Latest additions to my Etsy shop

Well, in addition to the new teardrop earrings I showed you here, I have been steadily adding some new designs to my shop. 

It had been a while since I made any bracelets or necklaces, so I spent a couple of days focusing on these: 

Orange flower necklace

                                             

                     flower charm by Menagerie Studio

Black & Green Knot Necklace

Millefiori bracelet

Orange knotted leather bracelet

Then of course there were more earrings too:

Green agate earrings

Royal blue enamel earrings

including two pairs with gorgeous handmade ceramic beads by Bo Hulley :

Turquoise honey earrings

Blue polka dot earrings

And finally, a bit of fun: I'm not Irish, so I don't celebrate St. Patrick's day, but I just couldn't resist these beads!

Shamrock earrings

x

The dreaded UFO, or: What's hiding in your drawers?

We all have them, don't we???

The dreaded UFO, or Unfinished Object (in my case Objects...)

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to finish a project before going on to the next one. 

The problem, however, if you want to call it that, lies stashed in some mini sets of drawers that I keep near my work-table. They are a great idea - somewhere to tidy away projects I'm working on till I get time to finish them - except that it's been a case of 'out of sight, out of mind'.

A recent exploration of said drawers revealed quite a lot of UFOs. And some beads I'd forgotten about too :)

So I'm on a mission to finish some of them. I started with this, begun a couple of months ago. It only actually took a couple of hours:

One down, just another drawer-load to go...

So, is it just me? 

New and coming soon!

I've been working on some new ideas recently, inspired by some beautiful handmade lampwork beads I've had for a while, and some new art tiles I found on Etsy.


This was the bracelet I made using an adorable burnt wood tile from J-Lynn Jewels:


Rose Garden Bracelet

I enjoyed matching beads, gemstones and metals with the pretty colours in the heart. It's funny how you start off with an idea in your head, but, as you start putting it together the design sort of takes off by itself. You end up with something a little bit unexpected, but even more pleasing, as it's a bit of a surprise!




I've also just completed some earrings using fabulous handmade lampwork beads by UK artist Shirley Giles from Fyrebirds. They are greenish in shade with an amazing depth and intensity. I think the lovely handmade sterling silver earring wires from Etsy artist Tracy Smith at Cinnamon Jewellery complement them perfectly:

I love the quality and uniqueness of these handmade beads and findings. 


I am also working on some earrings using handmade copper wires from Cinnamon Jewellery, and a project involving these J-Lynn tiles, once I can decide whether to use them separately or all together!

All I need is more hours in the day...!

Spring: Clean and Trying to be Tidy!

It's been a day of sunshine, showers, and even hail - a typical April day in other words. 


We didn't mind the rain too much on our afternoon walk.

And the rain is good for the garden too

I've been having a bit of a spring clean of my beads today. It always looks awful to start with!

It's taking a long time as I'm trying to be very thorough, but I've also occasionally been distracted by playing around with some new designs!

If you're anything like me, you often have several projects on the go at once, and storing them can be a bit of a problem if you haven't got lots of room.


Today I had the idea of packing up each project in a sealable plastic bag which I can then store in a basket.

I've done one each for bracelets, necklaces and earrings. The great thing is I can now stack the baskets so they take up less room.

This hopefully means they will be easier to find when I want to work on them.


Now, I just need to finish tackling this little lot!

Projects for today

Well, it's a glorious day here - the sun is shining and it's lovely and still.


Here's what I'm going to be up to later.


As usual, I have several things on the go at the moment, so I'd like to finish them. Two bracelets and some earrings which are nearly done, as you can see here: 

In the top right you can see my first ever experimentation with memory wire, which I'm quite pleased with so far. For some reason I had thought that it would be a lot trickier than it is, but unless finishing off the ends is really difficult, this hasn't proved to be the case. The beads thread on really easily, and it's actually quite fun to do!

Then I have some gorgeous new beads which arrived yesterday to put away. I placed the order mainly to have some more of the rhinestone hearts, as they make lovely pendants, but I couldn't resist popping a few 'extras' in my basket at the same time!

And not forgetting to admire these fabulous tulips. I bought them earlier in the week and they have lasted really well, but I can see they haven't got long to go now - they're at the stage where you know the petals will be dropping off soon, but still time to enjoy them!

So I'd best get started then!!