Trying to feel Fall

I just don't *do* mature, neutral, earthy, Fall colors. But I am trying to step outside my comfort zone of pinks, greens, stripes, and glitter. Well, not the glitter. :)

My attempt at Fallish:


These pendants were experimenting w/artist chalks. Inspired by a tutorial by Tina Holden.


In person they almost look like crushed velvet under glass. It's a happy accident I'm going to play with more!

New antique bronze necklaces

New antique bronze necklaces
Originally uploaded by ~Christie

Trying out some new antique bronze findings. This is way outside my comfort zone! My brain only thinks in silver. :) But I bought the filigree pieces over a year ago and decided to take the plunge and try to use them. Of course I didn't use it as a bead wrap like it was designed. LOL!

I was so excited to find the wings! Winged hearts are one of my favorite things. Again, I didn't use the finding in the way it was designed. I embedded it in the clay.

If you need antique color findings, I highly recommend Steampunk Junk Supply on Etsy. Nice prices, selection, and lightning fast shipping! (my personal favorite)

Olivia

Olivia
Originally uploaded by ~Christie

I started this over a year ago. So today when I started looking for a "first project", I knew I should finish Olivia. :) Except for my terrible sewing skills I think she turned out great! Tomorrow she gets a proper stand.

This time I made clay arms instead of embroidery thread over the wire armature.

Back to brainstorming

Remember the thank you magnets I include in my etsy orders?

I need to come up with something equally handmade and charming, but much less time consuming. The previous magnets include the tedious image transfers, at least 2 bakings, sanding to shape the edges...sometimes they are more labor intensive than the item purchased! So I've been brainstorming. Well....trying to brainstorm.

I adore the idea of clay embellished with beads and/or wire. I think they are a fabulous couple! And you KNOW how much I love black & white borders....so I thought a beaded border would be cute.


WRONG!! Not at all like I imagined. First I tried larger seed beads. Size 8/0's I think. They looked goofy. So here are the 11/0's. I don't like them either. Maybe b/c the magnet is too thick?
It reminds me of one of those rolling hand drums or something. I'm not quite sure what exactly it is...but I don't like it.

BUT!! I got to use the letter stamps I got back at xmas! LOL! Now...back to the drawing board.

The bling bling tree

A.K.A. the super gaudy, collaborative project with my kids.



It's a little topiary made to fit a rectangle spot in the girls' shadow box. It's about 6" tall I'd guess. Originally it was not supposed to be so...um...blingy. But the kids wanted to help me decorate it, so each one got a side of the flower pot.




All the bling is courtesy of my generous, talented friend Scott. Thank you, Scott. :)
As if all the swarovski wasn't enough, everything is glittered from bird to flower pot. Because there can never be too much sparkle.

Her name is Lily

I know this b/c she told me. :) As I was putting the final brush strokes on her face, the heard the name in my mind. Lily. Sounds like I need to open a window and lay off the Mod Podge fumes. Ha!


Lily started out much differently. She changed clothes 3 times. I have a limited selection of embroidery floss and fabric...not to mention I'm color coordination challenged...so the outfits are hard for me!

But I live for the accessories. I had no idea how much I enjoy making miniatures.

I wanted her to hold a caged bird. I even tried to engineer a tiny wire birdcage, but after 2 failed attempts I gave up. I can do flowers! I'm sure noone is surprised to see that glittery flowers grow in Lily's world. :)

1st clothespin doll

I always enjoy my crafty time, but sometimes I just love it. This week I've been working on my 1st clothespin doll. I was originally inspired by Sweet Imaginations and BeezTings dolls on Flickr. Emily & I sat admiring their flickr photos for probably an hour! She was so smitten about them, I knew I had to try making some.

Of course I wanted to use clay instead of wood! :) After trying several different ideas, I re-engineered a spring clothespin to look more like the peg clothespins. (For the challenge, and also b/c I didn't want to load up all 3 girls and drive to Hobby Lobby.) Here she is, standing in the window sill watching today's sunset.


She was so much fun! Her head and hair is all polymer clay. The base is also. I need to work on my face painting skills. Her rosy cheeks turned into rosacea! Her felt dress is dripping with glitter. Girlfriend even has white glittery highlights in her hair! (Which I would totally do if they were a realistic option!)
And her teeny purse....how fun is that?!


I can't wait to make some more! I'm sure my ADD will kick in after the 2nd or 3rd doll...but my brain is bubbling with ideas for at least a dozen more! She will go upstairs to the girls' shadow box to keep the polka dot bird company.

A little birdie

I did not plan it, but this little love birdie arrived just in time for V-day.

I made her to sit in a shadow box in the girls' room. It has several different 'holes' to fill, and I just happen to have ideas for clay creations to sit in all of them. :)

I went glitter crazy. The base is covered in it, the hearts are thick with it, and even the bird's polka dots are glittered. You can never have too much glitter, I say.

The whole thing is just under 4" tall.

In family news:
Garrett is doing splendidly in school, and making new friends (and reacquainting w/old ones). Him going to school outside the home is the best thing to happen. For both of us.
The 2 big girls are trying to be the death of me. I'm serious. I think they are plotting.
Miss Amelia is growing so fast! She loves her solid foods. Baby food, vanilla wafers, Mom's morning malt-o-meal, and anything else we let her try. She laughs and jabbers all the time. She's still the sweetest punkin ever.
Aaron is working 60-75 hrs a week. And 10-15 hrs a week at his own business (fabricating plane parts out of our garage). So we never see him.
And I'm trying to get over a bladder infection w/out going to the dr. (no insurance now) Anyone have any spare Bactrim they want to send me? :) Only joking.

And now I will adjorn to the kitchen and put on my chef hat. I hope you have a tweet V-day weekend! ;)

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.