Miss Independent Necklace and Earrings

Fusion Beads put up a tutorial for this GORGEOUS necklace a while ago. I instantly fell in love and knew I had to make it. So, here it is- Miss Independent. Of course, I can't make a necklace without matching earrings so I also made earrings. I think they need more crystals at the top to "fill out" a bit more and match the necklace- guess I'll have to order more beads. :) The picture does NOT do it justice- it's SO crazy sparkly and shiny. Hopefully when I wear it for school pictures it'll photograph better and I can put up a picture of ME wearing it.

Everything Old is New Again

"Everything Old is New Again" was the theme for this round of beading bloggers from artbeads.com. I chose to do a "steampunk" theme since I LOVE the looks of it and have never really been brave enough to try it. I had a hard time figuring out what to do but ended up with some REALLY great beads and findings to play with.

This is all the brass/antique brass stuff I picked out.

There are some gears, a great butterfly, a very cool clasp, chain, wire and of course swarovski crystals. I can't seem to make ANYTHING without using crystals! I didn't end up using the wire as it was shiny brass and it didn't work with the antique brass. I'm sure I'll use it on another project. I also used some Tim Holtz gears and a spring ring and head pins (that I cut the ends off to use as wire) and a few extra little red crystals I had in my stash.

"Brass Butterfly"

This is all the copper stuff I picked out.

In the copper I picked out some chain, bead frames, a clasp, some crystal rivoli settings, and the rivoli crystals to go into the settings. Let me tell you, those crystals are GORGEOUS in the sunlight! I used GS Hypo to glue the crystals into the bezels. To make this I also added in some 8 mm clear swarovski rounds, some Tim Holtz gears I glued together with my GS Hypo to make a center piece and a few others I had laying around and used copper wire and split rings from my stash to hold it all together. I really love copper stuff. I see myself wearing this pretty frequently.

"Copper Chains and Crystals"

Thanks for checking out my latest projects. I LOVE being a beading blogger partner! It's always fun to challenge myself with new and different products.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I received all beads pictured in the first photos posted above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

FINALLY got a sunny day

So, this is my OTHER piece for the Beading Bloggers over at Artbeads, it's called "Green Hills" because the colors remind me of my morning (and afternoon) drive to and from work. In the summer the hills are all brown and icky looking, not very lively or inspiring. BUT when it starts raining EVERYTHING comes alive. The grasses start growing, the little creeks start flowing, life is actually visible.

For the necklace part of this project I used some wonderfully green Chrysoprase gemstones from Artbeads. I used a beautiful green and yellow focal bead as the center piece. The clasp is a cool gunmetal pewter wave pattern. I used black parawire to do the wirewrapping. For the bracelet I used the same Chrysoprase gemstones and parawire combined with a "hitch clasp" that I had in my stash.

Here are pictures from along my drive. I get to enjoy this for 25.8 miles of driving each way.

AND these are pictures of my awesome "Green Hills" necklace and bracelet.

Green Hills Necklace

Green Hills Bracelet

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I received all beads pictured in the first photo posted above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Winter Inspiration

For this round of beading bloggers for Artbeads.com I was to come up with a winter inspiration. I've done too much of the white, blue, silver, snowflakes so I thought for a while and wandered their AMAZING site to see what inspiration I could find. I decided to do something a bit different and these are the beautiful baubles I came up with.

My package has arrived!


The tierra cast charms


The glass focal bead



I've been dying to use irradiated quartz and figured this bracelet was the perfect opportunity to play with it a bit. I also LOVE the glue in charms so I had to get a few of those. This bracelet reminds me to be reflective of my life and what I'm doing. It's got live, love, create, grow, and play. The glue in stones are all AB swarovski SS09 size.

winter reflections bracelet







Some of the other things I picked out are a green gemstone called chrysoprase and a GREAT focal glass bead in greens and yellows. These colors remind me of my gorgeous drive to and from work daily. I drive 26 miles on a 2 lane county highway each way for work. It's through lots of grazing land and rolling hills full of ponds, streams, cows, and horses. For the first 5 months of my commute, it's brown and ugly but in the winter it comes to life- the hills turn amazing shades of green, the trees are dormant so they're silhouetted by the normally blue skies. Yes, I live in sunny CA and don't get snow where I live. This piece is going to have to wait to be revealed tho because I had to get some black wire and a clasp to make it with. Stay tuned for "rolling hills necklace".

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I received all beads pictured in the first photo posted above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Fall Beading Bloggers Project

This time around, for the Artbeads beading bloggers program, I got to order some FABULOUS beads and findings that remind me of fall, or pick from the Pantone hot new colors. For this project, I went with the fall inspiration while keeping the Pantone colors in mind. I chose some gemstones in labradorite, red poppy jasper, orange aventurine, and yellow aragonite, some copper plated pewter leaf links, some copper head pins, and lastly some copper chain.

Here's my stuff straight out of the package and ready to go!



Aren't these copper leaves great? I LOVE them!


Colors of Fall Bracelet
I made a bracelet out of the chain and head pins and the gemstone beads. I love the way the colors look together with the copper. The little flower link at the end of the bracelet and the clasp are from artbeads too. I think I need to add more of the gemstone dangles on the other side of the chain but I ran out of head pins. OOPS!



Colors of Fall Necklace
This necklace was made by wire wrapping gemstone links with the copper leaves. I really like the colors I picked out to use. They really remind me of fall and all the fun that goes along with it.



I have a TON of gemstone beads left over and a bunch of leaves too. Still trying to figure out what I want to make with them. :) Maybe some earrings?

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I received all beads pictured in the first photo posted above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Summer Design Partners @ Artbeads.com

I got my first batch of beads to play with from Artbeads as part of their Design Partners Bloggers. I got to pick from the HUGE assortment of Charms, Pendants, and Glass Beads for this round. I picked some sea life tierra cast charms in copper, czech glass beads in 4 and 8 mm earth tones mix and sea tones mix, a really cool Kalera style glass bead in sunset, and several ocean colored grooved glass rectangles with a picasso edge. I love beads from Artbeads because it's easy to match up colors on their website to get a great selection of beads that go together well. It seems that I'm all about copper these days so I used lots of copper in my pieces.

My Fun Bead Order


Sunset Necklace
I combined the 4 and 8 mm czech beads to make this necklace. I did the earth tones in 8 mm alternating with the sea tones in 4 mm off the ocean colored side of the Kalera bead and then did 8 mm sea tones alternating with 4 mm earth tones off the amber colored side. To finish it I used a copper toggle clasp from my bead stash. This Kalera bead is beautiful. The czech rounds go well with it too. I love how these colors all work together.





Ocean Fun Bracelet
On this fun piece, I used some copper wire, a copper trailer hitch clasp, and copper oval jump rings from my stash and combined them with the ocean rectangles and copper sea life charms. I made wire wrapped links using 20 gauge copper wire and linked them together with an oval jump ring and a charm. The clasp is from a bead store in Oregon but I have recently seen them at Joann's. LOVE this little bracelet- it's not too lose or too tight. I may add some czech glass links in between to make it a bit longer or possibly into an anklet. This bracelet is very easy to make and the charms are great! They don't feel heavy on the bracelet so you can pile quite a few on if you want a more "charm bracelet" look.


Ocean Earrings
I had some left over rectangles so I decided to make a pair of earrings to go with the bracelet. I used copper ear wires, copper head pins, 6 mm czech glass earth tones mix, and some 4 mm copper beaded spacers all from my stash. I used 2 of the glass rectangles. These are simple drop earrings and perfect to wear with jeans and a white tee shirt.


I made my own earring stand too! SUPER easy! Get a 20" piece of wire (I used 12 gauge home wiring wire and stripped it down giving me THREE pieces!), make a 90 degree bend 5" in from each end, make a loop at the ends and bend upwards. I bent my loops over so they would hold the earrings a bit better for my taste. Easy peasy earring holders/displays. If you want it to stay copper color, I recommend spraying it with a clear sealer. I didn't spray mine because I don't really care if it tarnishes.

Disclosure...As a reviewer of products at Artbeads.com, I received all beads pictured in the first photo posted above free of charge. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion of the products...positive or negative. I am not being compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received and reviewed.

Happy Day!

I've been picked to be part of the Artbeads Design Partner Bloggers!



I'm so super excited, I can't contain myself! :)

Yes, I'm a geek.

That's all.

Olive Hyde Show

The Olive Hyde Show/Sale is this weekend. I've entered 10 bracelets and 10 bookmarks. These are the bracelets I'm hoping to sell. Keep your fingers crossed for me! If you're in the Fremont area this weekend, pop in and check it out. I think I might try to hit it up on Saturday.


This one is ceramic flower beads, green cat eye beads, peridot and clear swarovski, and a rhodium clasp.


Rhodium butterflies, olivine glass beads, olivine and clear swarovski, sterling silver rounds, and a sterling silver heart clasp.


Glass irridescent orange fish, sun and clear swarovski, sterling rounds, and a sterling heart clasp.



Pink swirl glass beads, seed beads alternating in light and dark pink swirling around it, sterling silver clasp.


Glass beads with colorful swirls alternating with copper disc spacers, and a copper clasp.


Glass irridescent green fish, blue opal and clear swarovski, sterling rounds, and a sterling heart clasp.


Copper chain, swarovski crystals in indian sapphire and topaz, glass beads, all on copper wire wrapped head pins, random copper spacers, and a copper clasp. Fully adjustable!


swarovski hearts and crystals in siam and clear, and a sterling silver heart clasp.


Ceramic hearts, glass bronze pearls, and a copper clasp.


Swarovski lt. sapphire crystals, swarovski lt. sapphire crystals set into silver plated suns, sterling silver rounds, and a sterling silver clasp.

New stuff I made

So, I made this great anklet out of some fish beads I loved and bought but didn't know what to do with. It's made from glass fish in alexandrite AB and wire wrapped with sterling silver wire. The clasp is just a lobster claw that hooks into a rope looking ring. It's super light weight and I don't even realize I have it on! Alexandrite is pretty cool too- it changes between blue and purple based on the lighting.



I also made a tote bag for Kylie's 1st birthday. I know- she's one and doesn't need a tote but I got her some SUPER cute books and wanted to put them into something and the fabric I got was ADORABLE so I had to make it. Hopefully it'll be around for a while to come. I envision her using it for dance class with her ballet shoes in it. Like the other bags I've made it's reversible.




I have more fabric to make more bags with but the next ones are going to have to wait until I get more pelon. I think I'm going to add a ribbon to tie it closed at the top. It would be able to work even if the fabric gets flipped inside out too! Version 2.0 of the Tiffany bag. Not like others haven't already come up with this idea. Whatever. :)

Olive Hyde Show

This is the flyer for the Craft Show I've entered into. My dad will be selling some wood stuff too! Check it out if you're in the area!

I think my dad will be taking my stuff (more bracelets, necklaces, earrings, cell phone charms, and bookmarks) to the craft show in Hayward the weekend of Dec. 13 and 14. I'll find out more about that and post later.

2 posts in one day???

So, I decided on taking pictures of my stuff to upload to etsy and get that rolling along. Well, easier said than done! I tried taking them outside but all the backgrounds were too busy. Then I tried just laying them on a cloth and projecting light at them but that didn't work either. So, I searched around the web for ideas and then it hit me! Use a file folder crate insert thing as the frame and cover it with a white fabric and shine light in on the sides and top. I did it and I think it worked OK. I need to get some real white fabric, the stuff I used was a silver lame table cloth so it was a bit too opaque. BUT I think I've found something that will work for me! YAY!

I got in!

So, I just got word today that I got accepted for selling at the Olive Hyde Holiday Craft Fair. It's a juried show so I had to pass a judging. Thanks to my dad for taking my stuff for me since I was playing designated driver for a brewfest yesterday. I'll post more after I find out what's going to be sold and all that jazz. Super happy about it tho! I'm making $$ off my hobby! What's not to love about that?

This is my blingy necklace- it's sterling diamond chain, rhodium plated clasp and squares, circles, and chain. I used black diamond (?) swarovski and swarovski gray pearls with a swarovski graphic polygon and swarovski square. The wrap in the middle is a small swarovski pearl on sterling chain. Earrings soon to follow as soon as I get the beads for them.

Saw this jellyfish pendant and had to have it.

So, I made this necklace with my ultra cool pendant. It's got microsuede cording with
sterling wire wraps and sterling beads. The clasp is rhodium. Silver wire wrapped beads
are glass, swarovski pearls, swarovski round and czech glass, chain is sterling.
I LOVE wearing this necklace- it makes me smile. 8o)