Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Etsy Beadweavers Treasury Makes the Front Page

Little Stone Design created this beautiful treasury and it made the front page of Etsy.  Congratulations and Easter Blessings to all!   Read more about the Etsy Beadweavers on their blog.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Artbeads Valentines Day Creation

A few weeks ago, I gave a little preview of my Artbeads Blogging Partner creation which was supposed to be in honor of Valentines Day.  I had ordered these beautiful ceramic hearts as well as several types of beads that I thought would look good with the ceramic hearts - some cute mother of pearl heartssterling silver roundels, 1.8mm square cut beads, and 4mm Druk cherry red beads.  Artbeads has a great selection  of Valentine's Day components which you can find HERE.  (Good to know for next year!!)

 


I had originally intended to make a bead embroidered cuff but when I started beading around the large heart I discovered some problems.  The larger ceramic heart bead is about 5mm thick and I was having a hard time figuring out what size beads looked good next to it.  I was also perplexed about what to do with the inner cutout part.  After several attempts I decided my idea wasn't going to work and I had to come up with plan B which came together much easier.

First I created two different pendants with the ceramic hearts.


Both pendants can be hung from the same beaded necklace "chain."





I plan on listing this necklace in my Etsy shop and will donate all proceeds to the relief efforts in Haiti.

I am delighted to be a part of Artbeads blogging group and I receive no compensation from them for blogging about their products.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Dichroic Glass Buttons

I am very excited about my new dichroic glass buttons.  To make a long story short, I found out my husband had purchased a drill press several years ago (which I never knew we had).  I purchased some diamond drill bits and learned how to operate the drill press.  In just a few minutes I had created my first button out of one of my dichroic glass cabs. 



After drilling the holes I had to put the button in the kiln again to round out the holes.  After this first success, I was excited to make more.  Here are two of the next ones I made.


Rosita Pisarchick bought two of my buttons and created this beautiful bracelet that she called "Peacock Struttin it's Stuff" using one of my buttons for the closure.  I'm lovin' it!

Rosita has several shops on Etsy. She sells her beautiful beadwoven jewelry in her CrownRoseGems shop. She sells vintage and antique buttons in her ButtonStash shop.  She sells Jacquard and woven trims in her Trim Goddess and Trim Goddess2 shops.  She is one busy lady keeping up all those shops!
 
It's always an honor to see my work displayed on someone else's creation.  It motivates me to make more buttons (which I have done).  Here's a couple more that I'm getting ready to list in my Etsy shop.


I think there should be a National Button Day!  What do you think?



Tuesday, March 16, 2010

And the Winner Is ....

Congratulations to Isabelle of Bead4Me for winning this month's EBW challenge titled "A Fairy Tale."


You can see all of the winners on the EBW blog.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

EBW Fairy Tale Challenge

The Etsy Beadweavers Fairy Tale Challenge is now open for voting.  You can vote for your favorite here now until March 15th.