Butterfly Necklace {Rinea Foiled Paper}

So, today, I have a tutorial to show you how to use some of those beautiful Rinea Foiled Papers to do something a little different - let's make some jewellery!

Head on over to Rinea for this tutorial on how to 'Make A Butterfly Necklace With Rinea Foiled Paper' and be sure to come back next month, when I'll be sharing more ideas on how to use these lovely foils to make some jewellery!

A Beaded Romance {Bead & Book Challenge}

I had to take an unintentional break from the Bead & Book Challenge when I cut my thumb. It made it difficult and more than a little sore to craft, but it made it almost impossible to bead! Thankfully, it's all healed and I'm able to work with my beloved beads once more! (And, thankfully, I was able to teach last week without too much trouble!)

I've selected The Crystal Flower Necklace from Kelly Wiese's 'A Beaded Romance' for this month's challenge - and a challenge it will be! 

This beauty has been on my 'to-make' list since the book arrived (um, in 2016) but I've never liked making beaded ropes and this one is made with Size 15s. Meh. I've worked about an inch of the rope so far and am already losing the will to continue. This central rivoli is lovely though, eh? 

I found the netted bezel a little bit loose, so removed one of the seed beads from each section of the final round. I also added a seed bead between each of the Swarovski Crystal Bicones, because nature (and I) abhor a vacuum! 

Hopefully, I'll be back with the finished necklace by the end of the month, but currently the Size 15s are mocking me! 

Inca Pendant

Planning really is paying off! After Transferring Designs into my lovely, 'new to me' business binder, I found complete notes for many, many tutorials that I had worked on, but hadn't released.

Writing a list of them all (there's at least fifteen of them!) has made me focus on each element of a finished tutorial - photography; written instructions; testing; tweaking; listing and marketing. 

Over the last two weeks I've released two new tutorials (one a week is an all time record) and there's was a lot of satisfaction involved as I checked each new tutorial off that master list!

This is the latest of those tutorials - The Inca Reversible Pendant. It's a lovely, fully reversible, pendant made using easily available materials including rivolis, bicones, superduos and seed beads. I can't understand why I left it languishing for so long! I'm now excited to make one with contrasting colours, so that it's more versatile!

The 52 Week Challenge: Pendants

At the start of 2012, I felt as though I had been neglecting my beading and wirework a little and, with a challenge in mind - creating a pair of earrings each week throughout 2012 - I headed on over to Facebook to encourage some of my jewellery making friends into joining me in the challenge. During the course of the earring challenge, I learnt a lot (and not just about beading.) I tried new beading stitches, improved my wire-work and worked on my photography.

At the beginning of 2016, I once again felt as though I had been neglecting my jewellery making in favour of paper-crafting (and, um, Netflix) and decided to instigate a new challenge. This time around, I'm focusing on creating a new pendant each week, though some of the other jewellery makers joining me have decided on earrings, bracelets, necklaces and more! (You can see our work in the 52 Week Challenge Album.)

January might be nearly over (what?) but there's still time for anyone who's interested in joining us to stat taking part - and there's no need to 'catch up'. Leave me a comment if you're interested and I'll send you some details! 

Indian Summer Necklace

This was my entry for last month's Bead Shop Liverpool Challenge. The theme was "Indian Summer" and I chose to take inspiration from the rich, bright colours of India. I went for a combination of Fuschia and Bright Yellow Gold. Not a usual combination for me, but love it all the same!

Fuschia & Gold Beaded Swarovski Rivoli Necklace 

This month the theme is simply 'October' and I'm a little bit overwhelmed with the potential. I'm thinking long walks in the afternoon sunshine, changing colours and crunchy leaves underfoot - but I'm still a little unsure about translating that into a wearable piece of jewellery. What do you usually think of when someone say's 'October'?

Creative Leftovers - Something From (Almost) Nothing

Is it just me that gets a ridiculous amount of satisfaction from using little leftovers? I love to stretch my stash, especially when I consider how much money I've invested in it! Fireline Thread is fairly expensive - and, amongst beaders at least, it's considered to be a precious commodity. So, it is with much shame that I must confess that I never, ever measure how much thread I'm using when I start a new project. I just reel out about a 'wingspan and a half' for pretty much every project that I start. Inevitably, I'm often left with about a foot of beading thread at the end of some projects - and that's really not enough to start another major project. 

But, I do hate wasting anything. So a little while back, I started to combine those little bits of leftover thread with seed beads leftover from larger beading projects to make these dinky, little star motifs. And, eventually, I ended up with a little pot full of them! 

Materials: Blue Moon Beads - 4mm Champagne Glass Pearls & Silver Plated Chain; Miyuki Size 11 Seed Beads - Fancy-Frosted Pale Seafoam Green & Matte Opaque Cream.

After working on my Random Snow Bracelet earlier this week, I had a few Champagne 4mm Glass Pearls leftover. Rather than find somewhere to stash them, I had a little rummage through my Pot O' Stars and found some made in a combination of cream and seafoam. A perfect match for the champagne pearls! I wire-wrapped the pearls and attached some tiny little jumprings to each of the stars, then attached them at regular intervals to some chain. And there we have it - something from (almost) nothing!

I'd love to know what you've been busy making this weekend and what you'll be doing with your creative leftovers. Please do tell in the comments! 

I Chose Creating

Sadly, I've been away from home since last week attending a family funeral, so I haven't had much chance to pop online and let everyone that voted for creating, rather than cleaning that I did manage to squeeze in a little bit more crafting before I tidied away my Blue Moon Beads stash. So, how about a quick peek at what I made?

I chose to stick with bronze components (well, they were already covering every available crafting surface.) This pendant is made very simply using Large Rope Rings - which came in a pack with several sizes - and some smaller Bronze Jumprings from the Blue Sky 2013 Collection. Set inside each circle are some faceted acrylic beads from the PB&J Bead Mix, hung simply with Bronze Headpins and a Bronze Jumpring.

Another little rummage through the bronze stash uncovered this beautiful, bud-like chain from the Urban Warrior Collection. Each of the little 'buds' is already attached to the chain with teeny, tiny jumprings - so the time consuming, fiddly bit is done for you. All I needed to do was cut my chain into a few different lengths, attach them all to a Bronze Jumpring and add chain! It took no more than ten minutes - and most of that was the rummaging!

So, what's everyone else been up to this week? Have you perhaps been finishing up your Counterfeit Kit? Or maybe you've been starting on Telling Tales? Do let me know.....

A Little Eye Candy

So, we had a visit from an internet engineer this morning and normal service will resume shortly. Hurrah! In the meantime, let me say a quick thank you for all of the sweet comments that were left for me on my last post - and for the e-mails that I received from a few of you as well. It means so much to me that there are still people out there reading. Now, onto the eye candy.

During October, I was thrilled to find out that I was selected for the Blue Moon Beads Design Team. I was even more thrilled when a box filled to the brim - and I really do mean to the brim - arrived at my house. There were tins and tins of beautiful bead mixes, chain, charms and cords! Lucky old me!

This weekend, I finally had a little bit of time to sit down and start making. I've started sweet and simple, by taking some of the 'oh-so-cute' earring charms and using them as charms for a couple of necklaces. Because that's how I roll!

This first necklace uses a slightly chunky feather charm, along with some luscious beads from the Red Velvet Bead Mix.

The second uses another 're-purposed' earring charm, which I separated into two parts and re-strung on to matching antiqued bronze chain. And, because I used some of Blue Moon Beads oval shaped jump rings to attach the charms, the chain looks seamless and much more professional. Result!

As I am still steadily working on the Operation Tackle That Bead Stash Earring Challenge, where we're making a pair of earrings each week for 2012, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make myself another pair of earrings using some of my new stash. I combined some lovely, clear faceted beads from the PB&J Bead Mix, with Blue Moon Beads Glass Pearls, silver spacer beads and some ear-wires to create some earrings a little reminiscent of snowdrops. I love these so much, that I've worn them every day since I made them!

A Little Leftover Loveliness {Bead Table Wednesday}

Operation Tackle That Beadstash have declared the month of June to be 'Leftovers Month' and so, we are encouraging everyone to rummage around in their beadstash, and make something pretty with the random bits and pieces that they find. 

So, hoping to lead by example, I had a little dig around in stash over the weekend - and came up with several bags of wooden beads which were leftover from when I started beading. Nestled in there, amongst those cheap wooden beads, was a beautiful, little focal that I'd completely forgotten about - who said poking around in your past was a bad thing? 

It took a little while to sort the beads into usable piles - and there were a few truly ugly beads that had to be discarded along the way. There was then a little bit of trial and error as I worked through a couple of patterns until I came up with a design (and length) that I was happy with as a necklace.

In the end, I opted to string the beads onto a some copper wire, as it held the shape of the necklace far better than any of my beading threads - and it allowed me to shape a button clasp that wouldn't stretch with time. Happily, I think it compliments the wooden beads well!

I can't quite believe that, after all this time, the wooden beads that I had banished to the bottom of my beading box have finally made a re-appearance and I've turned them into a piece of jewellery that I actually like. Just the incentive I need to have another rummage!

Fringe Necklace (The Altered Element}

I've spent the last week in label sticking, envelope stuffing miserableness, so you'll have to forgive me for my lack of blogging. However, I'm sneaking in one last recycled project for The Altered Element DT - a super cute, fringe necklace made with the beads from some 'recycled' jewellery and some rather lovely, leather thong.

I have a massive collection of beads that I've saved from broken necklaces or from old and outdated pieces that I've found at my local car boot sale. I've been wanting to make a necklace using some of the larger beads for quite some time now, but couldn't find a leather thong thin enough to fit through most of my beads.

However, at just 1mm thick and only 30 pence per metre, the leather thong from The Altered Element is perfect (and it comes in dark brown or natural/nude too!)

To make your own version of this necklace you'll need at least two metres of leather thong, some recycled beads (or maybe a selection like the Dress It Up Beads which come in a wide range of colour mixes.) You'll also need some end caps, some jump rings and a lobster clasp to finish your necklace.

To start, simply cut one piece of thong to the desired length of your necklace, then cut additional pieces of thong to a variety of lengths for the fringe. Add beads to each smaller piece of thong and then, keeping the longer pieces towards the middle, add them to your main length of thong using lark's head knots.

To complete your necklace, fasten an end cap to each end of the necklace, then add a clasp using a couple of your jump rings. Done!