More Bookmarks to Gift

I put together a whole new batch of bookmarks that I've shipped out to my co-workers.  I really hope they like them.

I wanted to get silver ones, but Bead Rock was sold out of silver, so it was either gold or rose-gold.  Gold won out.

I made a couple in black, as I've given them to men.  The white ones are going to the ladies in Winnipeg and White Rock (B.C.), and the rest are going to the ladies in the Calgary office.

This time I used pearls for some of them, and I thought they turned out very nicely!

Egyptian Necklace

I am finally getting around to posting pictures of the Ancient Egypt-inspired necklace I was meaning to make for a very long time.

I ordered the scarab pendant from Etsy, and spent quite a while amassing turquoise, coral, and gold pieces that I thought would be perfect for the final piece. 

It took me forever to sit down and assemble it, but when I decided I wanted to be an Egyptian lady for Halloween, I knew it was time to get to work.

Here she are, all said and done:

Zodiac Keychains

I've been meaning to make a gift out of these pieces that I saw at Michaels, but I've never come up with a good idea until today.  I decided that I was going to buy some Swarovski crystals in the colour of the girls' birth months, add some silver spacers, and make some fancy keychains out of them.  I know everyone has millions of keychains, more than they know what to do with, but these are home-made and I hope that they can make some use of them. 

Here's a picture:

Bookmarks

I bought a few bookmark pieces, and added some beads to them.  The blue one is for me, since I love the blue glass stone in the middle.  The black and purple/pink ones are for my boss and his wife, and the red one is up for grabs, since I made 2 of them the same.

Graduated Shell Chips

Here are a couple of necklaces I made with some shell pieces I bought at Micheals quite a while ago.  They're pretty basic; it's the old string and macaroni technique.  I added the silver spacer beads.  I believe they had other colours, but I liked these two the most.

A present for my cousin.

I made this necklace and earring set for my cousin for her birthday.  She seemed pretty pleased with it.  I thought it came out beautifully, even if the bad lighting and bluriness in these pictures don't do it justice.  I really need to find a better way to do this!

They were done with clear, black, and smokey gray glass beads, and gunmetal-coloured findings.

Some news.

I've made a whole boatload of earrings to sell at work (some models you've seen before, and some new) and I promise I will post pictures of the newer ones very soon, before I bring them in.

I haven't been up to much else jewellery-wise, because it takes a lot of time that I can only give on weekends.  I wanted to take my kit with me when I went to Blue Mountain for a few days, but I probably would have only had time for it for one day even there.

When I get time off in the summer, I hope to get some more stuff done.  I have been stocking up to make an Egyptian necklace, scarab pendant and all, but I've only gone as far as colllecting the materials.  Maybe I'll have it done by Halloween and be Cleopatra!  Or not.

Here's a nifty website...

I was invited to join Lookville, a site where you can post your outfits, jewellery, and accessories, and people can give you their opinions on how they look.

I've joined and am posting some of my jewellery, and have had positive feedback so far.  The people are nice and complimentary, and if they happen to not like something, they're very polite about it.

It's a good site from what I've seen in the hour or so since I've joined (I'm so quick with praise!), so I suggest you check it out.  Currently it's on an invitation-only basis, but I can refer 5 people, so if you're interested in joining up, let me know!

Cloisonnee

Here are a couple of bracelets I made with some pretty cloisonnee beads I bought from a shop downtown.  I recently went back to get more, I liked them so much.

Pearls for Mom

I made these for my mom to wear to a wedding recently.  She's into pearls...can you tell?

They're glass pearls, and I used black, white, and off-white.  She was a fan of my pink and black necklace (and hey, it's a nice necklace, tooting my own horn or not), and luckily there were still a few pendants at the store.

Mini-Chandeliers

On my big foray to the downtown bead stores, I bought a 200-piece bag of mini chandelier bases.  Oh the possibilities! 

These are a pair I made for a girl at work who liked the earrings I made for the other ladies, but didn't want them as big as theirs.

So I went hog-wild...

...and made quite a few pieces this evening.  Granted, they didn't take long to do, but it is a lot all at once.

The black and pink ones I made for my mother, copying ones I've made before.  Then I figured I had beads the same shape as the green ones in clear and purply-burgundy, so I made those too.

The blue chandeliers I made for the same lady that asked for the green chandeliers, and I was feeling bad about neglecting all the left-over blue goldstone and blue lace agate chips from the necklace I made with them, so I made some matching earings.

The bracelet and matching earrings I made with some connectors I bought at Michael's, and some glass beads that are half clear, half shiny-coated.  I have a few beads like that in different colours and I like the way they sparkle.

Earrings for Sale

I finally got around to making a pair of purple chandeliers a couple weekends ago for someone in our Marketing department at work who asked me for them a month and a half ago (they take a while to make, and I didn't have enough time until then).  I didn't take a picture of them, but I used the same Swarovski crystal beads that I used for my cousin's earrings that you can see a few posts back.  The only difference is the base I used to hang the beads from.  If you look even further back at the purple and pearl chandeliers I made, you'll see the same base I used for these earrings.

Anyhow, another lady in the same department noticed her earrings, loved them, and asked me to make her some in green. 

I didn't use Swarovski beads, but the effect was the same. 

A lady in my department asked me to make her a couple of pairs of earrings, one to match a necklace, and another to replace another pair, one of which she  lost.

The necklace was a beautiful gold and black glass heart on silk and cord ribbon, so I bought some dyed freshwater pearls to put together with the black glass beads I had left over from my pink necklace, copying the earrings then too.

The earring on the left was the original, but I could not find any beads to match that exact colour, so I used a redder blue (That makes sense, trust me.  My dad works with printing inks and I hear him say this stuff all the time).  I also used etched bugle beads instead of the plain ones to jazz them up a little.  I even bit the bullet and bought some seed beads, which I am terrified to work with because they're so small.  They came out a little longer than the original too.  I liked these so much, I made myself a pair, but without the little jump ring in the middle.  I just won't wear them to work!

Me? Using pink? Believe it!

I don't really like pink, but I made these out of necessity, since I had a pink dress for my cousin's engagment party.  The pink freshwater pearls matched the pink in my dress almost perfectly, and the colour stands out so well with the black glass beads I chose.

 I was a real fan of the butterfly pendant I found.  It is so light and delicate, and I was almost scared I'd snap it if I made a wrong move. 

My First Commission: Update

As I said in my last post I will give my cousin the necklace and earrings in Jewellery Class #6, but she did buy some purple Swarovski beads for me to use, so I made her some chandelier earrings that she can use if she wants to:

I had a few beads left over, so I mixed them with some little purple glass pearls, and made a bracelet she could use or give away if she wanted:

She also brought me a three-ringed pendant that she might have wanted on the necklace, but I didn't use it for that, so I put it on a bail so the rings wouldn't move around and strung it on some cord:

Hope she likes everything!

Jewellery Class #6

For #5 we all went to our teacher's house to look at her jewellery, and she does very beautiful work!  We didn't make anything, so am skipping to class #6, the last class.

We made a beaded necklace with some chain, and a lot of looped eye and head pins.  We made some matching earrings too:

When I got home I added some purple and silver stardust beads to make the necklace a little longer, and I am going to give it to my cousin to wear with a shirt she asked me to make something for. 

Here is a close-up of the star-dust beads.  I love how they look.

Jewellery Class #4

For this class we made a couple of cord necklaces, mostly so we could learn how to use cord crimps:

We also got started on another beaded necklace, but I finished it during Jewellery Class #6, so I will show it on the related post.

Jewellery Class #3

In our third class we made a bracelet out of some glass and plastic beads, one type of which were tube beads, which I must say I didn't know about before I saw them.

We also made a cool necklace and earrings set out of chain.  Instead of a clasp in back, there's a toggle clasp in the front, which makes it the focal point of the necklace.  The teacher brought the chain pieces already cut to size, so we just assembled them.  They're pretty simple, but elegant, and I've worn them with a black turtleneck, and they look really nice.

Sorry!

I'm a little behind on posting, but I promise to put up pictures of the more recent pieces I've made soon, I promise!  I don't have my own laptop yet so I borrow my sister's, and it's not always easy to get time with it.

Swarovski Crystals

I made this unofficially for my mom.  I say that because it wasn't really for anyone in particular, but she liked it, so I'll let her have it.  The pendand didn't come with the dangles, so I bought some crystal beads to match, and made them, along with 3mm silver spacers.  I had enough beads left over for earrings too.  I didn't have any fine chain to attach to the pendant so while I was out today I picked some up.

My New Love For Chandeliers

So since I made a pair of chandelier earrings at my class, I've really started to love how easy it is to make them look good.  These are the ones I've made since:

These are made with purple crackle glass beads and some 3mm glass pearls.  My lighting doesn't do them justice, because they can sparkle in the right light.  I got complimented on them by the nurse when I wore them to the doctor's office today.

These are made with plastic (I KNOWWWW, I said I don't like using plastic, but the flowers were too cute) and glass beads.  I was more in love with the black findings needed for these.  I wore these to work and everyone complimented them.  It feels good to know people like your stuff.

Jewellery-Making Class, Day 2

Day 2 of our class, and we were ahead of schedule, so we jumped ahead to making a chain bracelet.  The teacher brought a stash of beads that we got to choose from and make our own design with.  This is what I made.

The beads were glass and plastic, the latter of which I'm not keen on using in the future, but the bracelet came out looking nice.  The most time-consuming part was making the loops in the wire pins, but it was worth it, I think.

EDIT:

I also made some earrings with matching beads:

Jewellery-Making Class, Day 1

Joyfully, the class didn't get cancelled this time, and I booked it out of work, super-excited to get started.  It's a comfortable class of five students and an experienced teacher, and we got along pretty well even if most of the time we weren't saying much, concentrating on our work so much.

Another nice surprise was that we were provided with a whole new set of tools, so I got another pair of wire cutters, round nose pliers, and flat nose pliers.  I already bought a set for the class I was supposed to take in September, and brought them with me because I didn't know. 

On Day 1 we made two pairs of earrings.  We were only supposed to make one pair, but everyone in the class either had some previous experience, or picked it up really quickly, so we finished them rather ahead of schedule.

The main focus of the class seemed to be learning how to make connecting loops with eye pins and head pins instead of just stringing beads on wire, and we put that into practice a lot with the pair of earrings we made next:

So, being ahead of schedule, I must say I'm excited for the rest of the classes beacuse we may end up learning things we wouldn't have done otherwise.

Neat Pendant Idea

Firstly, I want to express my love for Etsy (Link Here).  It's a great website where people sell their home-made crafts, and I've already purchased some really nice beads and pendants from there.

Having said that, I found one girl who sells pieces of broken Chinese pottery made into pendants, and I bought a couple of pendants from her.  This is what I did with one of them:

I had some (real?) jade beads kicking around that went with the light green on the snake's body, and I finally bit the bullet and got some gold-coloured findings to use on it.  I don't particularly like yellow gold, but the metal the shard sits in was that colour.

The other piece that I bought from her is a little bigger, more of a circle than an oval, and has a red and blue bird in a tree.  I think I'll put a little more thought into what I'll do with that one.