Picture
Thank you to everyone who voted for my design 'Glacial Fantasy' in the Artbeads Jewelry Design Star Competition. It only went and won!! I am speechless and so, so, so, thrilled. I was informed by email, and they have had my details as well as a couple of other designs from Caprilicious for their website. When I hear more from Artbeads.com about the official announcement, I will let you know. In the meantime, I have another pair of earrings made, to complement Glacial Fantasy - the first two were not deemed 'delicate' enough, and I was politely requested to think again - the customer is always right - right? So.........

These were made with wire crochet and crystal beads, and the pictures sent on for approval - I hope she likes them, or, its back to the drawing board for me. They look pretty delicate to my eyes, but I am not the one going to be wearing them, so I shall just have to wait and see. I have no problems doing them over and over until I get it right - I just see it as another challenge.
Picture
I thought Betty was a bit lonely, so I found her a friend - meet Barbara - she is a half bust, but what is especially nice about her is that I can insert an earring so I can get a good picture of the way the earrings dangle from the ear lobe. I had just made this pendant with a red banded agate stone, and I hung it around Barbara's neck - her neck is a bit scrawny, but, hey, anything's possible if allowed a bit of artistic license. The pendant looks huge around Barbara's neck, but that is because she suffers from turkey neck disorder, but one mustn't mock afflicted chickens!

'Grace', the pendant in question is made of banded red agate - a beautiful waxy, translucent, rectangular stone. About six feet of wire went into the swirly wraps, and a few more feet of fine wire for the web like weave. I had to add a bit of movement, and a shiny Aurora Borealis coated crystal from my stash was just the ticket.

Cinnamon

I played with polymer clay and alcohol inks and produced these faux red jade pieces from a tutorial by Lynda Moseley of Diva Designs. I love the large 25mm focal beads, with a floral etched pattern and I made a chrysanthemum type flower to be the pendant in this necklace. It is called Cinnamon because of the beautiful burnt sugar colour of the faux jade. The other alternative for a name was Creme Caramel - betraying my sweet tooth and secret gluttony - a Freudian slip, if ever there was one! Three strands of carnelian nuggets, held together at intervals by pewter spacers toned well with the focal pieces - a monochromatic necklace, which is quite rare for me - I don't know how I resisted the impulse to add a bit of green or turquoise blue, but I do like how Cinnamon came together in the end.
Picture
From Russia With Love
I made this necklace a few weeks ago, and I saved three rainbow titanium coated quartz needles to make a pendant and a pair of earrings. When they were made up the three little pieces resembled the Matroshka dolls sold to tourists in Russia - except, of course that I have attempted to match the earrings, as far as possible The quartz was mined near St Petersburg and has an extraordinarily beautiful sheen from the fine coating of titanium vapour wafted over it.

Picture
Matroshka dolls
I spent most of this week catching up on paper work and other stuff at the day job - sometimes it doesn't pay to have too much time off, everything is just waiting for you when you get back to the grindstone - no rest for the wicked!
I did have time to tidy up my website, move my necklaces around - I have new pages now - Chinese Inspiration, Out of Africa, and Leafy Glade are now added to a Treasury of Statement Necklaces, and all the other bits and bobs are grouped under Mini Statements - I believe that all jewellery makes a statement - it tells you about a woman's inner self and expresses her thoughts, feelings, and mood, sometimes, who she would like to be but finds difficult to express - an alter ego. I know that this is certainly true about me - what about you?? Have you ever thought about what your choice in apparel says about you to the world - a non verbal clue to those who might wish to detect what makes you tick! Have you ever thought what women who don't wear jewellery are saying - I think it may be that they don't want people to get clues to their personality - you have to work just that bit harder to know them and what their raison d'être is.

That's all I had time to make this week folks, catch you next week, same time, same place, thanks for stopping by my blog, and once again, thank you for voting for my design in the competition
xx
 
 
On average, the moon is about 378 195 km away. At its furthest it is nearly 400 000 km away. During a lunar perigee and full moon where the moon is at its closest point to the earth on its elliptical orbit, the lunar surface can appear up to 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than any other full moon. We were lucky enough to see this, nicknamed 'Supermoon' by scientists from NASA, on the 5th and to a lesser extent on the 6th of May. My husband and I looked at the moon through our little telescope, but my camera was unequal to the task of photographing it. 
Picture
The moon over the Sinai desert
I decided to make a piece of jewellery in honour of the supermoon. A piece of blue crackled agate, resembling the face of the moon emerged from my bead stash, and I set it in wire and surrounded it with stars in blue and white Swarovski crystals. This had the effect of brightening what would otherwise be a dull stone. I set some 'stars' in the bail and wove some crystals into the Viking knit chain for good measure. As I finished the piece, I could hear the strains of Moondance in the back of my mind, so I named the pendant after Van Morrisons lovely song.

And I’m trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
And all the night’s magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush
Can I just have one more moondance with you my love
Can I just make some more romance with you my love

MOONDANCE - Van Morrison
Well, it’s a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
’neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow


A yearning for the sun

This winter has seemed long - never endingly so - there was a short respite in the UK at the end of March, but the weather turned - a lot of people are worried that that was our summer - Oh well, if I cant have sun in the sky, I will make some to hang around the neck! With this thought, I made Summer Sunshine, out of polymer clay sunflowers in yellow and black, dusted with silver and gold mica powders and hung on multiple strands of silver lined seed beads in a Bohemian style necklace. 
I also wire wrapped a little slice of gold druzy in square sterling silver wire into a sweet pendant and hung it on a twisted silk and organza ribbon - the Droplet of Sunshine pendant. Druzy refers to a gemstone with a crystalline structure, usually quartz or agate. Golden druzy has been put in a vacuum sealed chamber and coated with a vapour of 14k gold, which then bonds with the stone at molecular level. Though druzy isnt fragile, it needs to be used carefully, to prevent damage from bumping it into surfaces, so it is really only suitable for pendants and earrings. 
So, that's summer taken care of as far as I'm concerned!

Lilac Wine - more druzy

Here's more music for you from the fantabulous Nina Simone. This is not as well known a piece of music as some of her others, but is haunting just the same.
I had an amethyst druzy pendant that I bought because I couldn't resist the strata of quartz, pink chalcedony and amethyst crowned by the stalactites of crystalline amethyst.
 It proved to be difficult to set as it had a drill at the top, and enclosing it in wire would cover up the crystalline structure. In the finish, I crowned it with a wire flourish and added two strands of golden quartz nugget beads to a few amethyst chunks to form the necklace. A couple of left over quartz nuggets were turned into earrings with the addition of amethyst chips.
I bought a second-hand rock tumbler from a lady at work - her daughter played with it as a young girl ( evidently not too often, judging by it's condition), and it was taking up room in her house. She also gave me a box full of old jewellery, some tumble stones, a few fossils and some nuggets of unpolished rock, that if I wish, I can tumble into usable pieces. She asked me to make two pendants out of the prettiest stones  - a blue cat's eye chunk, and another that looks like a mosaic of some sort. I worked hard to set the first one - it is over an inch thick, slippery, and odd shaped, and kept falling out of the mount and sliding all over the room - the air was as blue as the stone, by the time I finished, but it soon became a challenge - I was going to tame it or die trying - I'm still here, so what of the stone? .....
Picture
On a Viking knit necklace
Picture
More from the goody box
Picture
4 views
Picture
If you know what this is, post me a comment please
I need to think of something to make up the green 'stone with no name' - it promises to be difficult as well, as it is about an inch thick and an inch wide - oh well, I will just have to use those grey cells - and you will have to wait till next week to see what I come up with.
Have a good weekend, and see you - same time, same place
xx
 

Handmade, handcrafted, UK, jewellery, jewelry, Warwickshire,