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

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

Jewelry Artisans Blog Carnival .... Jewellery with 'movement'

If you think about that title... most jewellery moves...  So what do I pick.... I've been playing around with enameled  pinwheels... since February, the first one I actually made properly with holes punched in all 4 'petals' as well as the center, that was amazingly difficult to do... lining  up all 5 holes and getting the headpin through them ugh... and then because the center pin was enameled in place it didn't spin..... so it was made like the toy but it didn't work.....

My eureka momment came when I realized enameled copper is not going to unfold so there is no need to pin the 'petals'... so now I have free wheeling pinwheel earrings... toys for ears!

I started making anticlastic copper bracelets last summer... these bracelets are so comfortable to wear... adding the silver spinner to them was an obvious progression... the silver wire is reclaimed silver scrap which I've melted and drawn back down to wire....

This is actually a fairly old bracelet I did a tutorial for glass line magazine on how to make the beads.... The beads are actually like an abacus in that they move back and forth on the small seed beads.. the shinny black beads act as stoppers for the big beads.

As you can tell I like to play with my jewellery!

Check out the other memebers of JAC who like jewellery with movement
Cat's Wire
Bead Sophisticate
Violet Moon
Jeanne
Nicole V

Jewelry Artisans Network... Blog carnival.... Nature

Well in the spring I like to think of Nature as being flowers, not big fluffy wet white flakes of evil snow falling out of the sky... which is what I see when I look out the window this Easter Sunday!

So since I can't take pictures of real flowers....  here's my attempt to bring spring indoors onto my body!  These are enameled copper flowers.. the yellow ones are earrings (they look lovely thank you)  the purple poppy (I've never managed to get blue poppies to bloom) is waiting to figure out what it wants to become! A necklace I'm thinking....

I used to love Spring when I lived in Western Canada... it really was a season there.... here from sometime in November until June we get snow, rain, fog....then we get (if we're lucky 2 months of summer followed by two months of fall)  I'm not sure what to call the remaining 8 months... Nature's Revenge....

A link to other participating blogs will be added
jewelry Art By Dawn
Bead Sophisticate

Jewelry Artisans Network... Spring Plans & Dancing with Tangerine Tango

I try not to have any plans.. that said I signed up for a tangerine tango jewellery blog hop quite awhile ago... reveal day is today (this is actually being typed on March 10... I have two weeks to figure out what I'm doing or I can dust off my first bead soup project which I think fits both spring and tangerine tango perfectly!
(silver leaves came from Jo of Daisychain Designs in England)

My  plans for spring this year where to stay home... start a bunch of seeds...  but my mother decided that I should come/go to Edmonton for two weeks just after Easter... so there goes my poor little seeds I've left them under the care of my husbands crispy brown thumb before.....

Other spring plans that I might keep  spend less time on the computer and more time doing things that will expand my jewellery business and gallery.... well if I spent my time on the computer promoting myself and listing things on etsy instead of playing scrabble and freecell (someone suggested that you could play all the free cell games ... I believe there are 100000... I started at 1 at the beginning of the year I'm now at 371... I have won all of those... some have taken awhile; at 5 per day it will take another  56 years to finish!)  But at least both those games require my little brain cells to be engaged!

I am having fun doing the torch fired enamels... need to design a line of jewellery around my headpins... or get a potter to make me some miniature vases and just sell them as bouquets!  This boquet has sold and is now living in Texas.

Yes I did actually  make a Tangerine Tango necklace  It looked closer to the colour before I took pictures....

The 'focal' is green  afterall this is suppose to be a spring themed blog not an autumn blog...  The orange really is much closer to the 'Pantone' colour in real life!

Actually this necklace doesn't thrill me ... I think it needs a second strand.... Or it might just  be added to the pile of necklaces that I have done for various challenges over the years.. I think I may have to find a larger drawer!

And just to prove it's spring Look what I found in the garden!

Links to both blog hops will be added!
Tangerine Tango Reveal
Jewelry Artisan Net carnvial blog participants (JAC)
Bead Sophisticate
Catswire 
J3 Jewelry 
Jewelry By Dawn 
Bead up a Storm