8/26/2015

Oldies but Goodies - Cats and dogs

Due to vacation I haven't been blogging for two weeks. What topic would be better to come back with than the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge and on top with something I love so much - animals, in particular cats and dogs.
You have noticed I am a cat person, right? ;-)
I think it would be very hard for me to deny that convincingly.

Now let's jump right in and have a look at what the talented members of JAC have to offer this week.


1 Salara Jewelry
2 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 The Crafty Chimp
4 MC Stoneworks
5 Cat's Wire
6 Violetmoon's Corner

8/07/2015

Tackle that stash - Digging into those seed beads!

It's my sister's fault or maybe it's the fault of the girls at her workplace.
Some of them have found the way to beading. In a future post I will show you a few of their pieces. When sis had the idea that my Francie had to wear a daisy chain headband, I had to look up the stitch. I passed it on to her, she passed it on to the girls and they started making daisy chains.
When I made Herringbone bracelets and necklaces with Twin Beads to use up some of my stash, I passed it on to her, she passed it on to the girls - and more, but as I said already that will be topic of another post - and they made Twin Bead bracelets.

I guess it was a natural consequence that we had to branch out. Me and off loom stitching? Unbelievable.
While my sister explored the St. Petersburg stitch, I started with RAW, the right angle weave.
I used crystals, seed beads, cube beads and varied the number of beads between my accent beads.

Together with the Daydreamer rope bangles after a design by Jill Wiseman I used up tons of my Czech seed bead stash.
The bangles are great for stacking in these bright colors, by the way!

What do you think which stitch I should be trying to learn next?


P.S. The first bracelet is in my DaWanda shop, the others are still waiting for their photoshoot.

8/05/2015

Oldies but Goodies - Jade

When you think of jade, you probably think green and you may think of carvings.
There is so much more behind it, though. Unfortunately I am really late with today's post already as I haven't had the chance of being much on the computer the last few days, so I have to keep it short.

Talking of jade we can mean two different minerals, nephrite or jadeite.
Jade comes in different colors, from yellow, blue, black, red to violet tones. Be careful, however. Dyed jade has been a thing for hundreds of years. It can be enhanced, but it's also possible that you get a stone which is not jade at all, but prehnite or quartz for example.
If you want to read a little more about this stone and its symbolic meaning, you can find an article here.

Not everyone at the Jewelry Artisans Community's Oldies but Goodies Challenge is working with jade, so once again we were a little generous with the rules and settled for jade and jade colors.
Enjoy!


1 Adams Handcrafted Jewelry
2 Violetmoon's Corner
3 Jewelry Art by Dawn
4 The Crafty Chimp
5 Robin's Jewelry, Antiques, & Collectibles
6 Cat's Wire

8/02/2015

Quote of the week

I don't go to class reunions. I was there once and it didn't really do anything for me. I do like the idea of meeting only a few special people from back then, though.
Gary "The King" King has convinced his gang from the old school days to come back to their hometown with him and have an epic pub tour which they hadn't been able to complete when they were fresh out of school. Reluctantly they follow him into the adventure and get into his old Ford Grenada, "The Beast".

Gary: And we're back. Just like the Five Musketeers.
Steve: Three Musketeers, innit?
Pete: Four if you count D'Artagnan.
Gary: Well, nobody knows how many there were really, do they, Pete? I mean, history's a sketchbook.
Oliver: You do know that The Three Musketeers is a fiction, right? Written by Alexandre Dumas?
Gary: A lot of people are saying that about the Bible these days.
Steve: What, that it was written by Alexandre Dumas?
Oliver chuckles.
Gary: Don't be daft, Steve, it was written by Jesus.
Steve (sarcastic): Oh.
Gary: Anyway, five sounds much better. I think they missed a trick having only three. 'Cause you'd have five, then two could've died and they'd still have three left.
Andy (annoyed): Are we there yet?
Gary (yelling): Let's do this!!!


The World's End, UK/USA/Japan, 2013