Chandelier Crystals

I'm so lucky to have a BFF like Carmen. Look at the gorgeous chandelier crystals she gave me. I've got enough to make several necklaces and I know if I beg and put the 'hang-dog' look on my face and make her feel sorry for me she'll quite possibly give me some more.

I've used a very dark gunmetal grey chain and some small leaf connectors to join it all together and the combination of dark chain and twinkly clear crystals looks so good together.

But alas, it was very hard to photograph.

A large teardrop crystal that I wire wrapped and threaded onto a small piece of chain and then attached it to the main necklace so it has a bit of movement.

I've listed it in my Artfire store along with a couple of other pieces.
A busy weekend coming up, 2 engagements parties, my weekly visit to mum, and hopefully a little bit of time spent at my desk with some new beads to play with.

Laughing...and not all the way to the bank.

See the photo above....it's a gorgeous necklace made by Lorelei Eurto in a book called Chain Style by Jane Dickerson. Fabulous book full of gorgeous contemporary jewelry using lots of different styles of chain. So I was browsing through it the other day for the millionth time as is my want, trying to get some inspiration and to get out of the black and silver rut that I seem to be stuck in of late and this particular necklace by Lorelei spoke to me and thought I'd use it for inspiration.

This is what evolved.....ha, ha, ha, I'm laughing just looking at it. It's a dogs breakfast! You can laugh too....I won't be offended because it's really awful. Nothing sits right, the balance is all wrong, and frankly it's just terrible.
Ok, that's enough laughing now, stop it....see, now coffee is coming out of your nose, serves you right for laughing so hard at my expense. Snicker all you like, I'm just being brave and showing you that not everything turns out how you expect it to and sometimes things just don't work.....at all....and you'd better go back to the drawing board and hope that Lorelei never sees it!
Where's the chain I here you ask, well if you must know I forgot to add it.....ok?
But seriously if you want to see some stunning pieces of wearable art got to Lorelei's blog and be amazed.

Cup Cakes, Leftovers and Lost

It's our son's 28th birthday tomorrow and I got the bright idea to make cupcakes thinking they'd be quick and easy and I'd have them made quicker than you can say"what-a-stupid-idea-and-you-know-you-hate-cooking-and-what-were- you-thinking". If you could see my kitchen you would probably pass out. How I get in such a mess when I cook is anyone's guess. After scrabbling around in the pantry trying to find patty pans, sparkly sprinkles, and the like, then trying to locate the cupcake pans and then mid beating one of the beaters fell out and cupcake mixture splattered everywhere, then the spoons I was using to fill the patty pans fell in the mixture..... I could go on. Anyway they're cooked and now I just have to ice them and see what kind of a mess I can get into again.
I made this with the left over beads that I stamped from the previous post. Lots of different beads, wire wrapped some of them and just did simple loops for others.I was really pleased the way these stamped beads turned out.
Some freshwater pearls.
Little silver charms.
It's designed to wear with the toggle clasp in front.
One good thing came out of today though. Last night while watching the second last episode of Lost, my eyes were so sore, it felt like I had the whole of Scarborough Beach in them and when I woke up this morning I couldn't open them properly. Damn, conjunctivitis and I had just been to the doctor the day before for a flu shot and I knew I would never be able to get back in to see him today. So I went to our local chemist all prepared to beg him for some eye drops and we'd sort the prescription out later with the doctor to be told as of the 1st of May you can now buy drops for conjunctivitis over the counter without a script. Yay. How hard is it to put eye drops in your own eyes? I kept missing my eye.
I'm going to miss Lost even though it was the most confusing, convoluted series in the history of television series. Are they in heaven or hell, is the past, present or future, how come Hurley never lost any weight, Jack and Clare related? and is Loch a good guy or a bad guy, I always liked Loch, he had a lovely crinkly smile, I don't' know.....even though it was confusing I never missed an episode.

Sunday's Child

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day is bonny and blithe and good and gay.
Are you all exhaling a big sigh of relief that this is the last day? I am. Hard going posting every day.These last two necklaces are still in production. Kinda, sorta, maybe.
Just trying to tweak the closures a bit for a better and surer clasp.
You know how it goes. They look so much better than the photos.
The one below is my favourite.
Gorgeous latte coloured lacy material with a pearly sheen to it.
It will look good with this winter's colours. I've noticed lots of shades of grey in the stores.
So now for a giveaway. In honour of my mammoth week long posting I thought I'd say thanks for stopping by. But you have to work a little bit. Don't worry, I won't ask you to be a follower, but your more than welcome. I like to think people follow because they enjoy my blog and not for the lure of bright sparkly things.
Leave a comment telling me what day you were born on and if you could have dinner with one person in the world who would it be.
Winner get's to choose any piece of jewelry from any post between Monday and Saturday, (Sunday's not included as I'm still tweaking).
I'll put the names in hat next Sunday and draw out a name. (Don't think there's any need for Random.org).

Saturday's Child

Saturday's Child works hard for a living.I think most of us work hard for a living, unless we're one of the lucky ones with a job that we love passionately and live to work. I'm afraid my job is a means to an end. More beads!!!!!! Although I do enjoy my job. It's varied and no two jobs are the same and I get to work with a bunch of great ladies and meet some wonderful and interesting people from all walks of life.
Something I've learnt from my job though, is we all work hard just to buy more stuff! Too much stuff really. Some of the homes I go into, whether it's to pack or unpack are bursting at the seams with goods and chattles and they always ask (sheepishly) if this is the most we've ever seen. Mind you I'm just as guilty as everyone else. We just like possessions don't we, whether it's so many clothes they won't fit in the closet, or owning every conceivable kitchen appliance known to man, or a million little figurines that have been collected over the years or so many toys they could open a store.....don't get me started on the toy thing.

After every job I always promise myself when I get home I'm going to start culling. Be ruthless, get rid of anything that hasn't been used for two years. Set up a culling station, 3 cartons, 1 for charity, 1 for the tip, and one I'm not certain about. Streamline, pare down, cleanse.......but I just don't seem to get around to it, plus the fact I'm usually so tuckered out when I get home it takes me all my energy just to cook dinner. Maybe next week.
I'm a bit late with today's Post. The day just got away from me.
And this afternoon I was experimenting with a new design that I've saved for last. Tune in tomorrow and there may be a giveaway........just because.

Wednesday's Child

Wednesday's child is full of woe. When we were small and our mum used to say this poem to us, I was always glad I wasn't born on a Wednesday. Silly really, it's just a poem.Woe is me because I'm rushing off to work in 30 minutes.
So this is a very short post.
Woefully short!
Cloudy quartz.
Several beads on this that I don't know what they are......woeful.
Gun metal grey flower connectors.
Butterfly charm.
Freshwater pearls.
Two different types of silver base metal chain.
All in shades of light blue and grey.

Tuesdays's Child

Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Well she's just going to grow old gracefully.She's gracefully accepted the fact that she will never be able to buy clothes from the Myers Miss Shop, or Portmans, or Witchery, or Kookai.
She will accept the fact that she's resigned to Cameo Loretta (they have lovely cardigans!!!!!) and......gawd......Millers (at least their size 14 is an actual size 14) with grace and dignity.
At least she can jazz it up a bit with some cool jools.
Copper embossed links.
14mm Resin Shell lentils.
Not sure what the others are as they came from Bali with no description.
Copper coloured spacers.

We're Having A Heat Wave

I've been awake since 4.00 am and it's now 3.00 pm and I don't think I'm making much sense. Last night was out hottest night for 40 years. Yesterday was 37c and today is going to be 39c (just quietly, it feels about 45c at the moment) and the overnight temperature didn't go below 28.8c. I'm so sick of the heat.

So in the wee small hours of the morning because the heat had woken me up so early and I couldn't think of anything to do, I took photos. The light wasn't very good because at 4.00 am it's still dark you know, in case you were wondering, for all those people who sleep the sleep of the dead and wake refreshed at 7.00 am and ready for the day.
Antique silver connector thingys, clear faceted glass bicones and smoky brown faceted glass bicones wire wrapped and acrylic clear flowers. Matching earrings with small crackle glass beads. Don't usually make matching earrings and necklace and don't really know what possessed me to. It's the heat I tell you!!!!! It's turned me into a walking blob of boob sweat and sauteed my brain.
Anyway I quite like the necklace, it has a vintagey feel to it.
In case you hadn't realised............I dislike the heat......intensely.

After Five Cocktails

I've gone all 'after five' and 'cocktail' of late. A bit girly and glam. This is a choker style necklace with silver and dark grey pearl beads.Cocktail
With a rather large round faceted glass bead to sit right in front.
With another of my black floral magnetic clasps to tie it all together. (love those clasps)
Had a few pearl beads left over so I made bracelet and mixed in some matt black onyx beads. I like the mix of matt and shiny.
Added a little silver filagree charm.
Sandrine
This bracelet is threaded onto beading elastic.

While my good friend and work colleague Joanie and I were driving to a job a few weeks ago she was commenting on my 'Why' necklace (she lets me navigate now because my new GPS who I've named Rhonda, as in help me Rhonda, speaks to us in a lovely Australian accent and never gets us lost) and I was saying I was bit annoyed at myself because I haven't developed a style. I'm doing all sorts of things from glam to grunge and everything in between. But she made the point that it's not such a bad thing because while I'm doing all these different things I'm not limiting myself and each different style I try I'm learning something. Wise Joanie......she has a point and she's not afraid to voice it.

Now my BFF Carmen has demanded I start naming my pieces. Gawd.....that is so hard, trying to think up names that suit the pieces and somehow make sense. I have a hard enough time trying to think up blog titles. Carmen I'll do my best!

Grunge and Glam

Not a lot of creating this week. After having DH home for six weeks he finally went back to work on Monday( hooray) and then had Tuesday and Wednesday off (darn) then I had to work the next three days. So thing have been pretty quiet on the jewelry front. But I did manage a couple of things.

Decided to play around with some fibres and see what I could come up with. Back in my art journalling days and an attempt at book binding with Vivian I had large hank of recycled silk ribbons that I had bought from her. Not sure if she is still selling them but you could ask. So this is what I came up with.

Plus I wanted to use up some of my extremely large scrap booking stash. This is a little metal tag that I stamped over with black stazon ink.Some of the links and chain are recycled. I wire wrapped the ribbon onto jump rings and then attached it to the chain. Also wire wrapped different areas of the ribbon just to give it some interest.
This was I think, supposed to be a ribbon slider, so I laid it over a jar and bent it slightly so it had a very slight curve and then decided it needed something in the middle. Fossicked around in my drawers and came across a bag of metal letters the exact same gun metal grey colour and thought, bingo, perfect. Now I know you're thinking to yourself why? why did she use the word why? Just another of those serendipitous moments I had. When I tipped the bag onto the table W,H,Y, were the 3 letters on the top. Also I had been watching (more listening than watching) a movie a couple of days previous with Cybil Sheppard (teribble actress in my humble opinion) about a mature age student going back to college and having to share a dorm with a girl young enough to be her daughter. After they got over their initial dislike for each other (it was all very predictable) the girl bought Cybil a long sleeved black t shirt with the word WHY in big white letters across it. So that's how the word WHY came about.
Added dingle dangles and different bead combos and here it it. My grungey "WHY" necklace.
Now here's the glam one. Small recycled white glass beads with a large black lucite flower from the Beadin Path and a black floral magnetic clasp from Spotlight.
Took so many photos to try and get a reasonable shot of this necklace.

Hopefully next week will be quieter and I can create away till my hearts content. That's after cleaning, washing, cooking, shopping etc. etc. etc.

Dull as Dishwater?

Made this the other day but I think it's a bit dull. Needs something to make it pop a bit I think. Four different types of bronze chain twisted together and looped in the middle, some beads that I added very small wooden spacers to, some little round cream beads with a bronze coloured swirl on them, a few pale fudge coloured crystals and a little bird charm.Probably wasn't the best background to lay it on.
A close up of the flower connector and the toggle clasp.
Look at these two. Aren't they the best advertisement for Mac's. Brighita on the right and her friend Julia. Planning their Europe trip for the middle of the year.
What's this I hear you ask? Well it's a prototype of something I'm hoping will turn out ok. Check back over the next few days and see if I succeeded. Keep your fingers crossed.
If you'd love to win a a beautiful piece of jewelry head on over to Dawn's blog and enter her competition. It's easy as leaving her a comment and you could be a winner. Competition ends on 31st January and there's 3 chances of winning, if you leave a comment on her blog, twitter and face book.