A Little Necklace Therapy

Working with my wonderful prize!

Recently the Art Elements Blog hosted a giveaway, and I won, I won, I won!!

Here is the wonderful pendant created in ceramic by Kristie Roeder.

The colors are so vivid, it was hard to capture them with my little camera, indoors, at night. 

Here is the necklace I created with the pendant, using a bunch of glass beads from my stash. 

I didn't want to get too fancy. Had to let the pendant be the star!

Oh, no, a thief!

My cat Merry trying to steal the necklace. 

Thank you to the folks at Art Elements for sponsoring the giveaway . Here are the other designers!

Guest Designers:
Sarajo Wentling
Lola Surwillo
Beti Horvath
Kate Kemp
Art Elements Team
Susan Kennedy
Lesley Watt
Claire Fabian
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Jen Cameron

Jewelrymaking!!

One fabulous pendant and a Do-over challenge. 

This first piece is  pendant necklace special ordered by a customer at a craft show, who wanted something to go with a new pair of hand crafted earrings she had bought elsewhere. 

This is what I came up with. 

Final piece

Full necklace before
adding the Hope charm

Closeup of original pendant

My customer thought it looked great, save for one little thing. "In a perfect world," it would include the word "hope," somewhere. 

I got in touch with Amanda from RococoRiche, and she made the lovely little charm you see in the first picture. I think it turned out to be a great addition. 

As for the Do-over, Jeannie Dukic is having her Eighth Do-over Challenge. She sends the participants a piece of jewelry she made years ago, and we play with the components to see if we can make something more pleasing. 

 This bracelet is my challenge for this round. Tiny beads and these cute pink buttons. October 18th, a completely new piece will debut here!

Beads for Blogging: The Pendant Has Landed

At Long Last....

I have finally finished the pendant necklace I have been working on using the beads provided by Tania from Fusionmuse.

Oh my, did I overthink this one. But then, Isn't that the source of our "creative blocks?" Oh well, there's really nothing to do but try to relax.

The Stash:

The initial attempt:                                                               Closeup of the pendant:

The finished piece. 

Now, That wasn't so hard, was it?

I hope to do a little more with the rest of the beads, but for now, this is my offering for "Beads For Blogging!" Thank you Tania!

Free Beads for Blogging: Status Report

Part 1

A Serious Challenge

So, to refresh your memory, here are the beads I received from Tanya:

I have been staring at them, playing with them, trying to wrap the tear drops (disaster) and trying desperately to use things together. Not working. So, I said, "What do I have that will compliment a fall spectrum bead like the Japa Mala beads?"

Turned out it was a glass pendant I picked up at the Flea Market a few weeks earlier.

So  far, I have only used one Japa Mala bead, and a head pin, along with the brass wire to create this pendant. I'm not sure if the chain you see is going to remain part of the design. But it's a start!