Pin

Embroidered pin with fringe. From a pattern in a Jewelry Crafts magazine, early 90's.

My Jewelry Box: Part 5

A couple more necklaces.
This first one, is made from African Christmas Beads and random left over seed beads. It is supposed to look very random. I know some artists/beaders don't like a random look, but in this instance, that is exactly what I was going for.
In the second picture was the first thing I ever made with furnase glass beads. These are pretty simple for furnase glass. I've purchased a few more that have several colors.
The circle bead is loose, and there are two strands of seed beads. I made it to be versitile, and you can actually wear it backwards, and have the circle bead on the seed bead strands. I don't usually wear it that way.

My Jewelry Box: Part 4

Some Sets.
Here are a few examples of me making earrings to match. One of my favorite things is to have everything matching. I'm so nerdy that way. The first, purple and turquoise polymer clay barrette/earrings. Next, a cool Celtic kind-of spiral charm I fell in love with, so had to make a necklace out of, and matching earrings, with grey stars on the earrings. Last in this picture, is the other very time consuming beaded loop barrette I made, this one with danglies. I love wearing this one. I don't love the earrings I made to go with, but only because they are post. Maybe I can remake them on fishhooks.

My Jewelry Box: Part 3

The hair clips.
These are mostly made from Fimo, there's one very time consuming beaded barrette. Most of the Fimo/polymer clay ones were made from left-over canes after projects. One is from a pin I made my father, one is from a set a co-worker bought for her niece. Hm, don't have pictures of those projects, just the left-over barrettes. ;p
The moon and stars one is an experiment with glow-in-the-dark clay. The moon and stars glow.

My Jewelry Box: Part 2

Here are my stretchy bracelets that I have made for myself. I have also made plenty for other people, and I don't have photos of all of those.

A few of these are color cordinated to match specific outfits or sets of earrings. Some are just made in my favorite color schemes to match several outfits.

My Jewelry Box: Part 1

Here are several pairs of earrings that I have made over the years. Some of these match outfits, or skirts specifically. I like to make jewelry to match skirts, and then the jewelry should match whatever top I wear with the skirt.

Cute!

Surfing around I found these cuties.

And Whack Yourself

Another awesome creative tool is a Whack on the side of the head.

Follow Your Bliss

Here's a cool spinner to give you ideas to help you follow your bliss.

Lighter Cover: The Idea

I've been trying to figure out a bead/jewelry project to make for my brother's girlfriend. She has great, colorful tastes, but doesn't wear earrings at all or much, which would be the easiest, big colorful thing I could make her, so I keep thinking...
A fellow beader at work showed me a book she had purchased on Native American designs and beadwork. One thing it had in it was a bic lighter cover made in gourd (peyote) stitch, in a couple designs, one being a nice thunderbird. I made some notes from my friend's book (I found the cutest little notebook that looks just like a composition notebook, and I carry it in my beading bag) and I think this is what I'm going to make her. I don't want to do a thunderbird for her, though I might another time, so I was looking around for ideas, found some finished for sale here, and some fimo covered ones here. (again, saving the fimo covered idea for another time). One of my favorite bead pattern web site had these patterns, but I really want to design something myself. She's an actor, and we love drama in our house, so I'm thinking I'll do a comedy/tragedy mask design. She wears a lot of black, and loves bright and sparkly colors, so I'm thinking black background, probably matte black, with shiny masks. I know the masks are traditionally connected or right next to each other, but I wonder if I could put one mask on one side and the other on the other. What do you think?

Paint Yourself Silly: My Cup and Saucer

Side 2
Unfortunately, the saucer broke about a year ago. It stuck to the bottom of the cup, just long enough to be hovering over the hard floor when it came un-stuck. The big pieces were saved to use in mosaic someday.

Paint Yourself Silly: My Cup and Saucer

Side 1
I made this cup about five years ago, as part of my "art-at-work" project. My plan basically is, since I usually do office-type of jobs, to not forget my artistic side while I'm in my cube. Having this beautiful cup on my desk, drinking out of it every work day, has been a great way to keep my creativity alive while in the tan and beige world of work.

Paint Yourself Silly: With Friends

Here in Lincoln, we have a do-it-yourself ceramic studio called Paint Yourself Silly (they don't have an individual site right now, but here's the overall CCSA site. You pay by the piece you're making, and by the hour for the paint. They offer parties and camps, a punch card, and helpful, friendly folks. The first time I went, I got two work friends to go with me, and theses are our creations.

Star Necklace Close Up

Star Necklace Final

The necklace I had for measurement comparison was 18", so I planned 4 1/2" of plain seed beads on each side, with seven (odd number for better artistic balance) alternating colored star drops, each about 1" (or 16 size 11 seed beads) apart. I doubled the thread, slip knotted and extra knotted it to one end of the clasp, strung all the beads, and tied several knots at the end. I glued both knots with the model airplane/fake fingernail kind of glue I use on all bead knots.

Star Necklace Part 3

I have some magnetic clasps that I thought I'd use for this project. At first, I thought I'd use bead wire for the necklace itself, and bead thread for the dangly parts, but I realized that bead thread throughout would hang better, and it would be plenty strong if I double threaded it.

Star Necklace Part 2

I knew I had some blue stars, and hunted for some pink stars, which I thought I had mixed in with random pink glass beads. I also thought I had some blue seed beads that would be almost the same color as the blue stars, but I had to hunt for those. I finally rounded up all the beads I needed.

Star Necklace Part 1

I showed some friends at work a beading projects book my mother gave me reciently, and Becca picked out this one, with stars. She brought me a necklace of hers that is just the right length, and gave me her color choices, blue and pink.

Duct Tape Hat

This was one of those projects where I just wanted to see if I could do it. I found the alien lamp had the same head size as me, so I used it as a base to create the hat. I wrapped a couple pieces of tape sticky side out around the fullest part of the head to start, and went from there. I wish I had taken some 'in process' pictures, because I don't remember exactly how I did it.

Beaded Lamp

This lamp is a good example of buying something that's already nice, and beading it even better. It origionally was just the grey thick wire, and had two glass leaves attached by much thinner wire, that promptly broke off. I decided to fix it up, and just covered the wire with glass pony beads using small wire. It's beautiful now.

Musical Amulet Bag

OK, the bag doesn't play music.
This is a photo of the first amulet bag, made with gourd (peyote) stitch, that I completely finished. I designed it using a computer bead design program. The inspiration was my choir director, I wanted to say thank you to her for all her work, and show her how much she means to me. The notes are actually the first line of a song that was one of our favorites at that time, I don't remember now what it was called. The photo's not that great, the background is cream, the staff is burgendy, the notes are blue. The blue is carried to the fringe with glass crystal beads, and the bottom of the fringe is freshwater pearls.