ATTS8 - It's In The Bag!

The fabulous ladies from Therese's Treasures and One Kiss Creations challenged a group of us with the task of making a beaded purse. A big challenge, for sure. And they gave us several months to prepare our projects.

Many thoughts came to mind. A peyote amulet bag? A leather pouch with embroidery? Embroidering on an existing purse? So many, many options!

Here's a sneak peek I gave last week - did you guess what it was going to lead to?

At my job, I have to use a key card to get into most of the offices and secure spaces. And because it's a performing arts organizations, I often have to work at concerts. Toting around a very official looking key card on a lanyard when you're wearing a fancy dress isn't always the best look. So I decided to see if I could combine the need to camouflage the very functional realities of my workday with this creative beading challenge. Thus, the beaded key card purse!

I started with a basic plastic card holder, to which I affixed snaps on the back.

Pretty, ain't it?

Then I embroidered a couple of interchangeable decorative panels with snaps on their backs, to switch out as needed. The first one was an easy choice - I had done some bead embroidery around a violin bridge several years ago for another challenge, inspired by music.

At the time, I thought I'd make it into a necklace, but that never happened. So it became the first front panel of my beaded key card case.

Then, because I am apparently from the school of "why just "do" when you can overdo?", I decided to make another cover. Sadly, this one didn't get its edging completed, but here it is anyway.

And here it is, with its beaded fob (aha! the sneak peek!)

I can't wait to use these at work. If I don't have a waistband for the fob to attach to, I can carry these in my hand, almost like a small clutch purse.

Here they are, all together.

And in case you're interested in seeing the mechanics of it all, here's the backside.

I'm pretty sure I've taken an unorthodox approach to the beaded purse challenge.  Want to see what everyone else has created? Go check it out through the links below, and thanks to Therese and Christine for organizing this challenge to get me off my beady butt and doing something new!

Therese

Christine

Jenny

Bobbie

Ana

Amy

Cynthia

Karin S

Maryanne

Liz

Lori

Paula

Jasvanti

Dagi

Kepi

Samantha

Alicia

Motidana

Becky

Winter Expo Preparations

Over the weekend, I tagged, bagged, and delivered over 70 pieces of jewelry for a month-long show and sale at the Evanston Art Center. Yes, that's 70+ pieces - 39 pairs of earrings, 31 necklaces, and 4 bracelets. Whew!  There's a little bit of everything here - big fancy statement pieces to simple fun pendants.

This is a juried show, and I'm still relatively new to the area, so I'm especially excited to be part of this event. For more information, go here.

If you're in the area, please come see the show!  Below are some of the pieces included:

Earrings, earrings, earrings!

ATTS8 - Sneak Peek!

Working, working, working....

I'm stitching furiously to finish up in time for the reveal of the eighth installment of A Time To Stitch next Saturday.  Until then, here's a little sneak peek of what's coming!

Serious Sparkle, Part 2 - The Earrings

So if you're wearing a fancy evening gown, you need some fancy earrings, right? Of course!

As I wrote about yesterday, we recently had a big formal fundraising event at my job, so may of my colleagues were looking for jewelry to complement their evening wear. You've already seen some of the necklaces and bracelets that I made especially for them to choose from, so as promised, here are a few of the earrings.

Freshwater pearls with some vintage rhinestone and pearl components

Who can resist blue crystal disco balls swinging from their earlobes?

Shoulder dusters

In case your formal tastes run more to the gemstone, these are lapis, forest jasper and freshwater pearl.

These big, bold beauties are vintage marcasite pieces from an old necklace that I found in an antique store.
I took the necklace apart, and used the various component parts in lots of different new creations.
Here, I added just a few crystals at the top and as dangles.

Serious Sparkle

Ah, crystals.

They're gorgeous, but I don't use them in my beading too often. That may have to change.

At my day job (you know, the one that lets me pay for the necessities of life - mortgage, food, beads...) we recently had a big fundraising event. Black tie, evening gowns, the whole nine yards. And everyone in my department was involved, so we all had to glam it up for the night.

Knowing that I make jewelry, some colleagues asked if I had any pieces that would work with their dresses. Of course, I took this as an invitation not only to pull out the fancier pieces in my inventory, but also to spend a few evenings making some flashy new things.

Here are some of the new pieces that came out of that flurry. Some got worn to the gala, others stayed home, but they're all a reminder to me to embrace the flashy side every now and then. Today, I'm sharing the necklaces and a bracelet - tomorrow, I'll share the earrings.

There were a lot of midnight blue and navy gowns at this event - a nice change from basic black.

Did someone say, "statement necklace"?

A different view of the same necklace, to show the flashes of color in the faceted ovals. Gorgeous!

This bracelet reminds me of tuxedo pants, with the dark stripe running down the side seam.

This was a lot of fun, and a good creative challenge, since I didn't know what everyone's dresses would look like. I had to make pieces that would be versatile enough to work with lots of different colors, working completely without specific direction other than "formal." Do you make jewelry for special occasions?

Cellini Explosion, or The Saga Of Too Much Tension

See this nice little Cellini spiral I was working on?

Apparently, I was channeling all the stress of whatever was going on at the time into my thread tension, because about two inches into the spiral, this happened.

Boom! Exploded in the middle.

Arghhhh!!! (Although my language at the time was, I admit, far more colorful).

I have put this one away for another, calmer day.

Creative Spark Summer 2015

Once again, I'm thrilled to have been part of the latest issue of Creative Spark, which for the summer issues, highlights the myriad uses of the delicious cultured sea glass beads available from ZNet Shows.

The beads I selected are shown above -- beautiful colors that reminded me of sand, sunsets, and lovely soft shades of the ocean.  As always, I wanted to find ways to incorporate bead weaving into my creations, in addition to some more traditional stringing.  The main idea was to keep the designs light and summery enough to be comfortable if worn on the beach (or in the sweltering heat and humidity of the rest of the country).

First is a lariat using the orange and yellow nuggets, on a piece of leather long enough to wear looped low on the chest or doubled up to fit inside the collar of your shirt.  It makes a lovely tinkling sound as you walk while wearing it.

I set aside three of the orange nuggets and wove bead bezels, along with a St. Petersburg chain neck strap.  A woman tried to purchase this before I'd even gotten a picture. 

Next I played with the green rings, making a pendant and a matching ring.  The ring is a simple peyote band woven long enough to wrap around the sea glass ring on either side - easy peasy!

Finally, I used the red and blue rounds to make a pair of earrings and a matching ring.  Don't know why I seemed to gravitate toward creating rings, but these were so fun to make.

When making the ring above, there was a stage in its creation that was a viable alternative design -- more of a starburst than a puffy urchin shape that I finally decided on.  The starburst is shown below.

Thanks a million to Hope for her hard work on wrangling all the beaders together and editing the final product.  Thanks to Bill at ZNet Shows for providing the inspirational beads to work with.  And thanks to you for going to check out the magazine and seeing the creations of all the designers!