Felt clippies

I've finished a whole three clippies for the girls. Look out! I'm on fire! :)

Here they are in chronological order, left to right.

They are getting better. The 1st one is not great, but it still looks cute in Lydia's hair. I'm getting better cutting out the teeny flowers. I got a new pair of teeny, pointy scissors...I hope they will make cutting easier next time.

After I choose the felt colors I let the girls pick the shape they want, and they pick the seed beads. And they crowd in around me to watch me stitch and drive me nuts. So it's a group effort. :) I'll slowly make more to match their wardrobe.

Dead guy in resin

For a first attempt at a new idea I'm quite pleased! It went way better than my attempts at encasing clay in resin a couple years ago. :) It's not quite worthy of this many photos...but my new camera is so easy to shoot macro I can't help but share.

The clay bezel was a tedious pita to make, but I like it!

I epoxy'd on the bail and covered the back. Couldn't resist the mica powders.

The pendant is fairly small. Isn't the iridescent purple glitter pretty?! In person it sparkles like crazy. Love that! The skull is much smaller than the beads I sell on etsy. His eyes were a pita too...but I like them! :) The tiny star beads were a last minute addition. Are they too much?

Jack-o-lady pin

At least I think she's a lady...she's wearing a sparkly, frilly skirt of a sort. :)


This pin idea creeped into my mind two days ago. I woke up at 3:40am and never went back to sleep. So I had plenty of time to think that morning.
Her hat and her legs went thru a couple incarnations before I liked the end result. Initially her legs were long, tube shaped PC beads. And the hat was embellished with a seed beaded flower. Ironically enough the PC and the beads switched places in the end.

I don't even wear pins, but I want to keep this one. I really like her!

Pumpkin Puppy Pin

Yesterday I woke up about 5:15 and could never get back to sleep. So I had lots of quiet thinking time before the kids woke up. Halloween was one of the many things on my mind, and I pictured this little guy as a fun, holiday pin. In my mind he was dressed up as a jack-o-lantern for Halloween. In reality he sort of looks like he's hiding behind a pumpkin. :) But nevertheless I think he turned out pretty cute.

He's very petite. Only 1 3/8" tall. I'm sending him to my Mom. She's all about the dogs. And since I didn't jack-o-lantern the pumpkin he's more of a Fall pin instead of just Halloween. More wear time!


And in unrelated news: The baby name pool is dwindling. We're talking about Amelia and Sophia. Middle names of Rose or maybe Anne. We also considered Audrey for a day, but it doesn't go with the flow like the other 2.

Halloween Treasury

I was fortunate enough to get a treasury spot today. Since my most fav-or-ite holiday is fast approaching, I decided to spotlight Halloweeny items. (plus it's a shameless plug for my skull beads) :)

It was HARD to only pick 12 items. Etsy is full of spooky goodness right now. I would decorate my house in Halloween themed folk art year round if I had the money!
Please go check it out if you have a few minutes to surf:

More bird legs

The turquoise pair of birdies was so fun I had to see what they would look like in other colors. I got busy making all the little birds without considering...how many stinking bird legs I would have to make! LOL!

It was fun bringing each pair to life though. Seeing them together as a group really makes me smile. :) Obviously I don't need 7 pair of bird earrings...so I'm going to get busy taking individual pictures and adding them to the etsy store.

I have almost used up all my sterling earwires. Time to order more. It's been years since I've had to buy jewelry making supplies. No joke. Several years ago I stocked up really well for craft shows and then I stopped doing the shows, so I've been slowly using that up. Ideally I should sell a few things first before I spend...but what fun would that be?! LOL!

New Ronit Golan canes

New Millefiori Canes
Originally uploaded by Ronit golan

Ronit Golan is one of my favorite clayers. In my next life I want to have an eye for color like her. :)
I was excited to see she's working on new canes for her summer collection. Keep an eye on her flickr...I see beautiful beads on the horizon.

Bird Legs & new video

Take a look at my new favorite creation:

Aren't they cute?! I just adore them. The little wire legs swing independently of each other for some fun movement. I'm going to list them in the Etsy store (as soon as the camera batteries charge and I get a couple more good pics) but I think I need a pair for myself also. :)

I've been busy making my skull beads again. Halloween (and with it Halloweeny jewelry!) is just around the corner! Last year, September was a good month for selling my skull beads. But this September I'm going to be a liiittle bit busy. (with the newborn baby and all) So I'm trying to get a jump on things and I'm listing them now thru August. Or until baby arrives, should she decide to come early.

Anyway...I also made a little show n' tell video about the beads. And it accidentally turned into a little mini tutorial in the middle of the video. I get lots of questions about how to poke holes in raw beads without distorting the bead shape...so I went into a little detail about how I do it.
So here's a show n' tell AND mini tute video. It's been a while!

Catch of the Day Necklace

Is this a revisited or repurposed idea? Actually it's an idea triggered by some the kids' toys and an old BOH idea. :)

Once upon a time I had what I thought was a fantastically fun idea for a BOH. It involved a couple of little sculpted fishies, a cat, resin, and various other cute things. Everything was going great with the project until the resin. (I had bubble trouble.) Long story short: resin problems and my children and life in general kept postponing my finishing the project and I missed the deadline.
Here are a couple pics of the original cute critters:


So this week I merged the old with the new and came up with the Catch of the Day necklace.


I so enjoy fun, not serious pieces of jewelry. :) I think it even qualifies for the current Art Bead Scene monthly challenge. Summer vacation makes me think about camping at the lake and fishing. Now granted we've never caught any fish quite this colorful, but everything looks whimsical in my imagination.
I currently have it strung on a buna cord necklace, but I'm thinking about changing to a simple seed beaded necklace. What do you think?

Summery sherbert donuts?

Obviously I could use some help naming these new earrings. LOL!

I think I'm going to play around with this design a little more. I like all the color possibilities.
The teeny little donut beads are a custom mix of translucent clay with inclusions. I originally made a couple larger beads with the new mix, but sadly the "quirky new shape" idea was a flop. But the inclusions really showed up nicely in the larger beads. Maybe I'll try it again for some pendants.

Anyway...I like it when ideas come to life. And I love bead clusters! I was letting the girls play in a box of old craft show jewelry leftovers recently, and I discovered some of my first cluster earrings. I was making trendy bead cluster earrings many years ago before they were all over Etsy. Go me! LOL!

Actually, I've been sifting thru lots of old jewelry and beads lately. I had forgotten that once upon a time (before internet surfing) I had lots of cool, unique jewelry and bead design ideas. The old stuff is pretty crude but the design ideas are there. I want to start revisiting those old ideas. It could be fun.

Took the camcorder plunge!

I am soooo excited!! I just ordered a new camcorder! Wheee!!! I've been nagging Aaron for 4 years about getting a new camera. We've comparison shopped (in the stores) several times and always walked away frustrated and totally confused. But I recently decided to stop putting it off (and complaining about not having one) and spend time properly researching and just buy one already.

The last time I bought a camcorder was 10 years ago. Oh my it's complicated nowadays! LOL! After weighing the pros and cons of mini dvd, hi def, mini dv, hard drive and all the options that go with....we decided to get a hard drive camcorder in the form of the Sony DCR SR85.


After I spent several days researching and learning about the camcorders, I spend another couple days reading reviews (and watching prices) on various stores featured on PriceGrabber. I just placed a phone order with Abe's and got a fantastic discounted price as well as a free camera bag and free shipping. (The free bag was only possible with a phone order.)

I'm so excited! Now, the free shipping option is for slow ground shipping but I can live with that. But still...I can't wait to start stalking my kids like the Mom Paparazzi! The last time I got quality video of them Emily was a wee baby. My Mom will have to buy some sort of DVD rolodex to keep all her home movie DVDs I'll be mailing her. :)

Crimp Impaired

It would seem that I have forgotten how to use crimp beads. I am so frustrated. Granted it's been a couple years or more since I made crimped jewelry, but it's not rocket science. I seriously can not get one single crimp bead to crimp. (I cheated with the watercolor bead bracelet and only 1/2 crimped the ends...and the bracelet is slowly loosening b/c of it.)

At some point during our many moves in the past 4 years I have lost my old pair of crimping pliers. My trusty pliers that crimped a bazillion beads and made a 1/2 bazillion pieces of jewelry. Recently I bought a pair of inexpensive replacement pliers at Hobby Lobby. But I'm still using up silver plated crimp beads I got long ago from Fire Mtn. (I think.)

I believe the el-cheapo pliers package said they worked with 2mm or smaller beads. My beads are 2mm.

My problem is in the 2nd squeeze where you fold the bead in half. When I make the 2nd squeeze the bead gets pushed back open instead of folding shut. I have tried finessing it closed at several different angles but it never works. I NEVER had this problem in the past. Did I get a bad pair of pliers? I wondered if the U-channel is not deep enough. But I'm beginning to think it's just the operator and not the tool.

I even had Aaron give it a try. He had the same problem and decided the beads were too big for the pliers. Since he manipulates metal for a living I kind of trust his instincts. :) But here's a picture to let you see the size of the bead in the pliers:

(click to make bigger)

What do YOU think? Since the beads used to serve me well, do you think it's the pliers? What pliers and crimp beads do you use? I'd really like to hear what you think.

Bracelet for Mom

I made some prototype beads a couple weeks ago. It all started with one little sculpted bead that I planned to make a mold of. I did not get a great mold made so I started using the bead as a stamp. The first stamped prototypes were in earthy browns. (I didn't like them.) So I opted to try black with orange. This way IF they turned out cute, my Mom could get a new OSU bracelet out of the experiment. :)


(It's hard to photograph a floppy bracelet that doesn't fit my own wrist! I took a dozen shots and these 3 were the least sucky.)

Originally I had planned on a simple, casual, stretchy bracelet. Then I decided to try and dress up the beads with lots of silver. I didn't have any silver beads that thrilled me, so I pulled out the wire.
Overall I like the bracelet. It's totally swirly and that always pleases me. But I am concerned with how well it will wear. I was going for low-profile and comfy for typing/computer work. There is a lot of tangle potential with all those S-swirls and jumprings though...so only time will tell if my guinea pig, er..Mom, finds it a comfortable piece of jewelry.

Have I mentioned I'm not a jewelry designer?! I'm a bead maker. I suck at designing and engineering finished pieces of jewelry. I just don't *see* it. (I can't decorate my house either!) So I will probably try more of the little flower beads with different bracelet ideas. Probably. Well, maybe. I've got a brand new page of idea sketches sitting on the clay table that are begging to be tried. (ADD strikes again!) :)

New treasury

I happened upon a treasury spot today. It's been ages! I had no themes in mind, so I went to my favorites and just started picking. Which was harder than I thought it would be.

So...would you like to have a look and do the clicky-clicky thing?! :) You might find something you just gotta have!

Skirt buttons, round 1

A few months ago I found Emily a cute, denim skort at a second-hand store. It looks new except for one missing button. (there are 3 total) I knew right away that I would make 3 new PC buttons for it. I mean, WHY spend 5 minutes on the button isle at W@lmart when I can spend days or weeks experimenting w/PC buttons, right? :)

Recently Mossy Owl blogged about all her fabulous new button creations and it inspired me to finally stop procrastinating and make those 3 buttons. I decided on light blue buttons that I would white wash. I wanted cute but understated so that the skort could be worn with any color shirt.

I really like the buttons, but they don't look good on the skort.

The white wash didn't work for me either. So that had to go. But the buttons came out really cute, I think. I may put them in the Etsy store b/c I don't sew, so they certainly won't get used at my house. LOL!

First soldered pendant

I have a tendency to 'jump in the deep end' when I try a new hobby. When I first picked up polymer clay I did so with the intention of making caned beads (for my hemp jewelry). So I picked up a copy of Nan Roche's book on ebay and with my SIII I made a ladybug cane.

Actually, I think I made a spiral jellyroll cane first. But this was my 2nd cane ever, so I didn't wade in the kiddie pool for long. :)

My first seed beading project was the same way. I went to the local bead shop and bought Creative Bead Weaving, a bunch of delicas, and went home to make this square stitch bracelet.

I even drew my own geometric patterns on graph paper and used my original pattern. That sucker took me forEVER. I never wore it. It's way too big for me. But I keep it for sentimental reasons. :)

Now for the subject of this post. My latest *buy a book and attempt the hardest project* project. LOL! The lupin pendant from Silver Threads.

It has been complete for several months now, but just today I saw it and decided to photograph it. It's not bad for a first big soldering project, I think. I made a little faux stone cab for it. Today I realized that I need to sand and buff the cab more. It's not nearly shiny enough. But the mica powders still give such a cool iridescent effect.

I have not glued the cab into place yet. As a matter of fact, it fell out several times while I tried to take pics. I may make a totally different cab for it yet.

The pendant is 2 1/8" tall by 1" wide. Do you think I should oxidize it?

I'm saving up my pennies (a.k.a. Etsy sales) for a tumbler. Once I buy one I will try more solder projects. I'd like to get it for polishing AND strengthening the finished pieces. Until then I think I'll just stick to my trusty clay. I'm getting too fat and pregnant to be jumping off the deep end right now. ;)

Rainbow group

Rainbow group
Originally uploaded by ~Christie

I've had these guys sitting on the happy table over a week now. I think I'm the slowest clayer ever. LOL! Didn't I say, not too long ago, that I was not making lady bugs anymore? They are so cute I couldn't resist. Besides, I *cheated* by painting on all the spots. I still made 24 tiny white clay balls and 24 minuscule black clay balls for all the eyes. :)

All these little guys are going to be new sets of stitch markers. They should make the etsy store nice and colorful!

Rainy days and Mondays

I almost waited too long to make this post on Monday. The afternoon and evening just got away from me.

Anyway, here's a new pair of earrings appearing in the Etsy store today.

This is one of those rare times the creation materialized almost exactly like my mental image. Woohoo! :) I really like these earrings. They are shiny and sparkly and whimsical but not too weird to wear. At least not in my opinion.

While I made them I kept humming Winnie the Pooh's song...oh I'm just a little black rain cloud hovering over the honey tree. Except I sang blue instead of black. :) It was after I'd grown tired of that song that I started humming The Carpenter's song. LOL!

I used some of the fabulous glittery white Fimo in the blue mixture. (I think ALL colors of clay should come in that fantastic glitter version. I love that stuff!) I love the glitter but Fimo Soft is like working with butter. So frustrating. If I ever make more cloud earrings it will be w/out Fimo Soft.

The swirly cloud design is a revisited idea. A little over a year ago I experimented with fun wire and TLS to make this magnet for a weekly Claypen chat.

The clouds and the rainbow are just TLS inside wire borders. Then I raised them off the yellow background with tiny clay spacers. In real life it gives a nice 3D effect. Anyway, I like the swirly cartoon clouds. They are a reoccurring doodle in my idea notebook.

Leafy stitch markers

I rediscovered these leaf canes in my cane box and decided to reduce them and give them new life as stitch markers. I so enjoy leaf canes. I'm sure it has something to do with my love for trees.
You know, the blue and purple leaf canes were an unfinished idea of mine. (90% of my ideas end up that way) I had planned to make a cane of each primary color and make a rainbow tree! Except it was going to be this elaborate 3-dimensional sculpted tree. *sigh* It has the potential to be really cool...if it ever comes to life someday. :)

Ho.Lee.Cow.

How long has it been since I've blogged about anything polymer clay related that I created?! A long damn time! LOL!
I did not blaze any new PC trails but at least I MADE something. :)

A custom set of stitch markers for a very sweet and patient Etsier. I had forgot how tedious those bugs are. Those teeny tiny black balls required for all the spots. They are like large grains of sand. Ho.Lee.Cow.

Here is a pair of earrings I made last week. An extremely belated bday gift for Mom.

Seriously belated. Her bday was February. LOL! I had made her a soldered pair of earrings that looked really cool in my mind...but didn't quite cut it in real life. These look so incredibly cute on Mom. The size and dangle factor are perfect for her cute head.

This will be my first and last crafty post for a while. Today I'm packing up the Happy Room. :( May 2nd is our move-in date at our new house. It's killing us to pay $350 more a month to rent about 700 fewer square feet of house than we live in now BUT....it's in the school district we wanted and the overall package is really nice. So we'll deal w/the pocketbook pain for now. Plus it had a dishwasher! I've been w/out dishwasher since October. So I'll enjoy that for sure.

So.....I'll still be "around" but not for a while. I'm checking my google reader when I can, so those of you with blogs may see me pop in now and then. Later taters!

Tiny heart bead

I found the mysterious missing bead pictures!

Three bead pics, as well as the girl's pics, were stuck on the camera. My usual view the folder and download process was hiding them. Aaron tinkered around until he found another default windows program that did the trick. My hero! :)

See...I told you they were tiny! They were magic jumping beads as well. No joke, I dropped every.single.one. I made. That was a frustrating butter fingers sort of day.

Question: Do you think I could enter the black and red bracelet into Art Bead Scene's "Chains of Love" challenge this month? When this bracelet came to life I thought it would fit the theme. But then I got to thinking it's not "chainy" enough. Not to mention these meager little beads might not qualify as art beads. What do you think? I'm thinking NO. Or am I being too literal? I'm a totally literal person....I don't think outside the box and interpret very well. :)

Old idea meets new beads

Ok, so it appears noone particularly cared for the green stretchy netting. LOL! That's ok. I know how pretty it is in person.
I finally finished the 2nd bracelet that incorporates my clay beads.

I'm guessing this will be the one & only. The beads are tiny! I had taken a cool picture of a heart perched on my fingertip, but for some reason it didn't make it to the memory card. (This has happened a couple times lately.)
After straining my eyes to make the teeny beads I got to use the thinnest beading needle EVER to sew them on. The seed beads are already full of stretchy cord, so I used a glorified splinter (aka the needle) to carefully slide through. I must say though....I had forgotten how awesome Nymo thread is. That stuff is tough!

So, there it is. (I think) it's cute and the possibilities are endless. But it just takes too long to make. The little ADD monkeys in my brain nearly slit their wrists waiting for me to finish this one!

p.s...If you didn't already, click the pics. They look better full size. The 2nd pic shows the sparkliness of the silver lined red beads.

Revisiting an old idea

Several years ago (it was 2004...I just checked...time flies!) I sold a handful of beaded stretchy bracelets on ebay. At that time I was seed beading and I was very fond of the netted patterns. I had made myself a couple netted bracelets with closures, but I wanted a casual, tighter, stretchy one! So I sat down with my favorite seed beading book, a pencil & paper, and worked out how to adapt my favorite pattern into a continuous stretchy bracelet.

I tried several color combos which resulted in the ebay items. But my ADD kicked in and I never made any more. Until a couple weeks ago! I wanted to do something creative, but I didn't have the "umph" to move my grumpy ass to the Happy Room. So I decided to revisit the old bracelet idea. I can sit on the couch, under a blanket, and bead a little at a time. :) I made this pretty green one first:

I don't know the exact color name of those green seed beads...but they are luscious. They always make me think of a forest. More specifically the lush, rich, fern abundant forests we used to hike in Washington. God I miss it there!

ANYWAY...that bracelet was fun so I made another. And I managed to incorporate some tiny little clay beads with it. Score! :) It's not quite finished yet. But I hope to be sharing pics of it soon.

Bday gift that wasn't

I did not get Mom's bday gift started soon enough. I need more than 2 days to make a jewelry gift. I'm slooooow.
Anyway, I had an idea for some dangly earrings but they did not materialize as pretty as they were in my head. (which is usually the case with me I'm afraid) My metal work needs a lot of work. And the shape is just not....right.

They are still nice dangly earrings, but I don't look at them and think, "Ooohhhh...Mom HAS to have those!" Here are 2 more shots:

What's could be improved? (besides my soldering LOL!) Should I have NOT hammered the twisted wire? Maybe the swarovski crystals are too formal for the casual wire? Less glitzy beads perhaps? Maybe I should oxidize?
I think the loop for the center dangle needs to be smaller. Let me know what you think!

The big oval started out as a perfect oval, but I changed it to be longer and top-heavy like it is. I'm just not a good designer. I don't have "the eye". I'm beginning to think artsy fartsy is not my calling in life. I can do the fartsy part with no problem...but I seem to fumble on the artsy part.

Baby steps

I actually MADE something! Woohoo! How sad is it that I'm excited over 6 little headpins? LOL!

A nice lady ordered these stitch markers last nite but needs them on larger rings. I do not have split rings in the larger size so I made xtra long headpins to use instead. Now I will change out the remaining beads, package up the goodies and head to the PO.

They are a tiny little accomplishment but still an accomplishment. This is the first time I've been to the Happy Room (and sold anything) in 3 weeks. Maybe it's the nudge I need. ....I certainly hope so. :)

BlogExplosion

Does anyone else use BlogExplosion? I signed up via a link on a friend's blog, thinking it would be a good way to bring traffic (and hopefully etsy traffic) to my blog.

I signed up on January 7th. 10 days later my account is still "waiting for approval" by administration. The website says it normally takes 2 or 3 days. So on January 16th I opened a support ticket and asked about it. Curious if it meant my blog was NOT approved. Today it is January 29th and my account has still not been approved and my support ticket has not been replied to!

So I'm wondering....are they always this useless and stupid? There's nothing quite as annoying as being totally ignored, ya know? I have 3 children that can do that for me. I don't need it from total strangers.

I'm still alive

My how time flies when you feel like crap. :) Remember me mentioning the "prozac for preggos"? Well it made me siiiiick. Like can not get off the couch I'm so nauseous kind of sick. Plus insomnia! All last week I could not function during the days and could not sleep at nite. It was greeeat. Needless to say, Saturday a.m. I had had ENOUGH. I called the after-hours nurse and asked if I could stop taking the meds. (You are supposed to be weined off SSRI meds.) Luckily I had only taken 5 so the doctor said just stop them. YAY!!
Saturday I started feeling better. By Sunday nite the grumpy bitch monster was back. BUT! I can function again and do the things I need to do each day.

I have not been in the happy room for about TWO weeks now. This is a picture of the last thing I worked on. I made 2 sets of my tile heart beads that got so much positive feedback. These new beads are a simpler version. No mica shift this time. I made pink/black and red/black. This picture is the red. (The picture stinks.) I took step-by-step pics in hopes of doing a narrated picture video tute. Alas, that didn't happen. The beads have been baked, partially sanded, and sit on my Happy Table collecting dust. So much for a timely Valentine's day addition to my etsy store. :o{

This picture makes me giggle. I did not realize, until after downloading the pictures, that I was holding the blade upside down. DOH! :)

Colorful new treasury

I've been trying and finally snagged a treasury spot today!
Once again featuring "fewbies". Which is my word for shops with few or no sales. (Newbie is not always an accurate word, ya know?)
Please visit it and click on the photos. It helps promote the shops. And who knows...you might see something you can't live without! :)

P.S...if YOU are a fewbie and would like to be featured please leave me a comment or send me and etsy convo. I'm always on the lookout!

The GIMP

No, I have not fallen and injured myself. I am referring to the graphic editing program.

Now that we have the new laptop, I can't use either of my antique editing programs (PhotoImpact 5, Paint Shop Pro 5). I was researching it yesterday and decided I wanted to try something free before spending $89.99 on a new version of the old favorites. So I downloaded GIMP. It appears to be one of the most downloaded and user preferred free programs out there. But man oh man...it's not like anything I've used before.

I spent probably 30 minutes last nite and then another 45 this morning just trying to edit ONE picture. OY! Now it's nearly 8am and my kiddos will start waking soon and I've not made it to the Happy Room yet. :( Anyway...back to GIMP. I think once I get my Gimpy groove on it will be a suitable program for me. Since I don't design web graphics anymore I only need it for editing photos. It crops, it adjusts colors, it sharpens, and it saves. That about covers it all for me! LOL!

Here's my first successful GIMP edit. A big, fun, chunky ring that will go in the Etsy store later. (as soon as I can edit 3 or 4 more pictures of it!)

Later taters! :)

Juliespace

Create Mosaic Pendant
Originally uploaded by juliespace

I mentioned um...weeks ago that I was going to blog about a newly discovered PC artist. Well here I am finally DOING it. I'm looking back at my flickr mail right now...I discovered Juliespace on December 5th. Boy I'm a slacker! LOL!

Anyway! I noticed Julie's mosaic jewelry first on flickr. I enjoy how she uses the clay WITH other types of items. Very nifty stuff.
She also makes these happy flower spirit sticks that make me smile. As well as! Recent additions of neptune and green man pendants. She doesn't have just one "style" which I always enjoy. I *heart* eclectic. :) I think you'll enjoy her flickr or her etsy shop.