Magnetic Serendipity

Of late I've been having trouble with closures on bracelets. I don't know, maybe I have weird wrists or something because I can't seem to get the different methods to work for me.
Parrot or Lobster clasps like the one below are very problematic for me. I either need to grow an extra arm or have double jointed thumbs, neither of which are likely to happen, so I always have to get someone to do it up for me.
Toggle clasps pose another set of problems. I like to wear bracelets fairly snug on my wrist and usually they seem to be a bit tight for the toggle and clasp to work how they are supposed to.
So I decided to try magnetic clasps and I think I'm on to a winner.
A couple of nights ago I "whipped" up this bracelet without giving the design too much thought and just grabbed beads, strung them together quickly because I was impatient to see if the new clasp would be ok. The next morning I was looking at it and...... Holy Mother of Elvis would you look at that....the magnetic clasp and the silver bead have an almost identical flower pattern on them, spooky ha? Now that's what I call a serendipitous (is that even word? must be because spell check hasn't underlined it in red) happening. I know, small things amuse small minds, but I sure get a buzz out of things just coming together like that.
Two necklaces I made over the weekend. New chain with re-purposed beads and charms. The big heart was once part of an earring from the 70's I'm guessing.
Butterfly, round Bali beads, turquoise beads and chain are new and the three amber glass beads top left are re-purposed from another 70's type necklace.
They're both on fairly long chains because that seems to be how the young'uns like to wear them and they are both for my angel baby who turns 26 today.
So I'm off to ice her gluten free chocolate birthday cake that rose about half a centre metre and looks like a big flat chocolate pancake. Oh dear! I'm afraid my creativity didn't overflow into my cooking skills at all. And if your worried she might see her presents before she's supposed too, don't be, she never reads my blog.

Possessed

I was like a mad woman possessed over the weekend. Here's a sample of some of the pieces I made and there's more to come over the next few days.
Sort of grungy with a bit of sparkle.
Look, no green.
This makes me think of caterpillars.
My new lucite black vintage roses that I'm in love with........

.......added to the resin beads I bought last week.

Soft blues, greys and creams.

and a blurry photo.

I Bought Beautiful Beads

When I was at the craft show on Saturday, Wendy from Galaxy beads had a stall set up there. She's such an enabler.....she'd been on a buying trip to Bali and showed me these gorgeous shiny, sparkly acrylic beads. The necklace she had made using some of these beads was divine so I put my order in for some and went and picked them up this morning. Of course the photos never show certain beads to their full gloriousness and these are no exception. Trust me, if you saw them in real life you'd commit a crime to have them in your possession.They look almost like scrunched up aluminium foil set in resin. All you resin renegades out there, maybe this is something for you to try if you haven't already. Actually resin is my next 'thing' I want to try after I try metal work and before I try enameling and several other techniques that have piqued my interest. Not enough hours in the day and dollars in the bank.

These round ones are my favourites.
But I love them all.
Now this is the necklace that got deleted from my last post about my 'antique' finds from Saturday. Very retro and I'm a bit loathe to pull it apart......we'll see.
No cooking tonight, yay. Off to MIL's for authentic Italian food. Eat your hearts out!

It Was a Good Day

Yesterday was a good day! Joanie and I had a four hour unpack south of the river. It's a bit of drive and sometimes we wonder if it's worth it just for those 4 hours. But when we got there the clients had unpacked most of the cartons themselves so there was very little for us to do. So that was the start of my good day.

The next part of our day was spent at the Craft, Antiques and Collectibles Fair at the Claremont Showgrounds.....well it was on our way home.....kinda, sorta, with only a slight detour. We always split up when we get there because we have slightly different interests. Joanie is a quilter and loves all the sewing stuff and I love cruising the bead and jewerly stalls. Then we meet up again, show each other what we bought and then set off again in case we missed something.

Joanie wanted to attend a workshop on re-purposing clothes, so while she was there I wandered up to the antique and collectibles section. I don't usually look there because just the word antiques implies lots of money as far as I'm concerned, but I had time to kill so off I went. Big mistake! Well not really because what I bought was pretty good value, but it just meant I spent money I'm supposed to be saving for our holiday, but what's a girl to do.

Fell in love with this as soon as I saw it. Black matt rose with lime green tiny chrystals embedded into the rose. Very kitschy and only $2.00!
Some art deco black onyx and marquisette earrings. A steal at $5.00.
This one full of beads and metal bits and bobs that I'll cut up and re-use.
More stuff to pull apart. The one on the left is actually a metallic sage green with clear chrystals and the other just more black beads to re-use. You can never have enough black beads in all shapes and sizes.
Now this one I drooled over. They look like birds eggs. White glass beads with black speckles. When I was drooling over it last night I noticed that the black speckles are very easily scratched off, so I'm wandering if I could spray them with some sort of acrylic varnish stuff. Any ideas people? Dawn if you're reading this I'm counting on you for a solution.
Why does blogger delete things for no reason. I had two more photos here and they've just disappeared and they were my favourite finds, maybe I'll save them for tomorrow. That'll mean you'll just have to come back and have a look see.

I'm Keeping It

Just a few pieces I've been working on the last few days. Grungeboard and wallpaper necklace. The focal is just GB that I painted black, embossed with the cuttlebug and then smudged silver rub n buff and attached to a black chain.I really like this one and think I'll keep it.
A close up of the texture.
Three bracelets I made with beads and threading elastic all in shades of black, grey and silver.


I' d actually tried to make a three strand bracelet. What a disaster! So it was pulled apart and made into these. Ya win some and ya lose some.

Earring Experiments

These are an experiment. I bought some grunge paper the other day and wanted to try a few things with it. Because it's a bit thinner than the GB I thought I might be able to eliminate a couple of steps with my wall paper shapes. Normally I cut out the GB shapes then the wall paper shapes and then glue front and back. A bit time consuming, so I wondered if using the GP I could glue the WP onto the front and back of a long strip of GP , wait for it to dry then cut out the shapes with my cuttlebug. It's not bad but the shapes can't be too intricate otherwise the cuttlebug just won't cut all the way through.I don't know where the pink tinge came from because it's silver with a black stripe.
These are another pair of metal Christmas deccies. They were originally gold so I've painted them with black metallic paint and then smudged with silver rub n buff.
Now these are a new thing. My BFF Carmen very kindly let me go through her wall paper sample books. We've both got about 5 books that are the same, but she has a fantastic book with the most gorgeous embossed wall paper. They are all white and the idea is you apply them to your walls then paint them with your chosen colours. So here I've just left them white and smudged over a black stazon stamp pad to pick up all the raised areas. Added some black bugle beads to give them some weight and Roberts your uncle.
I really like them. I think Carmen better count her wall paper books each time I leave her house. If the embossed one is missing..........it wasn't me, OK?

I Hate the Drawing Board

The drawing board and I are on very intimate terms of late. I'm beginning to dislike the relationship that is developing between us and you know familiarity breeds contempt....and I'm very contemptuous of the stupid drawing board. Remember this necklace below, I really liked it , but it just wasn't to be. It wouldn't sit right and after re-doing it about oh.....maybe ten times, it's now become two different necklaces. Just the very sparkly, silvery, glitzy chain with a black chain twirled around it and the mother of pearl flower as a focal.
These were the two beaded chains that were in the original, now they reside together without the glitzy chain and flower. But I don't like it so it will be going on a trip to the drawing board.
This looks ok but the beads are too heavy for the chain so it's off on a road trip with the above necklace.
I like this one, very plain and simple and after re-stringing because I didn't like the colour of the original focal bead (it was a dull matt silver bead) it's done. But does anyone know if you go on a diet do you loose weight from your neck? It's a choker in every sense of the word! I think there's a saying that goes something like, measure twice, string, crimp and add clasp once.
It's just not my week for beading me thinks. Think I might go and play with wall paper and glue and some new grunge paper (as opposed to grunge board) I bought and see what I can come up with.