New Jewellery

A little while ago I took a trip, with my craft shopping buddy Linda, to Lichfield. We went to Spellbound who sell wonderful beads and findings. I bought quite a lot from their stall at the NEC earlier in the year and was pleased to have the oppertunity to go to their shop and have a look at their full stock. It was a small shop but there were so many lovely things to buy, I'm glad it wasn't larger. I spent far too much money but it gave me enough materials to use for at least the next 12 months. I hadn't done too much with the results of my shopping expedition until quite recently.

Last week I made these:

The stones are red agate and I love the shape of the hoops. I got a string of the smaller red agates and hope to use them along with some larger pieces that I got from Mary Clare to make a matching necklace. I may tinker with the centre stones as I have some pretty little amber coloured seed beads that may work better than the clear bead in the centre.

I love that these are made from natural materials and therefore have individual characteristics. The two earrings cannot possibly match exactly. The stone warms against the skin until you don't notice they are even in your ears, despite being quite large. I really must get cracking on the matching necklace as I'm sure I'll love it as much as these earrings.

Yesterday I decided that I needed to make some jewellery to match two new tops that I bought in a sale, while shopping with my Mum. Both tops have grey/blue tones and most of my hand made jewellery doesn't really go all that well. I pulled out a couple of my beads from Spellbound and made some earrings.

Aren't the beads pretty. They hardly needed anything added to make them into pretty and striking earrings. Then I decided that needed a necklace to match, as both tops had quite scoopy necklines.

As soon as I saw this blue stone at Spellbound, I knew I just had to have it. I didn't really have anything for it to go with, I just loved it.

The centre square stone came from Mary Clare, from when I made my pink necklace. I love how left overs from one project, can become an integral part of another. I don't know what either of these stones are. I really should look into finding out what the names of my favorite types of stones are, if only to make buying them again easier.

When I made these necklace I used a chain to hang the pendant on, but after wearing it yesterday I decided that it looked too flimsy for such a substantial piece. Instead, I bought some blue ribbon and used that. I think it looks much better now. Unfortunately I forgot to take a "before" photo so you can see what I mean.

I think the ribbon also unifies the colour scheme across the combination of earrings and necklace. I'm really pleased with how these look with my new outfits.

The more jewellery I make, the more I enjoy the process. Its just as well, because I have enough beads and stones to keep me going for a couple of years now! I got a book at a charity bookstore a couple of weeks ago that should help me out as I try new things. Its from the same series that taught me to crochet, so it has to be good!

I do love charity bookshops, you never know what gems (ha, a pun! GEMS, geddit??) you will pick up.

If you live in the East Midlands and would like to learn about jewellery making there are numerous classes run at Mary Clare, taught by a really talented teacher and maker Caroline. Click here for details, and look under "workshops". If you don't have the time or inclination to learn, Caroline sells her creations for VERY reasonable prices in the store. Personally, I have to remind myself that I have plenty of beads at home and that I'll never learn if I keep buying other people's creations. However, that doesn't stop my fingers itching everytime I walk past the display.

The sun came out.

I was so pleased, after yesterday's rant about the cold, that the sun came out today. I am currently sitting in my study with the sun shining on my back. Ah sweet sweet warmth. One of the many great things about our house is that it faces East. This means that the front of the house has sun all morning and the back has it all afternoon. In Winter this means that you can follow the sun around the house to stay warm (providing it ever appears). In the Summer you can follow the shade around the house to keep cool. We also have very large windows to capture all the light when it is grey and cold, and then to open up wide when it gets hot. Today even though we have no boiler I am relatively warm sat in my study typing this up.

Because of the unexpected sun, I am very pleased report some actual crafting has taken place - yippeee! I took the opportunity to play with some beads. I combined some beads I have had for a little while, with some of those that got bought at the NEC. Do you remember these?

When I bought them I had no idea what I was going to do with them because they didn't seem to "go" with anything I already had. So I thought I would start out by using a couple of the beads to make a pair of basic earrings. When I had finished I took another peek in my big box of beading goodies and found this amazing stone.

I fell in love with this pink stone when it first arrived in Mary Clare. There were some rectangular ones as well, but I love this tear drop shape and had to buy it immediately with no thought at all about what it would go with. I was glad I did, because the rest got snapped up almost immediately.

I later bought the marble type stones which have a very neutral colour to them but have a warmth that mean they can go with the pink. I put all these stones together with the purple ones from the NEC and added some tiny pearl seed beads and the result was this:

I started off fixing the main necklace to the pendant part just through the tiny loop at the top of the pendant.

This twisted the necklace quite a lot and I decided that it was going to drive me nuts, so I inserted a split ring to allow the junction to move around a bit more freely. I think this solution worked.

It certainly looks more elegant. I think I am starting to get the hang of this type of necklace, though I am sure I will do lots more just to improve my techniques and my eye. I know that others may have done much better things with the same stones, but I am satisfied with what I have at the moment.

I am really enjoying building up my collection of home crafted jewellery. I can make jewellery that doesn't cost a fortune which means I can wear it every day. I don't fret about things getting a bit bashed because if it does, I'll just make a new one. It also means I get to wear things that look exactly as I pictured, rather than settling for something that kind of looks like the image I had in my head that I found in a shop. I stopped buying costume jewellery a long time ago, because I had nice jewellery given to me over the years and felt that I should wear that. However, I don't wear the nice stuff for every day because that diminishes how special it makes me feel. The home crafted stuff fills the gap I have created for myself. It also lets me play with pretty things!

Hopefully the sun will continue to shine and I will have other things to show you.

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.

More Pretties

After making the earrings for my SIL the other day, I decided that I needed to make something as a special treat for myself.  This January has been all about being selfish.  I have been making things I wanted to make without considering anyone else and it has been lovely.

This particular treat involved the turquoise beads that I have had my eye on for ages.  I went on a tiny spending spree at Mary Clare and picked up the ingredients for a really striking long necklace.  I wanted it to be long because I have lots of nice short necklaces that sit inside the neckline and I wanted one that went over the top of my clothes and added a bit of drama.  I think I have succeeded.

I used one large turquoise pendant and 4 chunky turquoise beads.  The turquoise was interspersed with some interestingly textured silver coloured beads to add contrast.

 I strung the beads on 28 gauge beading wire and used crimped beads on the wire between each bead to hold everything in place.  I used three big loops on each side of the necklace and added a chain for round the back of the neck, so the whole thing sat neatly and comfortably.

I love turquoise and think that this necklace will go with many of my favorite outfits.  When I manage to get a photo of myself wearing the necklace and looking vaguely attractive I'll show you how it looks on.