pins

the blue pill...er pin is turquoise
the red is coral from a charity shop bracelet I scavenged

My Brain: Lets make some hat pins like the Mad Hatter.
Me: I haven't got any hat pins.
My Brain: pins then? We have pins.
Me: *remembers seeing a tutorial or possibly a picture of some bead topped sewing pins*
My Brain: google it!
Me: I can't find anything... I'll just go find the pins.

20 minutes later...

Me: I can't find the long pins. I had some... I bought some, but they're gone.
My Brain: :o(
Me: :o(
My Brain: Lets go shopping!
Me: its Wednesday....in a small town in England.
My Brain: oh.... :o(
Me: I have two pins to do a trial of beaded pins. I have glue, and I definitely have beads. *blows dust off bead box*

ten minutes later....

Me: we have two pins.
My Brain: yay pins!!!!!!


(p.s. the pincushion was made by Annie for me from the Robot swap long long ago)

Go Ask Alice...

everything I sent.. ignore the books.. they are everywhere

Things I made for the Alice in Wonderland Craft Swap...aka how I'm a totally crap photographer and have no skills with image editors and blogger hates me

Ok perhaps things aren't quite that bad but blogger isn't liking me this morning and my photography skills appear to be greatly lacking... next time I will have Matt take photos for me. He can be easily bribed with baked goods and chocolate.

I did really enjoy crafting for the Alice Swap, I felt really inspired to craft and create and just doodle things in my journal and sketchbook. I was really happy with the needle book, the bookmark (made with Anna's fabulous Alice Tape) and the primitive style Cheshire cat in fact a friend of mine asked me to make her one as well so that's not too bad for my lack of sewing skills. :o)

Say Cheese...er Cheshire Cat

Mad Hatter looks like a Mentat

bookmark made with lilla lotta Alice Tape tape

teacup needle book

Chrysocolla and Black

faceted black agate bracelet

I love these bracelets...I'm going to have to keep one for myself... but which one?

I'm off to Ikea/Starbucks for coffee and to find some now craft storage to sit beside my little desk! wish me luck

chrysocolla bracelet

Dyed Turquoise

dyed turquoise and onyx bracelet

I found these lovely square dyed turquoise beads on a trip to Spellbound Beads in Lichfield on Saturday. The string of beads was reduced as it was missing a few and they were also having a sale on semi-precious beads so it was meant to be. I love the pairing of the turquoise and the black faceted onyx.

dyed turquoise and sterling silver

With the remainder of the string of beads I made this simple one, I love the feel of the beads they sit well on your wrist and the colour is so vibrant. I could have spent all day digging through different trays of beads before being shouted at by H that he was a) hungry b) thirsty and c) board to tears. oh well next time then.

oh and to round off my playing with bead I made this simple little key chain with some lovely purple beads that Bobbi sent to me ages ago as a gift with an order. I can't remember what stone they are, my brain is frazzeled and caffeine deprived, but seeing as I broke my normal keychain I needed something to carry my keys.

Playing with Beads and Personalities

teal and sterling silver hoop earrings

I have been a busy bee this morning pottering around in my bead boxes. Not a huge amount to show but I'm very pleased with the two pairs of earrings and the two bracelets I managed to put together this morning. The jewellery items listed here will be added to my etsy shop unless I get any offers in the mean time. H will be home soon from preschool so thus ends my creative time but for your amusement I have added a personality quiz at the bottom of this post. Well it amused me anyway!

yellow jacket- lime jade and onyx bracelet

punk rocker- pink candy jade and onyx bracelet

tourqouise seed bead hoop earring

I found this personality quiz linked on SewtoBed's blog and I must admit this is me.

You Are An INFP

The Idealist You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world. Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships. It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close. But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop. In love, you tend to have high (and often unrealistic) standards. You are very sensitive. You tend to have intense feelings. At work, you need to do something that expresses your personal values. You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist. How you see yourself: Unselfish, empathetic, and spiritual When other people don't get you, they see you as: Unrealistic, naive, and weak

What's" Your Personality Type?

Vintage Swap

Here are the things that I posted off to my Vintage Swap Partner, so if you are looking Mel and haven't received my package yet DON'T LOOK!

My swap partner is Mel from Sky Rocket Sews who likes the colours red and turquoise. I ran out of time to have the painted page put into a mount or a frame but I hope that Mel likes it, Its one of my favourite painted pages that I have done so far. What me obsessed? probably but I cant help it its just so much fun to paint these little pictures on pages from a broken and battered book, my kind of recycling. I hope she finds some use of the key chain, the red agate, and the turquoise/teal glass bead look amazing together. The books were in a bag of books that came from a relatives attic, they were lovely and I thought that Mel would appreciate them, plus I thought they really fulfilled the Vintage Craft Swap.

red agate and teal glass bead keychain

Painted Page flapper with red necklace

vintage ladybird children's craft books

Beadage

Last week I pulled myself up by the boot straps and submitted a bracelet to Beadage to go in their gallery. 5 minutes ago I checked my e-mail and found that my Iona prehnite and amethyst bracelet was approved and is now in the beadage gallery! I am so proud of that little bracelet.

Iona Bracelet

The Jewellery Tree

the jewellery tree

Today started out on a rather sour note but I'm in better spirits now, which migth have something to do with the can of coke I just swigged down, or the fact that I can see actual real sunshine for the second day in a row. In any event todays crafting hour could have gone better, I stuck with it till the bitter end but I'm a little frazzled now.

The only bracelet I made that I didn't manage to have some minor disaster with was the amathyst one, its very simple and went together beautifully. The ruby fuschite one has a rogue bead on the end that dosent match the rest, the garnet I measured wrong so its small and will only fit a small wrist. Which is definitly not mine. The coloured jade one was the 4th or 5th attempt at a new jade and amathyst that went horrifically wrong, and now its jade coins instead. They or at least some of them may go up in the shop later. I think I will get some nice safe knitting out and see if I manage to not poke my eye out.

I'm making pizza for dinner, from scratch, I made tomato and red pepper soup yesterday so that will be today's pizza sauce. I have never made pizza dough before but based on todays disasters I have some frozen pizza in the freezer just to be on the safe side. Oh I forgot to say about the little wire jewellery tree, I found it in the lovely little shop at Caudwell's Mill yesterday. Its very sweet displays my bracelets nicely.

oval shaped amathyst bracelet

three colours jade bracelet

ruby fuschite and silver bracelet

garnet and silver bracelet

Teal is better than black

apatite and sterling silver bracelet

apatite and snowflake quartz bracelet

smokey quartz and sterling silver bracelet

Today I managed to make these three bracelets, which I love, I might be addicted to that lovely shade of teal that the apatite beads are. Teal is such a great colour and I would probably have as much teal in my wardrobe as possible, if M wouldn't object, I would say it is probably my second favourite colour, purple being first.

In other news I have been saddened over the news of Heath Ledger's untimely death, he was a good actor with so much potential. H's favourite movie is A Knight's Tail and I don't think I will watch it again without a feeling sad.

Peridot

Today I managed to make two bracelets, the Tourmilinated Quartz in the picture above and the peridot one below. I've run out of some findings so will have to order more soon. The bracelets will be avalible at the etsy shop later tonight or tommrow depending on what I can get written up on them.

peridot bracelet

Guilty Displeasure

java jacket

Not a lot has happened this weekend, I knit two java jackets, with a third half done and I made the blue apatite stone beaded bracelet below. The colour is this gorgeous teal blue, I found the beads at Spellbound Beads in Lichfield on Saturday. It was a lovely bead shop, lots and lots of beads to choose from, and nice to be able to see real stone beads and handle them in person as you don't always know what you are getting when you order online. Which can sometimes be a pleasant surprise. I coveted the apatite beads as soon as i found the string, I just have to have them even though I had already spent my supposed shopping money on a beautiful rutilated quartz pendant from Kizon Jewellery. Its a great little jewellery shop in Lichfield and I always buy more than my husband would like. Normally I just hand over the item and say its for my birthday/mother's day/Valentines/Christmas so he can't complain too much.

As for the bead shop the only complaint I have is that they sold most of the semi-precious beads on strings only which meant that I could not afford most of the more expensive stones because £37.50 is just too far out of my budget, though I could have stretched to buy a half dozen of the beads. Maybe if the Etsy shop does well then I might be able to have a play with the gorgeous beads they had on display.

In other news I had my very first item sold on Etsy, the Madison smoky quartz bracelet in the previous posting! *happy dance* I'm off to the post office next to send it out. And later if I can get any decent photos I will add the java jackets and the apatite bracelet to the shop.

Now as to the post title.. guilty displeasure... last night M and I indulged in the essence of couch potato-dom... we sat and watched American Idol.. the auditions with the weirdos naturally... well he sat and grinned while I hid my face because I can only watch so much cringworthness... much to M's utter amusement on many occasions of watching comedy movies... I can sit through any horror movie just fine (well maybe not those Ring movies as they just not pleasant viewing), but make me watch some embarrassing scene and I'm cowering in the corner.

and to go with our cultural devolution our viewing was accompanied by Ben and Jerry's Half baked ice-cream, if you are going to fall form grace you should do it with style. or chocolate at the very least.

blue apatite bead bracelet

Sweet Like Candy

Instead of going out anywhere today, as the weather was so grim, thunder lightning, hail, rain, and lashing wind H and I wisely decided to stay at home. He was exausted and I have a cold so it was a crabby and snuffly house today. Despite wandering around snorting olbas oil (sort of like vicks vapor rub on acid) I managed to not only do the previous post, but I also managed to get these three bracelets made, and a bit of knitting too.

It could possibly have something to do with H going for a two hour nap.... but nah lets jsut say I had an inspired day. The Ice Flake quartz is my favourite, its so clear and resembles crackling ice. If a girl can't have diamonds why not ice flake quartz instead. The smokey quartz is always a favourite of mine too, but the last bracelet pictured, the tri-coloured jade is something special. When I showed M he said it looks just like candy, it makes me think of GingerMonkey, I think she would appreciate the colour of the jade beads, so when it hits the shop tommorow I shall call it "Ginger".

ice flake quartz bracelet

smokey quartz rondelle bracelet

tri-colour jade coin bracelet

Two Bracelets and a Toy's Scarf

three strand garnet bracelet

white onyx and chinese painted bracelet

Peanut butter's new scarf

I managed to make the two bracelets this morning while H was comatose curled up on M's lap watching the wonder of "How It's Made" on the discovery channel, it was swords and clocks so it was very very good. M has promised to take some "Proper" pictures of my bracelets with a "proper" camera for my forthcoming Etsy shop. He thinks its a good idea, and is considering doing something with his pictures too.

Black Rainbows and Hail Stones

Labrodorite and black onyx bracelet

Although the image quality isn't too great I think this bracelet looks great, I'm a big fan of labrodorite I love the flare of luminious blues, as the light plays against the beads.

NOthing much else is going on here save the hail storm last night. M just had to go run out and stand in it while Alys the cat and I looked on in bemusement from the open doorway.

Red Agate

red agate bracelet

close up of the dangling pendant on the clasp

This is the first attempt at making a pendant, I think it turned out OK for not having done it before or having the proper tools. I love the vibrancy of the red orange colour.

Rainbow in Stone

rainbow fluorite bracelet with butterfly charm

Not as vibrant an colourful a fluorite as the beautiful set of jewelry Whizz made recently but these beads are very lovely and delicately coloured none the less.

Garnet and Freshwater Pearl Bracelet

garnet and freshwater pearl bracelet

I just finished making this about ten minutes ago and love the play of light on the garnet and pearl together. Its a delicate and small bracelet but I'm so in love with the simplicity of how things can be lovely and not terribly fussy and overly complicated. not that complicated is always a bad thing, except maybe for me trying to understand a knitting pattern.

more posts to come soon but off to Belper today for lunch at Fresh Basil and for H to play and Chucklebutties soft play centre... oh and did I mention that there just happens to be a bead shop in Belper? ;o)

Aftermath

amathyst and silver bracelet

garnet and liquid silver beaded bracelet

garnet and silver bracelet

shell and silver bracelet

labradorite and silver bracelet

A few of the things I have been working on since Christmas Day with the beads I got from M. Except for the shell one, which I bought from a charity shop for .50p with an overstretched elastic so I took it apart to salvage the beads and am happy with the result. My favourites are the amethyst, only because I have a weakness for purple and the labradorite although the picture doesn't capture the true depth of iridescence of the beads . I also made a peridot and silver bracelet that my mother and law has borrowed as it matched the peridot green jumper she was wearing on boxing day.

in other news H is recovering from Santa's gift of chickenpox, M has a cold and I have a poorly throat. I guess there is always next year.