Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Turquoise and Toffee Multi Strand Necklace and Bracelet

Toffee and Turqoise Necklace and Bracelet

I wear a LOT of black. I laughed when during one of the “Dark Knight” movies, Morgan Freeman’s character turned to Bruce Wayne and said “ Yes Mr. Wayne, it comes in black”. College Boy looked at me like “uh huh”. Consequently, I also wear a lot of black and silver jewelry. I guess that also means I'm Batman.

I decided to challenge myself both creatively and stylistically and reached into my stash of Blue Moon Beads from my Design Team supplies and my eye fell on some turquoise beads along with a bead mix of turquoise and toffee. Inspiration!

Blue Moon Beads Toffee and Turqoise 1

I used a ribbon necklace and antique silver chain as my base and then strung different beads on stringing wire, closing each end with crimp beads.

Blue Moon Beads Toffee and Turquoise 2

I just eyeballed where I wanted the strung bead sections and attached them to the chain using jump rings. No real plan involved.

Toffee and Turquoise Necklace

When that was done, I was staring at a big pile of turqoise seed beads and have been wanting to make a multi-strand bracelet so I did.

Toffee and Turquoise Bracelet 1

I cut five pieces of stringing wire the same length and put a crimp bead on one end of each strand.

Toffee and Turqoise Seed Bead Bracelet

Then I gathered all of the crimped ends and ran a piece of beading wire through each loop, twisting the ends of the wire together to hold them.  Strung a mix of seed beads and other beads onto each strand, closed with another crimp bead , gathered the ends with a piece of wire and then ran the wire through copper bead cones and made a wrapped loop.  I joined both “cone ends” with jump rings.

Multi Strand Seed Bead Bracelet

Your cone bead will cover those ugly ends.
Toffee and Turquoise Bracelet Closeup


Turquoise and Toffee

Now I'm craving some dark chocolate covered toffee!

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Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Mod Podged Mini Dress Form Photo Prop

Mini Dress Form Photo Prop

Being a jewelry maker, I’m always looking for different ways to photograph my creations. I got this idea when I stumbled upon mini paper mache dress forms in the 2 for $3 section at Michaels.

For this project you will need:
  • Mini Paper Mache Dress Form
  • Mod Podge ( I used matte)
  • Wood Spool
  • Printed Tissue ( I used a damask print, 5 12x12 sheets to a pack by Recollections also at Michaels)
  • Coordinating Trim and Paper Flowers
Mod Podge Mini Dress Form

Cover your spool and dress form with Mod Podge; apply paper. When I’m working with tissue paper I like to “pre-scrunch” it since it’s likely to get wrinkly anyway. I find this keeps the wrinkles uniform. You can be exact and line up the patterns, or you can be me.

Damask Tissue Mini Dress Form

I trimmed the top of my spool with some leftover pom pom trim, hot glued two coordinating paper flowers to the top of the spool, glued the dress form on and DONE!

Mod Podge Dress Form Jewelry Holder

Now I have another little photo prop to use in my posts.

Dress Form Photo Prop

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Monday, May 13, 2013

Tree of Life Sympathy Card

Tree of Life Sympathy Cricut

Another Sympathy card. I try to strike a balance recognizing the solemnity of the occasion, celebrating the life of the deceased, and honoring and comforting the living who mourn. This one is for a friend of mine who lost her brother after a long illness.

I decided to use a tree in this card, representing the Tree of Life. My Cricut “Wall Décor and More” cartridge has a great tree image so I used that to cut my image from a neutral cardstock. The cardstock is double sided so I ran another piece of it through my Cuttlebug  using a honeycomb embossing folder.

Tree of Life Sympathy

I layered a gray panel across the middle, adhered the tree, bordered the gray panel with coordinating scrapbook borders and tied a black and white polka dot ribbon around the panel before adhering the embossed panel to the card.

Tree of LIfe Sympathy CLoseup

Finished off the card with different sizes of black self adhesive rhinestones and a brass leaf charm.

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Saturday, May 11, 2013

Mothers Day Cards in Pink and Gray

Mother's Day in Pink and Gray

If I could have sent each of my bloggy mom friends a handmade card, I would have. Since I can’t, I’m sharing the ones I made for the moms in my non-bloggy life who have been shocked to see pink coming from me!
Mother's Day Pink Gray

I am not known for being a pink person but for some reason I just felt like using pink.Maybe it was the washi tape I found? OK it was the pink washi tape!

Fresh Ink Pink

I stamped on cream cardstock using a Hampton Arts rose stamp and black pigment ink then embossed with clear embossing ink. Some of the images I colored the area behind the rose with pink chalk ink. For others, I colored in the flower with colored pencil. Trimmed and layered with black and pink papers. I added a drop of pink liquid pearls to the center of each flower. I used  a combination of grey and silver floral papers, pink papers and embellishments including American Crafts glitter tape to finish the cards.

Wishing all the moms out there a very Happy Mother’s Day!

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Wrapping Up Blogiversary Week: Final Giveaway from DCWV/Blue Moon Beads

Happy Mother's Day eve everyone. I'm here with the last giveaway celebrating my blogiversary  week. I'm on the design team for Blue Moon Beads which also owns the amazing paper line Die Cuts With a View. I'm super excited that they've offered one of my readers the chance to win a goodie box containing a mix of both! Trust me, you won't be disappointed.






I'm also behind on announcing the winners for the last two giveaways so here goes.

The winner of the $25 gift certificate to CutCardstock.com is LM. The winner of the bird's nest pendant and leaf charm bracelet is: Angela M. CONGRATS ! Both winners have been emailed. The DCWV / Blue Moon Beads giveaway winner will be announced on Tuesday.

Thanks again SO much for making my blogiversary week fun.

The Answer Is Chocolate

Thursday, May 9, 2013

BFF Open House Link Party #104: Come Share What You've Been Working On!

The Answer Is Chocolate

It's Friday Eve and once again time to party! Thanks so much to you all for making my blogiversary  week celebration so much fun. There will be one final giveaway starting on Saturday.

It's been a busy week around blogland. Lots of inspiring Mother's Day, Teacher Appreciation, Graduation, and Father's Day ideas popping up. 


Ales from anportraits shared this gorgeous kusudama ball made from origami flowers. She has a step by step tutorial to show you how to make these flowers. 


I am forever losing sunglasses or else breaking them because they're not in a case. Jeanie from create and babble has a stylish case makeover at a price that can't be beat. Embellish a case from the Dollar Store! 


While there are no babies anywhere near on my horizon, I adore this yellow and gray nursery shared by Andrea from Arch. The color scheme works for any room. 


Finally, if you're looking for a special dessert perfect for Mother's Day, Aimee from Twigg Studios shared this citrus cake complete with pineapple flowers! So pretty and I know...it's not chocolate ! 

OK on to this week's party! 

The Answer Is Chocolate




Bird's Nest Pendant and Leaf Charm Bracelet Giveaway: Still Celebrating My Blogiversary

Bird's Nest Pendant and Leaf Bracelet

Are you tired of giveaways yet? This is another one from me to you celebrating my blogiversary week. If you spend any time here you know how much fun I have making jewelry and one of my recent popular posts involved wire bird’s nest pendants so I made one to give away!

Nest Pendant

For the eggs, I used silver glass pearls and wrapped them in aluminum wire. The pendant is strung on suede cord.  I also love making stretchy bracelets, so the same winner will get a coordinating one of those. In keeping with the nature theme, this one has a silver leaf charm.

Pearl and Stone Bracelet

The bracelet is a mix of stone beads and more silver glass pearls.

Ready, set, GO:

a Rafflecopter giveaway


The Answer Is Chocolate
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