week 41 Connections

Focus on life week 41 and yes this is my 41st post in this blog hope... I haven't missed a week ... yet.........

Some weeks it's hard too look beyond Sally's pictures for original ideas especially when one makes jewellery... so this is my cop out picture....

 The toggle 'connection' for my blue iceberg beer bottle necklace.  The ring is the neck of the beer bottle fused...

Here's the brown version of the necklace
and here's some of the beads pre necklace

And this is my version of connections... a duck  marionette  that I bought the fall we moved here for my (16 year old) son.  This is the patriarch duck every family that is even vaguely related to me also has received one of these ducks.  Mine likes stealing  cat food. 

This is Emm think he's about 9 weeks old here!
& yes that duck just stole his food... He'd like to connect his claws to that evil marionette!

Emm refuses to share now with duck... floor in kitchen is still missing flooring!  'Duck' does get to go for regular walks....

To see how other people are connected click on the following images!

Bead Table Wednesday... almost wordless Wednesday

 Isn't this beer bottle a lovely colour of Blue?  It's Iceberg beer from Newfoundland... The bottles are actually manufactured in China and the glass was quite thick so it wasn't that easy to cut  I think these will make a gorgeous necklace though once I have enough beads!

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

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/

 

Saturday Flowers

#2 Is a blue Morning Glory (This is not quite as big a weed as the pink ones that are choking out my flower garden!)

These panels can be found in the Kitchen at Mahogany Manor a B&B in Uptown Saint John

New Flamingo Bead

For those of you that can't go to a Tropical Paradise.. I'm bringing the Flamingo Pond to you. (Or at least one member of it! You can find Floreeda in my Etsy shop

Doesn't this look like fun?

This is what I've spent the last three days doing.. I made the focal bead etc.. before I left for NYC and bought the seed beads while I was away... The necklace was inspired by the necklace "Turning Tides in the Jewelry designs with art glass beads magazine published by Bead & Button.... Is it finished? Probably not completely but for the time being it is as I lost my needle!