Friday, February 28, 2014

Jewelry Making Mojo Challenge

Heather Powers of Humble Beads had an idea to get our collective jewelry making Mojos back from where ever they had gone. 

Last week she suggested that we join a jewelry making challenge. That was enough to get me going! This week, she suggested getting together a little "Bead Soup" (a collection of beads, not the organized blog hop) and play with it...hopefully making something. 




I started with some beads from little containers in which I had been collecting left overs and thrift store purchases. I decided to make a style of necklace that I love to wear. 

This one can be worn single as a log necklace, doubled, or wrapped around your wrist as a bracelet! I pushed down my natural tendency to establish a pattern, and made it totally random (except for making sure that the kitty beads were not standing on their heads.) As for color, well, you can find all shades of blue, purples, clear and well, whatever looked good!



Oh, and this last picture is evidence that I really love this style...a necklace that I made years ago, that I still wear! Sometimes you need to go back to your roots!

Let's see how the others are doing in their hunt for the elusive Mojo!

Focus on Life: Checking Out - Macro Photography

The scrutiny of the lens.


This week's Focus on Life prompt from Sally Russick of Studio Sublime is Macro Photo, something we should be checking out this month, which has the theme "Checking Out." So, I decided to check out how one of my hand painted dragon pendants held up to a close-up. 

Here is the necklace, made this summer with one of four dragons I found on sale at the craft store, and painted with Vintaj Patinas and Ranger Alcohol Inks.

Necklace

Complete pendant with freshwater pearl dangle

Dragon!


So that's my macro shot for today!

Let's see what others have done.






Friday, February 21, 2014

Focus on Life: Cabin Fever - Capture Color!

Mastering the art of visualizing something other than white!


This week's Focus on Life prompt from Sally Russick is Capture Color!

Some pink roses found their way into our house this week, via my daughter's workplace that had a secret raffle for a beautiful bouquet. 

Pink has never been my favorite color, but it's beautiful when glowing from these roses!




I love the way flowers sometimes change color as they open. 

Enjoy!

Oh, and while you are here, take a look at the post just previous to this one, another interpretation of color!

We're All Ears

Damselflies in Love
Photo credit: National GeographicYeo Weng Sang

Earrings Everyday is having a challenge. Taking the photo above as our inspiration we make a pair of earrings. That's it.  

This is the kind of challenge I like. Here's what I came up with. 




I love the way they came out. They are made of left over beads from other projects, but that is the nature of  earrings, isn't it? I feel I went pretty literal with this inspirational picture, because I loved it! I tried to pick up the most prominent colors. The main structure of the earrings is fragile looking bead stringing wire in a dark blue color. The beads are a variety of glass beads. Silver plated copper wire forms the wraps on the dangles. 

Click on the links below to see what others have created.



Saturday, February 15, 2014

...And we have a Winner!

As part of my participation in the Grow Your Blog event, I decided to have my first give-away ever of hand crafted earrings. 


I got 17 qualifying comments on my blog post, and I numbered them from 1 to 17. A asked my husband to pick a number between 1 and 17, and he picked number 14. That makes the winner  (insert drum roll here)  Rhonda Walker, from California! She has a delightful blog called Mountain Delights.  I had missed visiting some of my commenters, and enjoyed catching up with Rhonda's this morning. 

I'm sure that now that I have gotten my feet wet, I will be having more give aways in the future. 

Friday, February 14, 2014

Focus on Life: Cabin Fever - A Collage of Love!

So Many Choices!


When Sally Russick sent out our assignment to create a collage representing things we love, I wasn't too surprised. It was a natural for the day after Valentine's Day. But how to make it fresh, and creative? 

I loved Sally's idea of plunking a big ole heart in there, and I kind of had an idea of adding some family pictures....

Ho hum. So I decided to just grab two pictures representing how I love when the sun comes out on a snowy day, and add two of my cats and a favorite beverage! 



So there you have it. Hope your Valentine's Day was sweet! To see what other people love, click on the thumbnails below. 



Sunday, February 9, 2014

Bead Soup Blog Party # 8

Today I signed up for the Bead Soup Blog Party, sponsored by Lori Anderson. If you make jewelry with beads, you really ought to sign up, and try it at least once! But hurry, because signups close at midnight EST today, February 9! 



Friday, February 7, 2014

Focus on Life: Cabin Fever - Quiet Calm



A Couple of Really Tranquil Photos


Sally Russick gave us the prompt "Quiet Calm" this week, for the second week of "Cabin Fever."

Right after receiving this prompt, my area of  New York State got its first really large snowfall. Quiet, it was, calm? Maybe not so much. 

But Friday night, I found these: 

Icicles at night 

Another Angle


Playing


Adjusting the Color

With Photo One