.  I wanted to make him something that had those elements, and let him know how much he is loved.

I hope you had fun looking at what I made.  It may take me a couple of days to get to everyone’s blog, but I will!  I can’t wait to see what everyone made! 

You can see what everyone else made by checking out the list below!

Sorry I’m a day late, the winner of the rondelles from my Rondelle Challenge Mini Blog Hop is Elisabeth!  Wooty woot woot!  Contact me with your address, girl, and I’ll get them right out to you!  Thank you to everyone who commented!

This month’s Art Bead Scene Challenge is The Italian’s House by Maurice Utrillo. I actually completed my piece before the deadline this month! I can’t believe it! I always say I’m going to, and can count on one hand the number of times I actually got it done!  I really like this painting – I have never heard of him before, but I enjoy the painting!

Today is the day of my Enameled Rondelle Challenge Blog Hop! Yep, the same day as Amy’s. Oh well. Hope you read both! I had fun with both challenges, and I hope you enjoy reading about them! I chose 5 people to receive a pair of enameled rondelles, in a random color, and their job was to create something with them!  I made earrings, of course, because I was on an earring roll!  And I like them for earrings!  But I’m sure someone will not make earrings!  I can’t wait to see what they all made.  Here, I made earrings two ways.

For this pair of earrings, I wrapped the rondelles like you would a briolette.  I had a little bit of a hard time with this, because I have been having what I can only guess are pre-menopausal moments lately, and forget how to do things.  Ugh.  Anyways, I wrapped the rondelles like briolettes, eventually, and attached them to a dangle made with this gorgeous faceted yellow agate teardrops.  If I made them again, I would add a little heishe on either side of the rondelle before I wrapped them!  For a more finished look.

This second pair, I turned the rondelles in the other orientation, and added some greek ceramic gears, silver heishe, and silver beads.  I like these, too, but you can see the rondelle better in the first orientation.  I think either one is great, though, and I hope you like them too! 

Please check out what these lovely ladies have done with the rondelles that I sent them! 

If you leave a comment here, today, I will enter you to win your very own pair of enameled rondelles.  I will choose the winner on Tuesday, May 29th about 8 pm!

Amy Freeland of Copper Diem came up with this great idea of a Cocktail Hour Blog Hop! She assigned us each a cocktail and our task was to make a piece of jewelry inspired by that cocktail! She assigned me Pina Colada!  What a fun drink!  Here’s what I made.

First, a little history.  The pina colada was apparently created on August 16, 1954 by Ramon Marrero, who worked at the Caribe Hilton Beachcomber bar in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Um, I already want to go there, just from the name of the hotel!  Pina Colada is Spanish for strained pineapple.  It’s a rum-based cocktail (and rum never gets me in trouble!!!!!!!!!!!!) made with rum, coconut cream and pineapple juice.  Usually, it’s served blended with ice.  It is the official beverage of Puerto Rico!  Coco Lopez (I’m sure you’ve heard of that before – THE coconut cream) was invented especially for the drink. 

Another fun story of the invention of the Pina Colada is that a pirate named Roberto Cofresi gave his crew a pina colada type drink, in the early 1800’s, to boost morale.  Apparently the recipe was lost with his death in 1825.  Rum was very popular among pirates, as you may know.  There is an island in the caribbean named Dead Chest; supposedly the song “15 men on a dead man’s chest, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum”, refers to this island.  Pirates would leave their crew on Dead Chest, with rum to make them drunk so they wouldn’t realize they were being left until it was too late!  However, I digress.

You may know the song “Escape” by Rupert Holmes, that annnoyingly gets stuck in your head and you can’t get it out?  It is commonly known as the Pina Colada Song (do you like Pina Coladas?)! 

So, my inspiration is the color of the drink, the cherry on top, and the fun colorful flowers and dress of Puerto Rico!  I think my earrings captured the drink pretty well, what do you think?

Check out everyone else’s blog to see what their drink was, and their inspiration!

I haven’t felt too lucky, lately, with all the house expenses I have been having, and I haven’t been feeling too cheery. So imagine how happy I felt when I learned that I won Mary Harding’s button giveaway on her blog!  I love Mary’s work, I have several of her gorgeous toggle clasps and I covet her pendants, with their natural flower and leaf sculptures on them!  I am hoarding the toggle clasps for just the right thing!

Look how Mary wraps her packages – it’s like you get a little bonus pendant.  This little heart charm is simply charming! 

Mary always attaches her work to little cards, that have their description on the back.  It’s a lot of work for her, but it’s that attention to detail that makes Mary’s work extra-special!  I won these two buttons; I love the floral button and the sculpted texture is amazing!

She also made this gorgeous copper button, and I had to show you how she attached a connector on the back, so it can be used in many different ways!  I hope you go and visit Mary’s blog, and you can also visit her etsy store as well!

The beautiful Kristi Bowman of Kristi Bowman Design makes some of the most wonderful copper components. She announced a contest and picked several winners to receive a pair of copper end caps and make something from them for the blog hop. I sadly was not one of those people. However, she had extras, and if you wanted to purchase a set, you could join in as well. I wanted to, so I did! I love her work – I have lots of it.  She gets some really beautiful colors from her copper.  Below is the multi-strand necklace I made.  At first, I thought about earrings.  Obvious, to me – maybe too obvious, but I can see myself buying more of these to make some earrings!  Then I thought bracelet.  But I really really wanted the copper end caps to show, so I decided to make the necklace!  First, the things I like about it!

1.  The idea – I love the idea of connecting multi-strands with a looped wire and pulling it through the end cap so you can’t see the way it’s put together – it looks so finished.  There are 7 strands on this necklace.  2.  The end caps – they are so beautiful and I chose all the seed beads to pick up the colors in the end caps (the beads are not yellow, they are a goldish color, but are showing up yellow because of the lighting).   3.  The somewhat choker style – long enough that you can see the end caps, not too long to be annoying!

Things I don’t like about it – 1.  Even though she gave us tons of time, I ended up doing this at the last minute because I had to order a lot of the beads and they took so long to get here, plus my house is a torn apart mess (although hopefully that will change next week!).  2.  The twisting – it just isn’t working.  I need to figure out a way to twist it more, before you put it on, so that it stays twisted.  Does anyone know how to do this?  3.  I did not have time to LOS the copper I used to connect all the bead strands, or the jump rings or clasp (I did make the clasp and I like it).  I will have to take it apart to do that, but wanted to get this post done!  4.  The photos – taking photos at 9:00 on Friday night just doesn’t work!  Not enough light.  5.  None of my beads are in the piece – I made two I wanted to put in, and the darned things turned two different colors in the kiln.  That’s so annoying!

Please stop by and see what everyone else has made with their end caps – I can’t wait to see!

It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted a Bead Table Wednesday!  Today is Wednesday, right?  There’s so much going on here, I don’t even know what day it is half this time.  This is a little sneak peek at what I am going to make for Kristi Bowman’s Bead Cap Challenge.  It’s on Saturday – stop back to see what happens!

Neutrals 1 Sold.
Neutrals 2 Sold.Blue 2 Sold.

I have twelve orphan strands for sale – they are all first quality beads, but have been sitting in the bead box (and bead bag, and bead room, and on the table, etc!) for too long!  Plus, I need to pay for my sewer problem!  So I am offering them here for $30 a strand, free shipping!  I will send you a paypal invoice – just let me know what strands you would like!  Also, the second Blue should say Blue 2 and not Blue 3!  Just tell me Blue 2 and I’ll know what you are talking about!  I can’t fix the darn picture!

The sweet Cindy Wimmer of Sweet Bead Studio hosted a Button Swap Blog Hop and today is the reveal!  If you recall, my partner was Rebekah Payne; she makes gorgeous polymer clay goodies and you can find her blog here and her etsy store here!  She sent me two buttons she made, and a button from her grandmother’s stash and a ceramic button.  I knew I had to make something from the buttons she made – after all, they were so darn wonderful!  I chose to use the red one first.  I really love it so much; I walked around with it, letting it tell me what to do. 

It came to be that it needs to be a bracelet because it’s on the smaller side and I wanted it to be the focal.  After much futzing around, I came up with this design. I used black onyx rounds and some gorgeous red faceted rounds – I don’t know what they are, but they are some kind of gemstone and they are fantastic!

I had to figure out how to handle the button to make it the focal of the piece.  I didn’t want to take away at all from the focal, so I inserted a piece of silver wire through the button holes, and created wrapped loops on the back of the piece.  Is this what you would have done?  I’d love some comments about this!  I do have some other ideas for the other buttons, particularly the ceramic one and the rainbow one she made, but with my house being a torn apart mess right now, I’ll have to wait a bit to make anything else!

Thank you for visiting my Button Swap Blog post today!  There are lots of people to visit, and it’s going to take you a while, so get going!  Here’s a list to help you out!  Thanks Cindy Wimmer for hosting this!