Happy & Safe New Year!

I've been strangely silent recently, last week we got 6 inches of rain out of two storms two days apart... we then had four days of nice weather than got back to back snow storms... we just had enought time to shovel the first 12 inches of snow when the second storm hit.  I tried to go make beads yesterday and couldn't push my way through the snow to the studio....

A duck in the front yard!

What I've been spending my time doing when the cat allows me near the table and no he isn't allowed on the table and he knows it! 

Happy New Year
& 
 Best Wishes for 2013

2nd Annual Ornament Swap Blog Hop

Thanks to Sally Russick of Studio Sublime for hosting this! 

This is the polymer clay stocking I got from my partner Tiffany, isn't it pretty? .... Tiffany's stocking  is now hanging proudly on my wonky crooked tree.  I actually think this is the first ornament that someone made for me... I have lots of handmade ornaments but either I bought them or I made them.  This is Tiffiany's link Tiffany Smith

My husband refuses to do more than throw the lights at the tree when it comes to decorating so I get to handle all my ornaments and remember their stories twice a year... &  I  think I did a really good job with this photograph.... !

Check out the other hand made ornaments that were swapped!

Sally Russick

Lesley Watt

 Jenny Davies-Reazor

 

Therese Frank 

Andrew Thorton

Jeanette Blix Ryan

Maryanne Gross

Rebecca Anderson

Melissa Meman

Veralynne Malone

Miranda Ackerley

 Jen Cameron

Sandi Volpe

Susan Kennedy

Kristen Stevens

Shirley Moore 

 Cooky Schock

D. Lynne Bowland          You are here!

Tiffany Smith

Patti Vanderbloemen 

Pam Ferrari

Kim Hora

Christine Altmiller

Alice Peterson

Bette Brody

Julie Anne Leggett

Lola Surwillo

Kathleen Lange Klik

Erin Prais Hintz

Mowse Doyle

Kristi Jaro

Sorry I set the uplaod time for 1:30 pm not am I'm here now!

Almost Wordless Wednesday & BTW

The crazy quilt that we bought while we were in NL this fall.....

My first crazy quilt bead... Gord took one looka at it and told me I'd forgoten the spiders web....

This one has a web and is on etsy....  Webs are meant to bring good luck

ABS Ornament Blog Hop

So this is what I ended up with.... The bird got added fairly early... but the original hair had seed beeds in it... and talk about a bad hair day!  The red enameled head pin that is holding my bird was the only thing I started with that I was still using at the end!

An attempt at an in focus picture....

This was my tease picture and as you can tell it has very little  to do with my ornament....  Well to be honest absolutely nothing.  However all of these beads and bits of wire were part of ithe ornament briefly... You are looking at my pile of rejects...

Check out the other participants in this blog... everything should be live on Dec 4!

Art Bead Scene
Humblebeads
Treasures Found
Song Beads
Viki O'Dell
Sue Beads
Modern Nature Studio
Diane Hawkey
Suburban Girl Studio
Jen Judd Rocks
Ellie's Bijoux
Island Girl's Insights You are here!
Life By The Seat Of My Pants
Too Aquarius 
Shelley Graham Turner
Artfully Ornamental
Charis Designs Jewelry
Harrison Hollow Designs
Silver Nik Nats
Bead Soup Mix
Toodles and Binks
Bead Recipes
Play Sculpt Live
BeeTree by M.E.
A Half-Baked Notion 
Kim's Jewelry
Billi

Artisan Whimsy Berries & Leaves Challenge

I've never done a mistletoe bead before... But I really like how this one turned out!   I also did a penquin that got stuck in a holly bush., nope I'll let you invision that on your own!  Other entries are here... but you don't get to vote this time, it's a random drawing....

Hurricane Sandy Auction

A group of us are having an auction for USWLoves in aid of Hurricane Sandy victims starting at 10 am EST today.  Check here for info on USWLoves  

Here's the link to where the auction is on FB and there is currently a preview up of what is being auctioned at that link.

My two donations are here......

 A sputnik pendant, with sterling silver endcaps, top one says hope....

A pair of handknit socks... Should fit most women... If you don't win the auction come back and whine I have quite a few pairs!

Don't forget to check out all the other wonderful goodies on Facebook and Bid Often!
Link to the entire auction album.

Bead Table Wednesday (BTW)

I just got my copy of Jean Power's Geometric Beadwork in the mail late last week  this is a combination of her star bead and a triangular bead 'link'. 

Think the rest of the chain should alternate round and triangular  beaded links..... Not sure about colour since I know I don't have nearly enough of the purple beads and I have no clue where I bought them!

Glass Artists helping out Hurricane Sandy Victims

A group of Artists on Artisan Whimsy have banded together to help out Hurrican Sandy Victims. The group we are donating to is UWSLoves (UWS=Upper West Side in NYC)

 UWS  OnFacebook   

UWS  Blog on Wordpress 

 I will be donating 25% of my online sales to UWS from now until the end of November. So why don't you buy yourself a Thanksgiving or early Christmas gift from my etsy store and help out Hurrican Sandy victims. 

Samples of items you can find in my etsy store

I would be happy to make this toggle in any colour (within reason) that you want! I will donate the 25% from all Custom orders that are paid for by Dec 2!

UK inspired Challenge - Isle of Wight

 Well I'm not really sure why I picked the Isle of Wight... maybe because I live on an island?  Or was it because I really like Mozaics.... But with very little research I discovered that the Isle of Wight not only has ancient roman mozaics it has 3 breweries... and since drinking local beers is one of our favorite pastimes as we're traveling... how could I not focus my necklace(s) on BEER! I found a really interesting web site called  Wightwash the Isle of Whytes official CAMRA site  (CAMPAIGN FOR REAL ALE)  After checking out Wightwash and all the lovely beaches we might have to put the Isle of Wight  on our list of must visit places!   

The Isle of  Wight covers an area of approx 380 sq km... Deer island (where I live)  is just over 100 sq km and we have no Breweries.... not only do we have no Breweries most of our restaurants close in the winter!  We also seem to have very little interesting  history, no Roman mozaics, no ancient ruins and no lovely beaches. We have  what I refer to as intertidal schluck.. It  comes and goes twice a day ( we have 28 foot tides here)

Now your probably asking just what beer has to do with jewellery... A lot in this case!  We spent 2 weeks in NL in Sept and their local Brewery  Quidi Vidi bottles  their beer in slightly different shaped   bottles than the rest of Canada, so we had a couple of left over bottles that needed to have something done with them!  So I made two necklaces out of beer bottles. My husband sawed the ends off  and I cut them up The knotted glass bead necklace is all one bottle the fused neckrings are actually a different bottle as the Newfoundland bottle didn't have much of a neck. The etched beads in the ring necklace are beads I've had forever.. they look old, I think they are etched glass, but might be rock(?), I thought one of my shorebird beads was an appropriate focal for an island with lots of beaches... It also has a marina full of sailboats... but I'm not sure sailing around the Isle of Wight would be any warmer than sailing in the Bay of Fundy?

 Closeup of Beer bottle beads and rings

Not sure about the strings hanging off everywhere,I'm definitely fibre challenged when it comes to making jewellery, I'd love to grab my scissors and cut them off!

What I started with .... after a little bit of sawing and cutting...

For other participants in this challenge
or use the list below!

The HostsLesley Watt Gossiping Goddess

Rebecca Anderson Songbeads

Pippa Chandler Pip's Jewellery

Teresa Hulley Bo Hulley Beads

Natalie McKenna Grubbi

Jo Tinley Daisychain Designs

Dorset

Gale White Bantering Bird on Flickr

Ginger Bishop Lilmummylikes

Cece Cormier The Beading Yogini

Therese Frank Therese’s Treasures

Cilla Watkins Tell Your Girlfriends

Sherry Baun

Kay Toodles and Binks

Edinburgh

Therese Frank Therese’s Treasures

Kashmira Patel Sadafulee

Caroline Dewison Blueberribeads

Pam Sears Crazy Creative Corner

Sherry Baun

Leigh Thow Jewellrleigh

Lucy Haslam

Bath

Cynthia Machata  http://antiquitytravelers.blogspot.com

Pam Sears Crazy Creative Corner

Sherry Baun

Isle of Wight

Duane Clark Bizzy Bead

Sharyl McMillian-Nelson Sharyl's Jewelry

Leigh Thow Jewellrleigh

Jean Wright Just Beadey

D Lynne Bowland Islandgirl’s Insights

Lisa Lodge Pine Ridge Treasures

Sherry Baun

Liverpool

Jean A. Wells  http://www.jeanawells.blogspot.com

Shalini Austin   Jewellery by Shalini

Doris Stumpf Glaszwerg

Sherry Baun

Lennis C Windbent

Southampton

Sherri Stokey Knot Just Macramé

Sherry Baun

Leigh Thow Jewellrleigh

Kathy Lindemer Bay Moon Design

Sneak peak for the UK Challenge blog hop on Artisan Whimsy

 I chose Isle of Wight as my challenge... and here's a pair of my happy little shore birds wandering along the beach there...  Come back on Monday Nov 12th to see the rest of the necklace(s)

Think this is where you will want to go on Monday to see the submissions?

Wordless wednesday and BTW

Yep this is a stuffed felted rabbit not a bead.... he's not totally sewn up since he's not totally dry... and I think I need to do the face while I can get a hand inside. Bunny needs a name... and I'm still trying to figure out what to use for eyes...... So he is sort of occupying my bead table.... You have to stuff him wet so that he drys in a shape that vaguely resemble a bunny... I'd like to use 4 hole MOP buttons but my button stash seems to have gone into hiding!

This is a pre felting picture....

Happy Hallowe'en

As promised Lezlie Belanger's witch, she had a name but I don't remember it...  We would both like to wish everybody a Happy DRY Hallowe'en , we still have rain here but hoping it dries out before evening!

JAC October blog Carnival, Hallowe'en..

Is Hallowe'en all about colour, has it taken over fall as a season or is it about images?

As you can tell from my collage I like Hallowe'en jewellery....  And I will quite happily buy it from other people (sorry the numbers are so tiny.. they looked huge when I was editing)

1 Skeleton earrings, came from Clairs 15 years ago, they used to be silver coloured, love these!
2 Sugar skulls day of the Dead, My beads, my jewellery, New this year check my etsy store.
3 Pig Pumpkin Bead NLC Beads Nikki
4 My Beads Torch fired enameled metal filagree beads in black and orange
5 My chainmaille bracelet with large holed lampwork beads
6 Beach glass earrings from Seaglassthings
7 My Scarecrow Pendant... his head is hollow, no straw!
8 My witches hat and ghost earrings, Beads occasionally show up in my etsy store www.islandgirl.etsy.com
9 A boro pendant from Boomwire
    Silk cord from jamnglass
10 A pair of earrings I bought from Rocio Bearer Last year at Halowe'en 

I have more.... But thought this was a good representation, actually the chainmaille bracelet is in the gallery, it's way too long for me!  I realized after I wrote this that I forgot my favorite Hallowe'en bead check back on Hallowe'en to see Lezlie Belanger's ( Cankeep  )Witch !

As other blogs  Jewelry Artisan Blogs come live I'll add the links!

   Catswire
Ponder The Cat

Almost wordless wednesday & BTW

What's on my 'bead table' this week... (this week 'my bead table'  would be most of the kitchen table and unfortunatly for my family it isn't food!) Sorry you can't see it it's my project for Artisan Whimsy's introducing the brits Blog Hop .  I chose to do a piece inspired by the Isle of Whyte...  I'm sure my picking the  island out of the group has nothing to do with the fact that I live on an island... You will get to see what's on my kitchen table on Monday Nov 12.

But I have more on my kitchen table than the 2 strands of 'beads' that I'm trying to figure out how to tastefully join together, I have my commissioned tree of life Cherry blossom beads....  One of these is sold, but I'm not sure which one....

Almost wordelss wednesday and BTW

This is actually the back of a bead... The front is lovely but I just love the texture and colours on this side!

If you want to see the front of this bead it's in my etsy store

Grape Pie (New Thanksgiving Tradition?)

OK I don't really like traditional Pumpkin Pie... My mother made an unbaked chiffon pie ... to me that's Pumpkin Pie... the stuff the stores sell and most people make is YUCKY!  I planted a grape vine when we moved here in 2001 (actually the spring of 2002)  4 years ago it got moved because I planted it in a really stupid place... Just outside the door to my Bead shop... Yes it was taking over the doorway.  Last year we had a fair number of grapes... This year it's covered in gorgeous purple grapes... what kind are they?  PURPLE!

I knew I had a recipe for a grape pie in a handwritten recipe book.... I looked at it, looks easy.. neglecting the fact that each and every grape had to be squeezed and separated then my sieve clogged so I moved to the colander but of course a certain percentage of the seeds went through the colander holes.....

 You can see a bowl of the grapes hiding behind the pie!

But other than the fact I don't think that it needed the lemon juice it was great!  And it even cut nicely!  Will it become a new Thanksgiving Tradition.. maybe if the grapes continue to thrive!

Bead Table Wednesday

 

What I've been seeing when I open my kilns this week!

The ones on the left are frozen frit... think I need to pack my mold harder and the ones on the left are Sugar Skulls inspired by  Debi Cogwell's  (Palm Tree Queen) tutorial in the October issue of Soda Lime Times ...  I have so many little bits of stringers... I could make these beads forever!

Wordless wednesday on Thursday

Lost in the fog somewhere in NL

The Challenge of Travel Blog Hop

The premise of this blog hop was to travel places we've never been through jewellery.  I chose New Zealand since it's a country I've never been too... when I think of New Zealand I think of  bright greens and blues surrounding Mountains  and of course Kiwi birds.... Well my kiwi bird bead has a lovely background but the little brown blob did nothing for me so it is no residing in Fred Fishes aquarium.  (One of these days he's going to run out of aquarium to swim in!)

As I was strolling through photos of New Zealand I kept running into sets for the Tolkien books... I've always loved the intro to The Hobbit... so my necklace is a tribute to Bilbo  and all the hours of pleasure people have had reading about him....  I've even include the  door into his hobbit hole as a bead in  my necklace ....

Using the flag as a jumping off point was suggested... well it's red white and blue with Stars and a union Jack... Those colours are not New Zealand in my mind! I see New  Zealand as blues, greens purples and more blues....






New Zealand's aboriginal population are the Maori's... traditionally they had elaborate tattoos... The tattoos remind me a bit of the intricately filigreed steel beads that I've been  enamelling for the last 18 months... so my trip through New Zealand is colour. 

 The necklace has a lampworked tree bead as a focal and then grades up through blue water, green trees, purple mountains and then back into blue sky;  my version of a New Zealand landscape.

I've finished the necklace with one of my enameled toggles!  All components of this necklace are made by me except for the chain which was purchased as chain.











In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel; a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats - the hobbit was fond of visitors.  (From 'the Hobit' JR Tolkein)
 
And speaking of visiting I would love you to visit me on this blog hop! Don't forget to visit the other participants!  A list can be found here! http://treasures-found.blogspot.ca/

 

Almost wordless Wednesday

Have been trying to find tiny clay vases for my enamelled poppies, finally gave up and decided to try them in glass instead.  The poppies are about 3.5 inches tall.   I actually think the vase would be better a bit shorter... But by the time I decided that I had way too much white glass wound on the mandrel!

Art Bead Scene Montly Challenge _ August 2012

Fishing Boats, Key West, 1903 by Winslow Homer

Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper

13 15/16 x 21 3/4 in. (35.4 x 55.2 cm)

OK I'll start off by saying I really like this painting... did that make it any easier to come up with an idea NO.. I'll also say that that does not look like any fishing boat I've ever seen...  be that as it may... I actually have been to Key West... a couple of years ago...  unfortunately the harbor wasn't full of  idyllic fishing boats that day instead we got to see   power boat races... the noise was incredible!

But they do still have a lighthouse so I chose to take this months colour palete and make an enameled lighthouse  for my focal.

My Lighthouse and the Key West Lighthouse

 I had fun doing this necklace  there will be a blog hop on August 31 of other peoples interpretations of this painting.  here's the link to other peoples interpretations of this painting

Early Beads Blog Hop with AJE

Hopefully there will be a bunch of blogs showing off old beads.. the link should be through here Art Jewelry Elements.. Early BEads Blog Hop
I started making beads on a hot head in the fall of 1994... Mid february I broke the scaphoid bone in my left hand which meant I had a cast seperating my left thumb from my hand and both my first two fingers were casted...however there was a hole in the cast between my fingers and my thumb big enough to stick a piece of glass... So I spent a great deal of the time I had the cast on teaching myself to roll the glass onto the mandrel by just twisting my arm.... I have no clue where any of those beads are... and 18 years later I still make beads left handed!
These pictures are all beads/jewellery made sometime in the late 90's while I still lived in Saskatchewan

 My encased 'DNA beads... think a smaller version of those may be showing up in the gallery later this year!

 Really old hollw red beads with Palladium

 This is actually a long necklace or it comes apart and makes a short necklace and bracelet

My chili pepper necklace strung on leather

Can't find my first necklace which is multicoloured and really does have 10 of my first beads on it...

Just a note here... in 1995 there was no internet, I lived in a small rural Canadian Community, I had never even seen a 'lampworked' glass bead when I started, I learned  from Kate Fowle's video "Lampworked Beadmaking  (an Introduciton)"  I didn't take a class until 2001, that's essentially when I was exposed to my first beads made by someone that knew what they were doing!

My Stash JAC August Blog Carnival

This months topic is my stash... the question arises my stash of what.... I am an invertible hoarder and because I live in the middle of nowhere and shipping is a really big part of anything I buy... I don't just buy one piece of copper I buy 8, I don't just buy the package of seed beads I need I buy one of every colour that I think I might want to use in the next century... but you've seen my seed beads and my glass rods  (if you want to see them again), That leaves; my stash of prototype jewellery and jewellery I've made for monthly challenges.. but I actually think that's another topic... and my latest 'New Love' torch fired enamelling...

      4mm enamelled brass melon beads

 I just love the colour... I know yo can make solid coloured glass beads but these are just so much more vibrant!

This is actually just a small sampling of my stash of filigree beads... I have to keep them in plastic bags or the cats would 'steal' them... they have magnets on their collars for our cat door... I've seen them walking round the house dragging pliers... I'm sure they would just love to acquire a collection of these beads!

Actually I've been playing with filigree beads and enamels now for 18 months... I really like the fact that jewellery made from these beads really fits my criteria of 100% handmade... I guess I'm not really making the beads.. but I think they are being modified to the point that they have become my beads... (although my cats would dispute that they are "MY" beads....)

Then there are the bouquets of enameled headpins and the  toggles and the pinwheels and lighthouses and  jars of enamel and....

If you would like to take a look at other peoples stashes ... click on the following links!
Bead Sophisticate
Violet Moon
Valentine Studio 
Cat's Wire 
Jewelery Art By Dawn