Challenge Bracelets #13 and #14

Beige Recycled Button Cuff Bracelet

I still haven't forgotten about my challenge to make and document a bracelet a week in 2012. I am a little behind on taking photos though as I'm also trying to get up to 100 items in my Etsy shop too. (71 so far!)

I've got a couple of craft fairs coming up, the next one being at an Eco centre, so I thought I'd make a few more obviously recycled items.

Pale Turquoise and Peach Recycled Cuff Bracelet

And I'm part way through a free pattern tutorial for these too which hopefully I'll get posted in the next week or so.

Busy Etsy Listing Day

I seem to have bought a gold leaf gilding kit. Oops. Looks fun! Will bring an extra bit of bling to my jewellery and wearable art projects too.

My roots have been dyed too so I'm not looking as bedraggled.

Botswana Agate Zig Zag Bracelet

Peridot and Gold Candle Holder

Dyed Magnetite and Jasper Necklace

Recycled Burgundy Cuff

Absolute Beads Challenge Pack - March! (Including Challenge Bracelets #13 and #14)

I do like a good challenge when it comes to jewellery making. I like commissions where I have to incorporate random items into a piece of jewellery, or are just given a bag of beads and asked to make a necklace from them.

So I bought another challenge pack of beads from Absolute Beads. In fact, I paid for a 3 month subscription so I don't even know what I'm going to get before it lands on my doorstep. Whats the point of a challenge if you know what you are getting beforehand? And this is what I got.

I have to admit I was absolutely stumped. I took it to work to see if anyone could give me inspiration. They were quite stuck too. The charms were a bit too big for a charm bracelet. There was quite a  a lot of acrylics. And the dyed jade was just too big!

But then there was a plan! If I had a solid enough structure, then the charms wouldn't be too big. and the berry beads could be made into a beaded bead so that they sat well with the larger beads. Hooray!

But it was not to be. I couldn't get my beaded bead to work with the berry beads. More practice needed for that one. I just wasn't having fun on my chill out night in on my own but then I had another plan!

I knew I had a choker wire with a removable end ball so I threaded a few of the larger heavier beads on to the wire so that they were stable, and started wiring the other beads on using silver plated wire.

(The colours aren't right on my photo. I'm not the worlds best photographer and my camera not liking this colour is really confusing me. I want to list them in my shop for sale but can't as the colour isn't a good representation of it in real life and it would be far too misleading as advert.)

After I'd made a base row of wired on beads I wire on seed beads with a thinner gauge wire along the row, and then added the silver charms on the top. Lovely!

Next I wanted to tackle a large piece of the dyed Jade. This was just a case of stringing the beads on a wire, then adding chains and dangles. Voila!

There was still some more beads left though so carried on until I'd made a nice selection of items.

A macrame inspired floating style necklace using hand dyed threads from The Rainbow Girl

And a wirewrapped bracelet which matches the choker I made first off. I used a recycled bangle as the base and wire wrapped with textured wire I received in a  swap on Swap-bot

Etsy Voucher for Mothers Day!

Special offer for Mothers day! 20% Voucher to use in my etsy shop. Just use the code MUM2012 when paying for your order. Treat your Mum! http://www.etsy.com/shop/Pookledo

Hand Dyed Thread - Challenge Bracelets #7 8 9 10 11 12

I love Etsy and I love finding artist made materials to combine with my reclaimed materials so when I found The Rainbow Girl I just had to try out some of her lovely thread so I bought these!

I found a few second hand bangles prime for upcycled so got together with a few simple macrame knots and started working away and came up with these stacking bangles.

I've listed them individually on Etsy so that people can choose what charm they fancy or combine them with other bangles they own for their own personalized set of bangles. 

Coral Fossil and Swarovski - Challenge Bracelet #6!

I think I tempted fate when I said I thought I was getting ahead of myself with my bracelet challenge on January 19th as I haven't blogged a new bracelet since! I'm hoping to make a bracelet a week for the whole year.

And my latest one I've got round to taking a photograph of is here! A wire-wrapped coral fossil bead that was all lonely in the discard bin of a local warehouse. All of it's friends were scratched and broken, but I rescued him! Doesn't he look lovely. I wonder if other people given their beads a gender?

Coral Fossil and Swarovski Bracelet

I put him with some friends. Some burgundy Swarovski glass pearls, Preciosa glass pearls, and some new old plated findings.

I'm impressed by the result and think I'm going to make a few more composition pieces

Half Century in my Etsy Shop

I've been plugging away at it and finally got up to 50 items in my Etsy shop. I read in an article that to get a decent amount of traffic through your shop you out to have at least 100 items so that's what I'm aiming for and I'm half way.

My 50th item listed was this Rose Quartz chunky bangle. I'm a sucker for semi precious gemstone ships. I love the irregular shape of them, showing off that they are a natural stone.

Rose quartz is also the stone of Unconditional love, so ideal for a Mothers Day Gift.





And of course, the Rose Quartz bangle joins the other bangles I have made in this design. Quartz Crystal and Red Coral

Happy Monday! - And Hard Work Does Pay Off

I guess hard work does pay off! I spent most of yesterday doing my self employed work. I took photos for Etsy listings, wrote Etsy listings, made earrings and posted them out to one of my agents, and experimented with new designs.
 

 I also tweeted, facebooked, caught up with blog reading and entered a beading competition at Operation Tackle that Bead Stash.

I always check my email first thing in the morning, and I have received a large (for me) PayPal payment for something I was decluttering, had an item featured on Cuteable,

And one of the items with a new photograph has been featured in an Etsy Treasury! I guess those new photographs were definitely worth it!

New Style of Photo?

I think I might have upped my game with my experiments with photograph product shots.

What do you think?

From this:-

To this:-

January Wishlist

Button Heart Ring from TheCrimsonMoon

It's getting towards the end of the month, so I thought I'd post a wishlist of things that have tempted me over the last few weeks.

Bee Dazzled 2 by pursesonalsofpgh 

Film Noir - 9 piece bangle set by bullfinchbarbury

Challenge Bracelet 5

I seem to be getting a bit ahead of myself with my weekly challenges but I'm not too worried as it will give me leeway if I have a bad making week.
 
This time I've experiments with spiral peyote stitch
again. using techniques I learnt on making Challenge Bracelet 2  , and from the necklace which was my first finished project of the year, I made a new bracelet!

Absolute Beads Challenge Pack - And Challenge Bracelet 3

When I noticed that Absolute Beads had a purple themed challenge pack (my Favorite colour) I just had to give it a go.

I bought the £8 pack and in return received these beads. 

Purple Agate Onyx,
Crystal Butterflies,
Berry beads,
6mm Crystals,
8mm and 12mm Frosted balls,
4mm and 6mm  glass pearls,
Lampwork glass hearts,
Czech fire polished crystals






I'd never used berry beads before so after a while of wondering what to do with them, I decided on making a design I've made a few times so I could gauge how they worked.

I still had more left so started to think of my next piece

Weekly Challenge - Bracelet 2!

After playing with peyote spiral rope a couple of weeks ago, I wondered what would would happen if I just used one size of seed bead in the spiral pattern instead of varying it.

I guess I have an answer! I think I might have a go at a few more of these too. The rope is a nice relaxing pattern to make in front of the television after work in an evening, and I do have a fair amount of seed beads in my bead stash!

Now listed on Etsy for sale.

Bracelet Challenge Week 1

The lovely people at Operation Tackle That Bead Stash have set a challenge of making a pair of earrings a week. As I don't wear earrings, I thought I'd have a go at making a bracelet a week as I wear bracelets all the time

My first bracelet is going to be a swap gift for my partner on a Swapbot swap entitled "Something Selfmade of Recycled Materials 2"

 
I'm sure you can tell what I made it from! I found a picture of a design like this a while back, but with no credit to the designer that I could see. But at the time I was looking for a way to use up my stash of bugles and it helped with my button stash too. I forgot how much fun these are to make and wear, and how quick they are to make up too so I might make a few more in the next few weeks.