It's Do-Over Time!

A tiny bracelet becomes a necklace and some earrings. 

Several weeks ago, I received this bracelet, made with pink dyed shell buttons, seed beads, and some tiny multicolored beads including some turquoise ones. Jeannie Dukic of JKD Studios and Whee! The People sends these pieces to us so that we can change her older vision to our current vision. 

This bracelet was tiny, and I spent quite some time trying to figure out something new and different I could do with it. 

I used the pink buttons with some tear drop shaped seed beads, and the tiny cream colored seed beads from the original design.  The pendant and the tear drops came from a strange, unfinished looking necklace that I bought at a yard sale. The seed beads at the back of the necklace just happened to match very well. 

And then, there are these earrings: 

You can see the turquoise beads and the yellow beads from the ends of the bracelet, which complement the big wooden fish, from another old necklace. I beg to be forgiven for originally thinking the fish were hedgehogs. 

This was probably my hardest Do Over challenge. It was just so darn small. I could see the earrings right away, but the rest, I had to really use my brain, to avoid making the same piece over again. I hope that you all like my work as much as I do in the end. 

Here are the rest of the participants in this year's challenge:

Jeannie K Dukic

Penny Houghton

Donetta Farrington

Louise Glazier

Molly Alexander

Veralynne Malone

Becky Pancake

Shai Williams

Renetha Stanziano

Rebecca Ednie

Beti Horvath

Focus on Life: Color - Twilight Time!

Looking around to find how colors change as the light fades. 

Our prompt this week for the October Color theme, is "The Color of Evening, or the Golden Hour."

I took a ride, going the "long way" to pick up my daughter from work. 

Here is what I found. 

What looks like a heavy industrial area is really just the roadside next to a transformer station. Interesting silhouette. 

I love the look of the evening sky on the still water of this pond.

A church in the fading light.

Detail of th light over the church door, the color boosted a bit in PicMonkey.

What have the others found while waiting for the light to fade? 

An InLinkz Link-up

Focus on Life: Color - Macro photographs!

Finding the real colors and textures around us....

This week, our Focus on Life prompt is to find interesting macro shots to share with you. 

Fall creates many changes around us, and many are small things we just walk right by.

I just looked around the fading garden pots by my door step.

A late broccoli sprout.

Cinnamon basil.

Flower of pink stonecrop sedum.

Center of a rudbeckia flower - I didn't even see the web until I got this on the computer.

Another rudbeckia, from the top this time. 

Sempervivum. This live-forever plant was almost killed by our cold winter last year!

I loved discovering the details we usually miss as the weather has it's way with our plants. What else do we have to look forward to? 

An InLinkz Link-up

Focus on Life: Color - Color Photography

Sampling the colors of fall.

October is here! Hardly seems possible, but the trees are turning, and color rules the day. But before the obligatory leaf peeper shots (and they are magnificent) take a look at the cauliflower I got at the farmer's market.

Our theme for October is Color!  It's everywhere this week, but I was particularly impressed by the maples, and this wonderful vegetable!

Purple Cauliflower
It never looks better than this!

I love the leaves in mid-change!

Luminous color.

Outside the u-pick place, the apples aren't the only red around!

What other colors have our friends discovered?

An InLinkz Link-up

Focus on Life:Simplicity - Hands

I win, Hands down!

Here I am at the computer for the first time in a few days, happy to feel the motivation to post this. A little later than I usually do a Focus on Life... but I'm here. 

So our prompt was "hands" which was great, since I was suffering from a fever, and was feeling so bad I couldn't go out and find a photo to feature here. But my hand you get to see. 

Hope you can tell I am feeling better. Not 100% yet, but good enough for this. 

Can't wait to see what other people hand us!

An InLinkz Link-up

Focus on Life: Simplicity - One

When one is the essence of simplicity.

The Focus on Life monthly theme of "Simplicity" is carried on by this week's prompt "One." 

Of course, while I like the idea of using a picture of one of something...I couldn't seem to choose only one picture, so here are my three choices. 

The tree is growing out of the chimney of one of the old factory buildings featured here last week. That makes it one thing, right?

One tree coming out of one chimney

Queen Ann's Lace. One blossom. Or... well, this close up, it certainly looks like the compound flower it is!

One Queen Ann's Lace...or is it? 

One pontoon boat sitting in a field. 

One boat. Looking a bit lost. 

Let's see what others have found.

An InLinkz Link-up

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!