Sue Beads

Today is also the reveal day for the Component of the Month over at Art Jewelry Elements !  This month, Kristi Bowman Gruel provided us with gorgeous copper components.  You can get one in her etsy store! I made beaded beads to go with the bracelet bar - this is is my new obsession!  They work up quickly and can be made in any color combination!  Originally I was going to make a necklace with it, but my idea required the holes to be more toward the top of the bar.  So, I made a bracelet instead!   Here's my finished bracelet!  I really like it.  I used the seed beads to match the beaded beads.  I covered the crimp beads by the bracelet bar with the copper heishe beads, but couldn't figure out how to do it with the crimp beads by the toggle - if anyone has a good idea, let me know!  The only thing I'm not thrilled about is the toggle.  I had another one by Shannon of MissFickleMedia but couldn't find it anywhere... ...

Andrew Thornton hosts a monthly book club called Inspired by Reading.  He picks books and we read the section and create based on our reading!  Although I've been able to read only one book (and it was good) so far, this time Andrew was nice and provided me with a selection from this month's book, "My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales" , edited by Kate Bernheimer - basically adult fairy tales!  The story I chose was First Day of Snow by Naoko Awa, a Japanese fairy tale that borrows elements from folktales about disappearance. This story is about a girl who finds a mysterious round hopscotch trail and takes it for what seems like miles and miles.  She finally sees snow and hears a rhyme; it's the bunny rabbits, appearing as snow to take her away from the world and turn her into a chunk of snow.  The only way she can get back is by chanting a rhyme about spring and a mugwort leaf. My idea for the necklace was a white bunn...

Diana Ptaszynski ( Suburban Girl Studio) is hosting a blog hop today - Halloween/Day of the Dead!  I have to admit that I had loftier plans than what I ended up making.  I bit off more than I could chew this past weekend and while we did get two of my new windows installed and all of the stuff in the yard cut down and a big plant moved etc. etc.  I did not get to make what I wanted.  But here's what I did make. This cute little necklace was made from a charm I picked up in a little antique store in Bedford, PA.  It looks like one of those vintage Halloween cards - below the the back of the charm. I also made these pumpkin earrings, complete with emerald green seed bead stems!  These were made with a pretty yellow color enamel powder on clear glass.  I kind of like how subtle they are! And since I didn't get to make anything else, I thought I'd show you some eye candy  - my collection of halloweeny/day of the dead beads! Below is ...

Over at Art Jewelry Elements, we continue to have our twice monthly earring challenge reveal.  I have been a bit busy, under the weather, etc. to keep up, but this time I posted 4 pairs of earrings to our board!  Here they are! These earrings are made with my own lampwork headpins, and pink quartz heishe.  I also made the niobium ear wires myself.  I was hoping they would solve my ear wire sensitivity issue, but they did not. I guess I'm just going to have to wear 14k gold.  Boo hoo! These earrings were made form cute little charms by Mary Welsh Hubbard (White Clover Kiln - I love her beads!) and my own swirly lampwork beads.  Still not sure about the color combo - think I need to go with more pinky/purple than aqua. More earrings with my own lampwork headpins and czech faceted rondelles!  I really like these! Finally my own lampwork headpins with some beads that were called "titanium hematite" by the vendor from whom I purchased them ...

This post appeared Tuesday on AJE Blog. Cindy Wimmer (author of the new book, The Missing Link) and Jeanette Blix (owner of Fundametals) are the co-creators of ArtBLISS, a weekend retreat in Sterling, VA.  ArtBLISS was created four years ago to provide three days of fun, jewelry-related classes to all of us arty-types!  I had the pleasure of attending the first, second, and fourth (this) years. Art Jewelry Elements was represented at ArtBLISS this year by Melissa Meman!!!! Karen Totten, Jenny Davies-Reazor, Diana Ptaszynski and me!  Diana Jenny  Me I took two classes this year: Thin Gauge Sheet Metal Workshop by Stacie Florer; and Worlds of Color Polymer Clay by Christine Damm. Stacie is a delight as a teacher, and Christine is so enthusiastic about polymer it's catching!  I had a lot of fun - I have not really worked in metal before like this, and don't do much with polymer either.  I wanted to expand my horizons! ...