Today I am showing the Christmas ornament that I made for an on-line ornament exchange. My partner said that she liked blue, green, and red in that order so I used those colors to make the ornament. I started with Deb Roberti of http://www.aroundthebeadingtable.com/ Starlight pattern. I reduced the sizes of all of the beads I used . Instead of superduos I used miniduos. I stitched 6 stars and joined them together. Then I stitched two rows attaching each star to the top. The bottom has twisted fringe finished with green and red drop beads. I truly enjoyed designing this ornament. I hope that my partner Candi of www.spunsugarbeadworks.com likes what I made for her. Thank you Lori Anderson of http://www.prettythingsblog.com/ for organizing this ornament exchange. Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I take great pride in decorating my tree. It is a tradition in our family to make ornaments. We started it back in the early 1980's. I have made ornaments out of turned wood, buttons, seashells, embroidery, rocks,beads, and many other items. This year I am making several ornaments from fused glass.  I also collect ornaments and I have several from the 1930's.

I have two challenges to post today. The first is A Time To Stitch 8- What's your bag? Therese Frank and Christine Altmiller host this fun hop. I have admired beaded purses for many years. When I saw this hop I could not resist making myself a beaded clutch purse. I used black backing stitched to black ultra-suede. Since turquoise is my favorite color I used turquoise marquise shaped glass to stitch the focal. Next I used twisted bugles and size 11 seed beads in black to net the entire purse. I chose a hidden magnetic closure. I lined the purse with black ultra-suede too. I am really pleased with how this turned out. Thank you for including me in this fun challenge. To see what the rest of the ladies made here is the link to Christine's blog http://onekisscreations.blogspot.com/ I am including an in progress pic below.

My second challenge today is called contrast. It is hosted my Lisa Lodge of Pine Ridge Treasures. I received my kit which contained black sea glass squares, black quadra-tiles, black crescents, black two hole daggers, white sea glass drops, and red size 6 seed beads. I am thrilled with all of the new multi-hole beads and the black, white, and red contrasting color combination is one I really enjoy. I decided to bezel a vintage red  Swarovski rectangular crystal with the quadra-tiles. They worked well to surround the crystal. Next I stitched black seed beads through the quadra-tiles to enclose the crystal on both sides. I stitched through the outer holes and used white rubber o-rings and the red seed beads as accents. I used two rows of the daggers on the bottom The edge of the focal is finished with white and red seed beads. The straps are made with more of the quadra-tiles, seed beads and crescents. A vintage black button serves as the clasp with a loop of seed beads. Thank you Lisa for this fun challenge.

It is time to post for Jeannie Dukic's Do Over Challenge 9. The pic above is what I received from her. It contains 5 of her wonderful polymer clay beads.

Here is what I made. I liked her design but I wanted Jeannie's colorful polymer beads to stand out more. I selected a neutral brown color  which was used in the marbling on the beads and stitched peyote tubes for between the beads to replace the silver. Then I stitched netted tubes for the straps to replace the chain. I chose copper beads caps to finish the netted tubes and a copper clasp to finish off my design.  The changes that I made are subtle but I am very pleased with the outcome. The colors in the clay beads now really shine.

Jeannie Dukic of jkd studio is having another do over challenge. This is a fun challenge where for just shipping cost you get a piece of jewelry from her early days and remake it into something new. I  participated a couple of times and I can tell you that this is really fun. Please join us for this challenge.

Lisa Lodge of Pine Ridge Treasures is again hosting a challenge. This time it is themed seed bead explosion. Since I love working with seed beads I jumped at the chance. I am really enjoying working with the new two hole beads. I chose kit B which turned out to be blue and clear.

The only things I added from my stash were the large blue faceted glass bead in the focal and the silver plated toggle. I used the clear two hole tiles, size 11 matte AB, and light blue size 6 beads to bezel the royal blue faceted bead. Then I stitched 3 bead picots around the edge. I added fringe on the bottom of the focal. The straps are made with the same beads as the focal. I wanted to keep it simple and let the beads be the stars and I tried to only use the beads that were in my kit. I hope that you like my design. Thanx Lisa for another fun challenge. To see what the other participants made please click the link below https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.1629113500663457&type=1

Hi, I have not posted in a while so I am doing that now. The necklace in the pic above is featured in the online magazine "Creative Spark" summer 2015 issue.  Here is a link so you can see all of the wonderful designs in the magazine http://joom.ag/kB1p It is a magazine showing the work of the http://znetshows.com/ designers. The section I am in is called upcycled. This necklace is made with a vintage teal coat button as the start of the focal. A Czech button is glue on top of it and then I bezeled them with seed beads. The straps of the necklace are made with cultured sea glass from znetshows that have white seed beads between them. A seaglass teardrop finishes the bottom and a gold plated toggle is the closure. I also made earrings to go with the necklace. I used concave coins in two sizes for these. If you would like to see the cultured sea glass that znetshows has for sale here is the link http://www.znetshows.com/gemshow/retail/sea_glass_beads.asp

This is the second necklace that is featured in "Creative Spark" summer 2015. I started with one of my forks that had the silver plating worn away from some of the tines. I cut it off and drilled holes in the handle to make this focal. With the help of some lovely olive cultured sea glass squares, wavy silver disc beads, black O beads, and ball end headpins I was in business. I hung a sea glass teardrop from the bottom. One of znet's two hole silver beads became the bail. The straps are made with round sea glass, black square sea glass spacers and silver bicones, all from znetshows. A silver toggle completes this necklace. I made earrings to go with it. I enjoy this kind of upcycling.

My third necklace started as a vintage copper wall sculpture. A friend gave it to me and said that the leaves were too large to use. I simply cut the leaves into three pieces and they were the perfect size to use as the frame for my soft green sea glass leaf form znetshows. I made  three kinds of links for this necklace. The first uses 8mm olive jade cubes and 4mm adventurine cubes from znetshows. The second is  made with tree agate tubes and small crystal rondelles. Link number three is coiled 20 gauge magnetic copper wire. A pair of copper jump rings hold all of the links together.  If you would like to know more about magnetic copper wire you can read what I wrote about it in "Creative Spark." I really enjoy working with the beautiful sea glass and other components that http://znetshows.com/
has to offer. If you would like to try your hand at working with some of the sea glass please click any of the links in this post. They really are very reasonably priced and fun to work with.

 

A pair of bracelets is what's up for today. I am again participating in a Lisa Lodge challenge. The theme this time is beaches. I have had this pair of bracelets in my head for a while. Only one got put together though. I decided to show the layout of the second one as well. I used the freeform flat sea glass pieces from znetshows.com that were in the kit. I also used a green sea glass sand dollar and a pair of fish from them that were in my stash to help with the beaches look. Shell shaped beads and a pearl dangle were all that it took to complete the first bracelet. The focal of the second bracelet is a real shell and I added some teal colored pearls to represent the water. Thanx for looking. To see what the other participants created please go to  http://www.gratefulartist.blogspot.com/