Recycled Shell Wearable Art Necklace

Wearable Art Necklace

I've got a collection of these shell piece in my stash. I just can't resist damaged or broken items when they come my direction. Obviously shops can't sell broken or damaged items as new so a lot of the time they are just thrown away. I like to think of them as nature pushing you towards a design plan.

The top of this shell was broken but the rest of it was fine so I used seed beads to make am asymmetric freeform peyote feature bail.

Next I had some sari silk from Stef Francis which was just crying out to be used. A little wire with seed beads threaded on to it held the silk tassel in place.



It took me a while to figure out what to hang the pendant on. I'd just been focussing on one step at a time. Letting my ideas flow organically from one step to the other.

With my pink and purple palette of beads still laid out in front of me I figured I'd make a piece of seed bead rope until an idea came to me. Duh!

I threaded the rope through the bail and it hung beautifully.

Voila!

Quartz Necklaces

Blue Quartz Crystal Front Fastening Necklace

I'm finally getting round to listing the backlog of items I have made for sale on Etsy.

Whilst I'm on Etsy I've been hanging around the forums a little, in particular the British team Forum. They are so lovely and friendly on there. And helpful too.

I've been given a critique of my shop which has given me lots of extra work to do in my shop to get it up to scratch, and it's so good to see the work of so many talented designer makers based in the UK.  I recommend a wander over there if you have an Etsy shop.

Rose Quartz Freeform Peyote Necklace

These are a couple of quartz based necklaces I have made. The top one is simple but effective. Each of the leaf shapes are made from tiny glass seed beads threaded onto silver plated copper wire and bent into shape.With the toggle clasp being at the front of the necklace, it's so easy to put on and take off yourself. I frequently have to ask G to rescue me from a necklace at the end of a night out!

And the pink necklace is an experiment of freeform peyote stich using rose quartz chips as well as seed beads to create a slightly assymetric statement piece.

As you can see from the close us, the chips sit in nicely where I have stitched the seed beads around them.  I think freeform peyote has to be one of my favourite styles of work to do to just chill out and relax.

Mexican Lace Agate Necklace

I seem to have been distracted from listing a necklace on Etsy. I got part way through listing it when I realised I couldn't remember what stone the focal bead was. I posted a photo and found out from some very talented friends, and was all ready to carry on with the listing.

Then I put it on and looked in the mirror. I couldn't list it! I kinda fell in love with it and now it is mine Mwahahaha!

It was my first piece of spiral rope I had made too. I was taught in my lunch hour by a friend at work and then just carried on going with it when I got home. Very relaxing to make! but then I realise that I had no bail the right size for it. Eventually I found one on Etsy on sale by an American seller who had imported them from Israel.

So I put the project to one side and waiting for the bail to arrive. It fitted the rope. Woohoo!

And then none of my findings matched the metal of the bail. Noooooo!!!!

So off to work I went in the morning and went through all the picking bins to see if I could match the colours. (A huge perk of working in a bead warehouse) And eventually I found something.

So I think I may have become a little attached to it and here it stays.

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

Freeform Peyote around Sea Pottery

Like a lot of people, one of my favourite days out is to the beach. However, I prefer to go somewhere which is gravelly and generally out of season when it is blustery and cold. A tradition I have is to go on Boxing day every year when it is nice and blustery and cold.

And I look for sea glass and sea pottery.

I've been keeping it safe for when I had a project to use it in and I finally found a way to use it! I've been reading Beverly Ash Gilbert's blog fora  while and couldn't resist buying her book "Beaded Colourways"


I had a flick through to see what I fancied having a go at first, then a bit of a read, and saw the gorgeous pieces using sea glass and found pieces in jewellery making and decided that it was time to drag out some of my sea pottery.

I'm quite happy how it turned out.  To be honest I was going to list it for sale on Etsy but it's another one of those pieces that I'm not sure I can bear parting with. Oops!

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

Amethyst and Chrysotine

I'm still loving the green and purple combination at the moment.

I was drawn to it after being asked to make a commission piece by the owner of Suedo Designs using the two colours, and then again by Beads Direct for the designer blog challenge.

So my latest listings on Etsy had to be purple and green!

Amethyst and Chrysotine Earrings

Amethyst and Chrysotine Necklace

Sunday Sunday

Emotions have been pretty much wibbly today but got so much done this weekend.

I did over time at work on Saturday morning and when I got home I decided that cleaning the cupboard shelves was the most exciting thing in the world. Yes really. I emptied all the cupboards, cleaned the shelves and they sorted everything out, including the "newly brought into the house stuff courtesy of G's dad's house clearance" and put everything in a proper place. And now everything knows where it should "live" it is going to always go back there too.

I did have a bit of a brain fart on Saturday morning though. I forgot to go to work! Luckily I wasn't late but I totally forgot. I was totally absorbed in buying this.

Button Heart ring by The Crimson Moon

I'd put it on my January wishlist and when I had a browse around on Etsy on Saturday morning, I noticed it was half price Woohoo! And I got so excited I was 15 minutes late leaving for work. Oops!

Work went impressively well with nearly everything done for next weeks deadline so with that i started on the kitchen. I'm such a big hoarder that I quite surprised myself with my effort. However, Note to Self. Climbing in the kitchen cupboard is a bad idea. I don't fit and it hurts. Trying to reach for the cloth at the back of the cupboard probably wasn't worth it!

Steampunk Patchwork Heart by feralstrumpet 

I also noticed an amazing necklace whilst browsing Etsy and felt the need for more retail therapy. I just couldn't resist it. How gorgeous!

And as far as new projects go, I've done around 6 inches of a new crochet blanket in the same style as my last one, but a baby blanket size. I fancied something brainless to make but a quicker "win" than a full sized blanket. Should be fun!

Black and White

The theme in Operation tackle that Bead Stash for January is Black and White, with the addition of Squares if you can manage it.

I haven't managed any squares yet, but have managed two necklaces.

The first is a zebra print heart necklace.

And then a semi precious gem selection in a black and white wirewrapped necklace.

Blue Angel

I think I'm a bit of a prolific crafter. I've got so many projects that I've finished which I just haven't had time to photograph or list on etsy as I'm too busy having fun crafting. I only realised actually how much I make when I started writing this blog.

I was going to take photos of everything I made to blog on here, but I'm worried I might be spamming people *blush* But here's my next make.

Busy Bee

I decided after a busy day yesterday at the Nottingham Bookcrossing meet that a chill out day was in order. Which means a busy crafting day instead. Wahey! I've been meaning to make another of my teaspoon (or rather mustard spoon) necklaces for a while but have been putting it off until I could give it my full attention. And today I've been able to do that. A major achievement!

It had sold by the time I got back to my computer with a request for the next one I made so I made yet another for the lady in question. I think I may make another to list on Etsy too since they seem to be in demand.

Update: That one has just sold too. Yay! I'm glad I like making them :) I've got another listed in my etsy shop now too.

Necklace Time

I realised that I don't have many "found art" mixed media type pieces in my Etsy shop at the moment. It was the perfect excuse for dragging out my bead soup box. I don't know if other beaders have one, but I have a box where I put all my lonely beads. Single beads from nearly used up strings. beads I have reclaimed from vintage jewellery and broken pieces.

I love my bead soup box. I sometimes buy boxes of broken jewellery, sometimes get given bits and pieces from friends having a clearout, buy end of sale items to dismantle, and trade for things on Swapbot. So last night I start sorting out focals and co-ordinating beads and ended up with this.

 

I think I might be keeping it myself :)

Chrysocolla

Chrysoprase

Foiled Glass

Quartz

Ribbon

Mother of pearl shell

Fabric

Vintage clip on earring

Glass Pearl

Silver plated Rounds

Silver Chain

First Finished Object of the Year :)

And on Etsy

Round and Round We Go

Since I saw a Cellini spiral beaded rope I've been intrigued as to how they work. I'd asked a few people who said they were really complicated so have put them off for a long time but since I've been playing with seed bead netting, I figured that now was the time to learn.

I'm not a huge fan of instructions, partially as they generally don't make any sense to me at all which lead me passing them to G for him to figure them out and then showing me how it works which takes up his time and annoys me as I get so frustrated.

I like figuring out how things work, making up the instructions and then learning from the mistakes I make which in turn teaches me how the process works properly.

I did find some instructions on the web which actually made sense though at Bead and Button.

As usual, I didn't actually follow the instructions, I changed what beads I used, and didn't make a bracelet, or include memory wire as instructed, but I'm so pleased with what I have made!



Can you guess which one I made on Christmas day morning?



And an obligatory blurry arty shot