Sand and Sea Blog Hop Soup!

I can't believe it's almost New Year's Day! The entire month of December FLEW right past. We had a wonderful Christmas although we missed our dear friend, Leslie, very much. She wasn't able to make it in for the holidays this year but we are hoping she can come next year for sure!

I am so excited! I received my bead soup kit for Lisa Lodge's "My Bead Table Blog Hop ~ Sand and Sea".  I am SO thankful for the GORGEOUS kit she sent me. I was secretly hoping to get a "Sea" themed kit instead of a "Sand" themed kit and I was not disappointed.

I've never done a bead soup type of challenge until this past November when I did a Humble Beads bead soup blog hop. When the opportunity arose to take part in Lisa's blog hop I jumped at the chance.

I wanted to share my kit with you so you can see the before and after and see what I do with everything. I am really going to try to stretch my creative muscle this time. I tend to play it safe and work up very symmetrical jewelry. This time I want to try to break out of the box and see what happens.

This first photo shows our studio mascatt, Waldo. He's about 8 months old and he is the official reason I know longer get as much done. LOL. He likes to lay in the middle of my work or to steal my beads. The Second photo shows a close up of the wonderful 'soup' that Lisa sent. Finally, the last photo shows my anal retentive side, I had to sort out the beads by type so I could start to think about how to design with these treasures.

I have until March 9th to work up my pieces so I am going to play around with these beads for a bit before I commit to a finished piece. Right now I am thinking about a multiple strand bracelet but I may change my mind.

Berries and Leaves Challenge

The ladies over at the Artisan Whimsy site have created a new challenge for the month of November. The theme is Berries and Leaves. With it being the lead up to Christmas, naturally my mind turned towards Holly berries and leaves. My entry is an upcycled piece that features buttons and scrapbooking brads. I love  how it came out. These button charm bracelets are a favorite of mine for creating cute themed or holiday inspired bracelets.

Be sure to stop by the challenge site and check out all of the entries! 

This cute bracelet is available in my Etsy shop here.

Bare Branches Blog Hop

I was lucky enough to get in on Heather Power's blog hop called Bare Branches. She put together a Bead Soup kit featuring her gorgeous polymer clay beads. The theme was icy and wintery and the mix she sent was just gorgeous. It brought a feeling of loneliness with it and I felt that delicious, and self indulgent sense of bitter-sweetness I get every year at this time. I loved everything she sent!

  

In true Bead Soup fashion, I used most of the mix she sent and added a few extras from my own personal stash. I added some chain, a sewn silk ribbon, som Czech glass and a few brass filigree rounds. I had a lot personal stuff come up in the week between the time I got my beads and the deadline for the blog hop so my design isn't as creative as I'd have liked, but I am pretty satisfied with it.

You should hop on over to Heather's blog and check out her and the other participants' designs. It's always a treat to see what different people do with the same components! I want to thank Heather for putting together this mix of pretties and for offering them up at such a deal. I don't think it will be long before I go back to her etsy shop Humblebeads for more of her gorgeous beads!

Show Off Your Hooters?

The girls over at the ning site, Artisan Whimsy have been showing off their hooters! Owls that is, LOL. They put together a challenge showcasing owls. The challenge was to create either an owl component or a finished piece that featured an owl.

I'm not really crazy about owls, so I had to think really hard about what to create. I went for something fallish and embossed the owl onto sheet copper and then stamped the feathers in with my V stamp. Next came hole punching and then the dangles were added.

For my dangles I used a Russ Powers boro bead accented with Citrine rondelles. A brown glass pearl and crystal were accented with some gorgeous goldenrod yellow Aragonite rondelles. I suspended my plaque from some pretty solid copper rolo chain and finished it off with a hand forged copper S clasp I made.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how my little owl came out. If you like him too, please go to the Artisan Whimsy site and give me a vote!

What sort of owl creations do you make?

Bead Soup Book Review!

Lori Anderson's book is chock full of beadie goodness and is definitely eye candy for the jewelry makers soul. These 32 projects will inspire countless designs. Packed with helpful tips and loads of gorgeous photos! A must have for those needing a boost for their creative muse! Lori's writing style is very personable and warm and her designs are just gorgeous! I give this book an enthusiastic 5 stars!

A Little Day of the Dead Project!

I had a great time with this project. It was pretty involved and by far, the hardest project I've attempted so far in my metalsmithing journey. These little Day of the Dead pendants involved cutting with shears and with a jeweler's saw, filing, stamping, sweat soldering, more filing and cutting, more soldering and then finally, antiquing the sterling and polishing. These little skulls are from a project from Joe Silvera's book, Soldering Made Simple.  His directions are easy to follow and I feel like I've learned a good bit from this project. I am still working my pieces too hot, bordering on fusing them instead of soldering, but I am starting to get the hang of most of the techniques. I was pleased with my results so I put these up for sale in my Etsy shop, you can find them here...

New Techniques!

About a month ago I invested in an embossing machine. I've been using it to create some new jewelry using Vintaj brass disks and then colorizing the metal with patinas from Vintaj and from Lisa Liddy's Color Me This line. Every project has been a joy and I am totally in love with the technique. Embossing is so easy to do and the results are stunning! I encourage everyone to try out the technique!

Here are a few pieces that I've made recently with these techniques.

All of these pieces are available in our Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/thepinkmartini