Monday Miscellany - Valentine's Project #5

One of the things I've been trying to do for new projects this year* is use up what beads, etc., I already have. I've a lot of different types of red beads to chose from, including some cute ruby red flower beads, which I thought were great for a Valentine's project.

I decided to make a necklace with them and some matching pinched glass oval beads. So I got out the head pins, Beadalon Square Knot links and Beadalon Quick Links ovals (a great substitute for Valentine's Day would be the heart shaped links but I resisted the urge to order them):

The entire thing didn't take long to make, either. Just simple loops to connect all the pieces. I also made a matching pair of earrings.

These projects are a lot of fun - hope you try making some!

Don't forget, if you'd like to win a cute Valentine's Day bracelet, all it takes to be entered is a comment! Say "Enter me in the bracelet giveaway" on any post between now and the end of the month. If you're on Twitter and RT any of my tweets this month you'll get another entry. If you're a fan or become a fan of Dawno's on Facebook and leave a comment on any post there with "Enter me in the bracelet giveaway", you get another entry - so there's a total of 3 entries you can make towards the giveaway.

Random drawing will be held on January 31st - and if selected, you'll get the bracelet in plenty of time for Valentine's Day!

*not a resolution, just an attempt!

Friday Pick on Hiatus Today, but I have Two New Organizers and Necklaces to Share

I may have mentioned that I do the posts for each morning the night before. Thursday night I didn't get back to my workroom until pretty late and I spent some time setting up things in my new Beadalon storage products from Great Craft Works - where I also found the Beadalon square knot links in bulk (yay!) that I've been looking for.

I got a Table Top Work Bench and a Beading Station. The biggest enticement to get these were the rods that hold beading wire on both and the bars at the top of the beading station for my tools. And I just love the little drawers! Haven't figured out what all will go in them, but whatever I use a lot of and need at hand (probably finishing findings) will go in those.

I will try to remember to get a picture of the new set up and post it soon - the pictures above are the catalog pics from Great Craft Works and not my own stuff. I don't have nearly that many tools, but I do have that much wire - and seeing lots of great Soft Flex Trios colors all lined up in a row, ready to use, is really fun.

Anyway, that absorbed quite a bit of time, but I do have two more things I'm working on that I can share, too.

First up is a glass River Rock necklace with the remaining citrus nuggets and a 'topaz' nugget. You can find these at The Beadin' Path in a number of colors and two sizes, medium and large.

I used gold tone spacer beads in two sizes that came from Michael's but I can't recall the supplier and didn't save a tag, unfortunately. They're from a line that features rough, natural beads in ceramics and stone and wood. The spacers have a matte finish and a rather organic pattern to them, so I thought they were a good fit.

No clasp yet, still deciding how I want to do that. It's pretty heavy, weighing in at 4 ounces (doesn't sound like much, but it felt like a lot when I tried it on. For me that's a big drawback, since heavy necklaces give me terrible headaches. I could probably wear it for an evening out, but not a full workday.

Update: new pictures of completed necklace! Used ceramic beads and Artistic Wire to create the hook and eye clasp.

The next necklace is a re-do of the one I shared earlier in the week. I re-arranged the pink glass and green aventurine beads. I think I like this way better. These aren't great pictures, as they're workroom shots with the available lighting. The green aventurine beads are well up the necklace and almost hidden at the top of the strands in this shot. I'm still really fond of the River Rock pendant and exposed lemon yellow quartz Soft Flex wire.

Well, Friday is going to be a busy day (I hope) for making new stuff. I'll be really happy to have some new pieces to share and talk about next week! Saturday I'll be posting my Supplier Sales and Sunday we'll Wander around the Beadosphere together, so please be sure to visit!

Friday Pick Still on Hiatus, So Today I'll Talk About My New Necklace

Can September only be 10 days away? While I know intellectually the actual last day of summer/first day of fall is mid-September, it still seems in my heart that summer is over when I flip the calendar page away from August. I will have to get the most out of these days while I can.

I love having new jewelry! This set is one of my favorites. Well, they're all favorites, this is just the latest one. The big disks are bold in size, but the subtle color doesn't overwhelm me. I know some people thrive on it, I'm just not one of them. I do think I should make more big, bold pieces - it's just another hurdle out of my cushie comfort zone that I have to make.

It's made from The Beadin' Path's light azore 'sea glass' disk beads, Beadalon silver plated square knot links (see G and K - anyone know of an online-source? I want MORE!) and 3-cut round, 6mm window cut Czech glass beads - I sorted them out from a pile of Blue Moon assorted glass packages from Michael's, but you can buy them from Beadweavers (first hit on Google as I went looking for them) and I'm sure other suppliers as well.

I had finished the necklace Monday night and picked out an entire outfit to wear to go with it. (You don't ever do that, now, do you?) Tuesday morning I decided that I needed earrings and a bracelet to go with it. So I went into my stash and found these cool square knot links I thought would be perfect for putting between the window cut glass beads. Whipped up the bracelet in about 15 minutes. The earrings took about 5. I would love to make a lot more square knot bracelets, but I'm out of the links!

All vintage images on this page are courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

I did take two of the few remaining knot links to make another pair of earrings with round sea-glass beads and paired them with a small pale blue bicone, which under my Ott lamp looked like a perfect match. Took them upstairs to photograph and put on my Art Fire shop (that one listing a day goal and all). Oops - they're a very pale lavender in the (fast fading) sunlight! I take them into the hall and turn on the light there, which is an incandescent bulb - they're a purple-pink (fuchsia?)! Take them into the kitchen under the fluorescent light, and they're lavender again.

Fortunately, I have some really lovely Czech glass in alexandrite, which changes color exactly the same way. I swapped out the blue bicone for some spiral faceted ovals, ran upstairs to get the last glimmers of sunlight (and used my high ISO setting), so the picture on Art Fire right now isn't the best - I'll re-do tomorrow. I also took pictures under the other light to show the color changes.

Here's the pair under the Ott light

and incandescent light

You can check Dawno's Art Fire shop for the natural sunlight picture now, but I'd wait a couple days for the better ones to show up. I haven't had time to photograph and post new listings during the last few evenings before the light disappeared, so I'll have to catch up again. Plus, my daughter is coming up tonight to stay the weekend, so I'll be short of time the next few days as well (and her bedroom is my photography studio, too).

Have a beautiful Friday and enjoy your weekend! Hope you'll visit if you can, especially on Sunday for my weekly wanderings - I have some really great links to share that you won't want to miss - contest deadlines, gorgeous creations and a couple new (to me) blogs to share.