Earrings

Baubles & Backgrounds

~ Michelle ~ 8 Comments

Do you see my new blog format? I’ve been doing a little work on it in the past week. I’ll share more on that later in the post.

This week I was playing with beads again. It was time for a new Medical ID bracelet for me, and for a friend.

oldMy friend had purchased this bracelet, but as you can see, after wearing it for well over a year, she needed a new one. The coating on the Swarovski pearls had worn off. Now, she wears her bracelet all the time – in the shower, swimming – she doesn’t take it off.

I’ve used Swarovski crystals and pearls in the past and they haven’t done this, but I haven’t put them through all that hard wearing either. I take my bracelet off daily.

The new bracelet I made her is in the above photo as well, but here’s a better photo:

new over oldThe new bracelet is over the old one. It looks much better. Classic design and lines. It’s lovely. I just might need one too.

While I had all my jewelry-making supplies out, I decided to make myself a bracelet. I love turquoise in the summer but didn’t have a Medical ID bracelet in turquoise. I do now.

bracelet

The center three stone beads aren’t turquoise, but are the same stones I’d used in some earrings – dyed Imperial Jasper. The bracelet also has some lovely Sterling silver spacer and feature beads. I’ve been happily wearing it all week. My earrings, below, show you my matchy matchy. I made these last year.

blue earrings

Other than playing with beads, I mentioned I’ve been playing with my blog format. Do you like it? I love it too. It looks so clean and crisp.

Sadly it took more time than I would have liked. I’m not the most technical person, but I’m learning! Just to give you an example I took a full day to redirect the traffic from my old blog site to my new one. After spending time researching, trying something, it not working, more research and more tries… well, I found out I couldn’t do it myself. WordPress had to do that. It was so easy after I pushed a button and paid them a very small and very worthwhile fee! Done.

After redirecting, I spent some time taking photos for my background. I’d found a lovely lace background that I would have had to pay a terrible price to use – way more than real lace cost! Hmm, time to get some lace out.

Here are a few of my attempts before I found just what I wanted:

sparkle ivory over gold

This is a lovely lace, but I wanted more in my background than just lace. The lace background was my original inspiration, but now I wanted more of me in it.

horizontal black white and gold over goldThis is my kind of lace. This is so beautiful, but I found the black a bit distracting as a background when I was trying to read the text. As much as I loved it, I thought a little less just might be better for a background.

photocopyThis one was a lot closer to what I wanted and what I felt represented me. But It wasn’t quite perfect for me yet. For my final background, you can see I kept my pearls and added my thimble. Perfect!

Happy creating!

A Lot More Jewelry and A Bit of Handsewing

~ Michelle

I have been busy, but not a lot of sewing is happening. My classes have picked up and I’ve had four classes in the past week and a half. Seeing I only have three scheduled a week, I’m doing really well.

One of the classes I teach is Introduction to Wire Wrapping. Basically I teach my students how to make earrings. Here are some of my earrings from this week’s classes:

Imperial Japser and Swarovski earrings

These little charmers are dyed Imperial Jasper and Swarovski crystal earrings. We actually made three pair of earrings each at this class. We had fun!

Jasper and Imperial Jasper earrings 1

And these are my favorite from the class. We used the same stones, but made two or three  different charms to hang from the earrings. They look close enough that they match, but aren’t exactly the same. They look and feel very fresh.

Jasper and Blood Stone earrings

And similar to the last earrings, but these ones do match. I made these Matte Jasper & dyed Dragon Blood stone earrings to match a necklace and bracelet set I’d made.

Matte Jasper and Dragon Blood stone stretch bracelet

Here’s the matching bracelet. This is part of my Bead Stringing/Memory Wire class. I teach the students how to lay out a pattern and either put it on memory wire or elastic. This bracelet is on stretch elastic, so very comfortable to wear, put on and take off.

And just in time for the Christmas holidays, I’m including Wine Charms in my Bead Stringing/Memory Wire class. Here are a couple of the charms I made this week:

Wine Charms 1

Aren’t they adorable?

And I’m really enjoying some hand-sewing lately. And working with felt. I loved making those pansies I made, and wanted to make some more felt brooches. I found a wonderful Craftsy class called Fab Felt Holiday and made the Poinsettia brooch on there. That’s for my Mum, but my DH saw it and wanted one too, so I made him one too.

Poinsettia pin

I was quite pleased with how this turned out, but think I prefer something a little smaller.  This is quite large. Probably 5″ in diameter. And I think I’d like something a little more abstract looking.

I love the colors in this felt flower, so may make something along these lines in an abstract poinsettia.

And finally, my craft/sewing room… I did get my cabinet, and it fits exactly where I wanted to put it. I haven’t done much more to organize my space. I have felt, stones and a few bra patterns and one bra cut out – all sitting on my desk. I do believe I’m going to get a lot done in the next day or so though. We’re supposed to get 15 – 30 cm of snow in the next 24 hours! I will NOT be going out if I can help it. I will spend a nice warm day in my creative space and get it organized and start putting that cloned bra together.

Happy creating!