Wednesday, May 08, 2013

somewhat wordless wednesday but not quite...

Yeah I'm fully aware it's technically still Tuesday but today's been a strange day and I'm feeling kinda meh, whatevs so I'm breaking the rules...plus I'm back on my wacky sleep/nosleepforthewicked schedule so it is what it is...


No sleep = studio time
I snagged the two lampwork beads and that gorgeous Jade Scott heart bezel from the Art Bead Love Chain and combined it with more of my left over soup stash and went front toggle with this one...super fun to wear btw...



vortex of beautiful colors in these glass beads, I wish I knew who made them, they look like boro but I'm not quite sure, could be a silvered glass. Silvered glass is a sneaky little gem :)



I like BIG, this is BIG...big minty/celery like wood beads, faceted rondel crystals in between and a major BIG flower bloom brooch style pendant that has an awesome vintagey look to it but alas it's not but beautiful none the less, right?



and duh, red and turquoise color combo, my favorite...throw in Barbara Bechtell's poly clay leafy dangles and my heart goes pitter patter...



the other good thing about today besides fun outdoor kiddo playtime...


I fixed one of my favorite rings...I'm a turquoise girl and the bigger the better. This ring had a strange inner adjustable thingy contraption going on and it finally caved on me so then it just didn't fit AT ALL and didn't sit right soooooo....




I took one of my many comfy and favorite wide silver bands which turned out to be a perfect fit and epoxied it inside...not the prettiest but it worked, fits exact, isn't noticeable and made the ring 110% more comfortable to wear...win/win! 

See what happens when I stay up over thinking and over analyzing everything? I  can't sleep, get distracted and then I turn into Macgyver :) 

Sweet dreams (fingers crossed)...
Much needed coffee date in the AM with a bestie to clear the cob webs.

Oh Hey! Look at that, it's Wednesday now! Just not wordless ;)






Monday, May 06, 2013

A week of firsts...

Noah made his first game goal EVER this weekend and then he decided one wasn't enough so he scored another :) I'm not sure what got into him! He LOVES to play soccer but he's not very aggressive...So I promised him a new XBOX game and I got 2 goals out of the deal, fair enough :) 



I'm not sure whether to keep bribing him and possibly go broke, haven't decided yet ;) (#11 with the flame soccer socks and red undershirt)



then my handsome little nugget made his 1st Communion yesterday. Proud mum took tons of pics...


and at this point he was getting sick of taking pics :)




Lucas cheered him on all day telling him "Good luck at munnion Noah! I want cake!"


And all the excitement knocked me out cold by 11pm as opposed to my usual night owl/insomnia bedtime of  2am  and today I'm mostly daydreaming about this...























Thursday, May 02, 2013

Winner, Winner, Winner...

Drumroll...Jennifer of Jennifers Jewels and Junk is the winner of the Art Bead Love Chain!
Jennifer please contact me with your info so I can send it on it's way :)

Here's what I'm adding to the chain...




Congratulations Jennifer! Enjoy!




Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Art Bead Love Chain Tour...

The Art Bead Love Chain has made it's way to Michigan! 


What is it?: The Art Bead Love Tour is an ongoing project to spread the love of handmade to new and exciting places. It’s a way to reach people who may have never stumbled upon our blog on their own, and give them a chance to share the love of handmade. We chose to use a chain to link beads as a symbol of how this project links us all together ~ in our unity to stand behind handmade.




Here's what I took from it...







and I'll be posting what I added to it in my next post :)


Former Keepers of the Art Bead Love Chain:


Want to Play Along?

HOW IT WORKS: (Please read the entire post before entering!) 

1. The winner of the chain will be allowed to take up to 30 beads from this chain. They will then replace each bead they took with another handmade bead, charm, or pendant of equal quality.

2. The winner will post pictures of what was taken and what was added, in order to keep an account of the chain's progress and to keep our followers drooling. Please be sure to give credit to the bead artists as well (if you know them).

3. The winner will then have a giveaway, just like this one, to keep passing the chain on and on. Rules can be copied and pasted from here.

4. When you repost your giveaway (remember you can copy and paste from here) - a list should be added to show where the chain has gone. Ultimately, this will end up a very long list!

5. Chain must be shipped to its new home via Priority Small Flat Rate box with delivery confirmation. Please package it carefully.

6. There will be a button on the Love My Art Jewelry website, where it all started, that links to the current blog and giveaway. This way the Love My Art followers can have another chance to win it! 

7. You MUST exchange your beads and have your giveaway completed within two weeks of receiving the chain. 


(So remember ---You're not winning the ENTIRE CHAIN---
just a chance to take some beads from it!)

Art Beads should be handmade by an artist, and not mass produced. Remember, the focus is on replacing handmade with handmade, and beads/components taken should be replaced with beads/components that are made by an individual artist - not an organization.

It is so important that the quality of the beads be maintained, so we can keep the Art Bead Love Tour alive. We want to share consistent quality with the next winner.

If you make your own handmade beads or components, it's a great way to get your beads into the world for people to try them out, or, if you hoard collect art beads it's a great way to share your collection and get some new additions as well.

Please, please, please, if you cannot adhere to the above rules, do not enter the giveaway at this time. It will go on and on and you can always enter at a later date. There will be a button on the side bar of the Love My Art Jewelry blog so that you can track where the chain currently is. 


HOW TO ENTER:

1. You must have an active blog to enter.

2. Leave a comment below. Make sure your email is linked to your blog or leave it in the comment. Entries without emails will not qualify.

3. Share on Facebook, Twitter or your blog for extra chances to win. Leave a comment for each way you share, with a link if possible.

4. Winner will pay shipping and will be billed through PayPal. Package to be shipped via small priority flat rate box with delivery confirmation, $6.00 (Please note that this chain has grown quite large since it first started and may not fit properly into the small box. A larger one with higher postage may be necessary.

5. Open only to our readers in the United States due to problems with tracking and shipping overseas (sorry).

The winner's name will be drawn on Wednesday May 1st! 

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Not so Wordless Wednesday...




I had more soup left and I wanted to use this copper chain so badly so here's one more...




what else is new?...


I went major pink/red streaks and chunks...everywhere, all over, every which way I turn and I LOVE it! Makes me feel spunky and  ready for Spring :)


Soccer days are back again...



Noah's new pal Goalie the Betta has set up shop in a large bowl on Noah's desk...She looks like she's painted in water colors, so pretty to watch her swim around



I try to avoid pet stores because I start to feel like Dr. Doolittle and I end up feeling sad leaving these little guys behind when CLEARLY they're begging to come home with me :)...


How adorable are these little finches?! There was a chameleon that slipped me a love note begging for me to take him too!


lot's of days doing things like this...




and a lot of this too...




drooling and daydreaming over this bag (Epiphanies Camera Bags)




and a whole lotta of busy, crazy, running around showing houses and writing offers in between everything else...I'm really rockin it the past 2 months and pretty dang proud of it!! :) 


Hope you're having a great day!!

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Soup is Served...

Soups on! I ended up making quite a few pieces with all the goodies that my partner Gina (http://www.freestyleelements.blogspot.com/?m=1) sent me so I'm going to try to do more show and less tell so you can keep moving through the list and visit as many blogs as you can :) 
So here's what I started out with...







And here's what almost all of it became...






Big pouffy clusters of faceted crystals in minty greens, ambers and browns dangling from thick, textured golden hoops cascading from big faceted Swarovski crystals in a deep brown color. I absolutely LOVE these earrings and how they turned out. Nothing too complicated about the style just time consuming with all the wraps and dangles. 








This bracelet turned out exactly like I envisioned it when I pulled out the ceramic beads Gina sent me and this GORGEOUS copper toggle! I've been wearing it a lot and it's really comfortable, has a boho earthy feel to it and goes with pretty much anything I wear. I incorporated one of my lampwork glass beads into the mix that I set aside from one of my color testing glass days because I loved the colors in the glass so much and thought it was a pretty fit for what I had planned for these beads and this bracelet.





I really worked my tail off to create something a little different for this necklace. I wire wrapped picasso czech glass beads and bead weaved a swirly spiral bail onto a copper ring. It really filled out nicely, fustrated me quite a bit at first and then I got my groove and the beads began to sit nicely and behave :)
Added a nice mix of czech glass beads, imperial jaspers both big and small and then hammered out a simple but large copper wire spiral hook clasp for the closure.






For this bracelet I went with a favorite style of double stranded bead weaving of the spikey glass beads and included a bit of an asymetrical twist to it with a large drum jasper stone, beautiful copper hook clasp and absolutely adorable copper frog charm! I love copper and working with copper so much...this bracelet has a fun rain forest kinda feel to it. Super fun and comfy to wear. 







And lastly, I create this necklace using the Marshal Neal ceramic focal, wire wrapping beautiful crystals and freshwater pearls and doing a wrap across on the jasper coins for some added texture and fun with wire :) 
The pendant has another hole at the bottom tip, not sure if you can see in the pics, I tried so many (SO MANY) different things to add to that and none of them felt or looked right to me. I plan to finish off that pendant a bit more once I find that perfect "thing" for it. But for now I'm showing it as an almost complete kinda work in progress.

I hope you enjoyed stopping by! Thank you for peeking in on me and checking out my soup. 
Thank you so much to Lori for always doing such an awesome job pairing us up, organizing this whole blog hop and for Gina for being so generous with everything she sent for me to work with and such lovely emails.
I look forward to the BSBP all year long. We are a fantastic and creative group/community of artists and I feel blessed to be a part of it all.

 Here's the list of the rest of the participants who are revealing their soups today too! Enjoy!!


Alicia Marinache
Amber Dawn Goldish
Barb Solem
Bev Breisinger
Birgitta Lejonklou
Breana Fry


Brenda Sue Lansdowne
Bridget Torres
Carol Dee Myers
Carolyn Chenault
Cassi Paslick
Cece Cormier
Cheryl McCloud
Cindy Wilson
Crystal Thain


Cynthia Riggs
Dana Hickey
Dana James
Darlene Fortier
Deana Hager
Deanna Cox
Deb Brooks
Debra Behrends
Denielle Hagerman
Denise McCabe


Diana Frey
Diana Welte
Dini Bruinsma
DiYana Alcalde
Dolores Raml
Donna Millard
Dot Lewallwn
Duane Clark
Dyanne Cantrell


Eleanor Burian-Mohr
Elisabeth Auld
Elizabeth Owens Dwy
Emily Greer
Enikö Fabian
Erin Grant
Eva Kovacs
Eva Sherman


Gina Hockett
Grace Rotenberg
Gretchen Nation
Hannah Rosner
Heather Davis
Heather Marston
Heather Powers
Ingrid McCue


Jacqueline Marchant
Jan Petek
Janeen Sorensen
Jane-Michael Stallings
Jasvanti Patel
Jayashree Paramesh
Jayne Capps
Jean Yates
Jennifer Cameron
Jennifer LaVite


Joan Williams
Jodie Marshall
Judy Riggs
Julie Anne Leggett
Kat Barron Miller
Kathy Lindemer
Kim Hora


Kim Houston
Kim Sparks
Krafty Max
Kris Lanae Binsfeld
Krista French
Kristen Stevens
Kristi Harrison
Kumi Fisher


Laren Dee Barton
Laura Bracken
Laura Demoya
Laurie Hanna
Laurie Keefe-Cecere
Lea Avroch
Leanne Loftus


Lee Anne Messerschmidt
Leslie Schenkel
Linda Anderson
Linda Djokic
Linda Murphy
Linda Sadler
Lisa Liddy
Lisa Suver


Liz DeLuca
Liz Engriser
Lola Surwillo
Loretta Carstensen
Lori Anderson
Lori Bergmann
Lori Bowring Michaud
Lori Poppe
Lori Schneider


Lyn Foley
Maddison Langford
Magdalena Sikora
Mallory Hoffman
Marcella Austenfeld
Marcy Lamberson
Maria Clark
Maria Rosa Sharrow
Marianna Boylan


Marie Covert
Marti Conrad
Mary Ellen Merrigan
Mary Harding
Molly Alexander
  Nan Emmett
Niky Sayers
Pam Chesbro


Pam Farren
Pam Sandy
Pam Traub
Pamela Gangler
Patricia Buchanan
Patricia Johnson
Patty Miller
Paula Hisel
Peggy Gabrielson


Perri Jackson
Rachel Baron
Rachel Stanley
Rain Hannah
Rana Wilson
Renetha Stanziano
Robin Reed
Rochelle Brisson
Rose Rushbrooke


Ruth Szapa
Sally Russick
Sandi Volpe
Sandra Pendragon
Sandy Richardson
Sarah Small
Shannon Hicks


Shari Replogle
Sheila Daniels
Sheila Davis
Shiraz Biggie
Shirley Moore
Skylar Bre'z
Staci Smith
Stacie Florer


Stacy Pomerleau
Stephanie Weiss
Sumi Rani
Susan Sheehan
Suzette Bentley
Tamera Norris
Tracy Choy
Tracy Stillman
Valerie Norton
Vicki Holliday