Bracelet and Earrings

As part of my holiday preparations I decided to make some more jewellery. I don't want to take any of my "nice" jewellery, so I will take stuff I have made. I don't have any bracelets that go with my most recent necklaces so I decided that I would make one.

I chose beads from the stash I bought at the Sewing for Pleasure Show at the NEC and supplemented them with some pretty silver charms from Mary Clare.

I wanted the bracelet to work with both my turquoise necklace and my pink one, so I used green/blue beads and hints of pink. I think the choices worked really well. I even added the little seahorse made from glass, that I bought on holiday several years ago. I bought it before I even started making jewellery but loved it so much, that I had to have it. I works brilliantly, I think.

From the cute silver charms, I have two favorites. The first is a tiny silver fish, that goes well with the seahorse. (As it is a beach holiday the theme works for me).

The other favorite charm, proclaims that my jewellery is hand crafted.

Sorry if it is a bit blurry. I bought several of these little charms as I thought they would be great sewn into presents. I decided to add it to the bracelet as a little advert of my skills ;-)

I have been wearing the bracelet all day, as a test run. I have had to re-attach three charms which flew across the room when I gestured too broadly. I think they are all now safely secured and I will wear it with pride in my fancy hotel.

Of course my new bracelet required matching earrings.

I think they will go fantastically with my new top and skirt, by continuing the teal vibe.

Again, I apologise for the blurriness of the photo. It's hard to stay perfectly still and take photos at the same time. Maybe I should have just laid them down and taken a still life, but I wanted to show scale.

I am very pleased with all my new jewellery and I can't wait to show them off on my holiday, I feel all Summery already!

A Little Bit of Bling

A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to attend a jewellery making class at Mary Clare. Caroline was the teacher and is someone I know from chatting in the shop in passing. I have to say, she not only makes great jewellery, which is sold in the shop, but she is a fantastic teacher too.

The class was aimed at people, like me, that wanted to have a go with beads and wire but didn't really know where to start. It was a brief two hour course and tonnes of information was poured into my tiny brain and it left me dying to have a go with my newly implanted skills.

Of course once I got home, other projects got in the way and I didn't do any. So on Friday when my friend Rachael bought some components to make into a necklace I offered to put them together for her, using my new found skills.

This weekend I pulled out my new over the bed desk which Margaret the patchwork teacher gave me, propped up my pillows, turned on the radio and started playing with beads and wire. It has to be one of the most pain free crafting sessions I have ever done! I quickly put together the bits needed to make the necklaces. They turned out like this.

The idea is that both pendants can be hung from the same chain, so they needed to be easy to change over. I used the same technique on both pendants. I made a loop, with wire on the pendant and then threaded through a jump ring to sit on the chain. The jump ring allows the pendants to be slid on and off easily.

I really like the above glass pendant as it is so interesting, but I prefer the bright cheerful colour of the one shown below.

This pendant is actually sold as a button, but I think it works brilliantly as a piece of jewellery.

Once I quickly dispatched these pendants, I decided to make a bracelet for Rachael's birthday, which is coming up soon. I used a pre-made charm bracelet that has elastic running through and split rings attached to the chain. This gave me a very good base on which to start hanging my pretty green beads.

I bought a bag of mixed beads and added a few individual ones that caught me eye to fancy up the bracelet.

The above was one of the individual beads (the polka dot type one on the right). I love the way the light moves through this bead. One of the other individual beads is in the photo below on the left of centre. It is cylindrical in a more acidic green colour with pretty coloured speckles.

I love the way this bracelet turned out.

And I can't wait to see Rachael's face when she opens her present.

I've already bought more of these charm bracelets to play with, as I know they will make great gifts, come Christmas and they are a great way of practicing my jewellery crafting.