Inspired by Reading Book Club: Drinking the Rain

In keeping up with my tradition of not getting the books of the months read, this book also did not get completed.

I got to Chapter 3 and could not go any farther!

My logic was this: The concept of the book hits too close to home. If I had a 'nubble' or a second home on my own little private island to go to, I'd be there in a hot minute! Shanty or not!

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, but it's summer and I need a break!!!! Remember the Calgon commercials? Calgon take me away!!! Lol

Anyhow- by Chapter 3, the main character in the book has run out of the food she brought along with her and makes a trip to the store, which has practically nothing.

So she grabs some canned goods and heads home and has to learn to forage...

My pieces are inspired by this image. I used these dusty acrylic beads to represent the rocks of the beach and the shells of the clams that she gathers. The red and pinks really don't mean anything, they were just on the strands. And it glams it up a bit as well. Bling bling!!!

So, why the cupcake focal you ask?

Well, I have been on a Jade Scott kick lately and I really wanted to use this one. I got to thinking how I would feel if I were living in my beach shack and didn't have access to the junk foods and goodies that I love to eat. And so I figured, I ised this focal... 

It may be a stretch, but too bad.

Want another stretch? If you look closely, a few of those beads are raindrop shaped.... And maybe there happened to be some Cupcake wine tonite at the meet up. Just saying...

By the way, my contribution to the meet up was a smorgasboard of nuts, dried fruits and fancy Triscuits in a Vera Wang platter. It was my homage to her pampered city life, and also to her island life where things like these probably would have been in her little pantry. 

Well, maybe not the Triscuits....

Thanks to William for capturing this pic:

Vera Wang^^^^ 😀

Anyhow- I made a matching bracelet.

I ran out of the pretty ruby red vintage rounds that I used in the necklace, but I used all three of the strands with no lone beads. Winning!!!!

And here is another funky little hickymadoodle that I am probably going to just put on a simple little oxidized metal chain, or even a large safety pin.

I am HORRIBLE with round nose pliers y'all!!!! But I lovingly say that my ends are artistic. Hahahahahaha!

So, onto next month!!!!

The selection will be The Fault in our Stars. Grab your Kleenex!!!!

See you next month!

Pretty Palettes: June 2016 Reveal

This month's Pretty Palettes Challenge was gorgeous!

I fell head over heels in love with the ombre seed bead strands and had a blast making not one, but several projects!!!

Here is my first piece: 

This uses just the dark teal seed beads from one of the ombre strands (which were nice and bountiful) and a strand of something faceted and lovely that I picked up at a little bead store in Florida.

The focal is from Michaels eons ago and has been in my stash for years! But it matched the teal beads perfectly, so I added one of the cute little star fish beads and voila! Beachy!

I had one little faceted bead left and so I made it a focal for a full strand of ombre seed beads. The faceted beads have a lot of purple tint to them, so I used purple seed beads as a spacer and it looks lovely!

Lastly, I made this fun little memory wire bracelet and to shake it up, I added a cute little czech glass leaf that I had in my  

stash.

Had the best time with this challenge and can't wait to see what next month is!!!

It was a Ruby Tuesday kinda day and I slayed.

So, if you saw yesterday's post, you know that I have been playing around with a box of red beads that have been neglected.

Red is not my go-to color BUT today, I slayed.

I mean, totally KILLED IT!

Look at this beauty!

Czech glass, faceted, blood red beads alternate between the czech dangles that are topped (or bottomed?) off with a red bicone.

To pull the golds out, I used two toggle rings (that are missing the bars) and threw a properly functioning silver toned toggle clasp in the middle so thatthe necklace would close properly. 

Clever right?!

And then....

Look at these little sweethearts!!!!

Eventually these will be earrings, but I ran out of ear wires....whoops! 

AND I have a set to match the necklace, but they are still in the works....

So, I am off to bed to get a good night of sleep. I am feeling truly inspired, so I hope to have some more awesome things to show you tomorrow. 

See you then!

Monday FUN day!!!

Today I played around with a box of my red beads that have been gathering dust in my stash.

Red us not a color that I go to usually, but I completed this piece today and have some others laid out to play with tomorrow.

The beads are an AB finish ruby peanut, but we lovingly call them dog bones. A simple flower shaped toggle clasp finishes it off.

The focal is by Jade Scott.

Did you know that I found out about her about a month before she retired? 

The final shop updates were so jammed with bidding activity that most of the time you clicked buy it now on an item before you even knew what it was. 

And even then, the paypal transaction wouldn't process fast enough and you would lose out!

Needless to say, whenever I see some of Jade's work on a Destash, I go for it!

Sarajo's Honey Do Challenge: June 2016

Ummmm, let's just take a minute to say, WAY TO GO LAUREL!!!!!

I finished this month's challenge BEFORE THE DEADLINE!

Epic!!!!!!!

I love this challenge for so many reasons. Mainly because Sarajo's hubby encourages her jewelry making hobby by inspiring her with his photography hobby.

(Side note: This will never happen in my lifetime unless my hubby starts inspiring me by snapping a pic of his awesome dirt bike, his tractor, the side by side, and maybe some various top shelf power tools he owns.... Sad news, all of them are red, red and white, orange and white, or orange and black. So I guess maybe I would get a few months. Lol)

Anyhow- let's get to this month's inspiration of the koi pond.

I totally ran with this one! I saw the green of the leaves and coincidentally had all of my green beads out in search of some that Andrew was looking for.

They sat on my counter for another three weeks until I grabbed them and threw them in my bead bag!!!

Also, Alison and I have been slightly obsessing over Candie Cooper. I just adore her live videos and LOVE the way she wears multiple pieces of jewelry in assorted lengths on her neck and groovy styles of assorted bling on her wrist.

So here is what I came up with:

These two pieces use four full strands of beads (3 of which are glass on one is stone) which I strung kind of yin yang style.

The next piece is a combo of vintage lucite (small darker green rounds and large limey green rounds) with some leftover glass and stone from the two other pieces.

The orange ceramic focal is from a full strand that I picked up at Beadfest Philly this spring and the other swirled bead is part of that African bead stash that a friend of mine gave me.

(Side note two: I have three more beads from that stash to use! It was great inspiration. Maybe we should start a random act of bead kindness thingy and send members little bits of goodies from our stashes to see what they come up with????)

So all together, this is what they look like:

I cannot WAIT to wear these. But as you probably noticed, the last piece needs a clasp... 

I will get to it one of these days!!!!

Can't wait for the July Challenge!

See you next month-

L

Sarajo's Honey Do Challenge (May 2016)

It's the almost the end of June and here I am posting for my May project....

Whoops!

Sorry Sarajo!!!

It seems that the days and weeks are quickly rushing past.

I am loving the ride, I just hope I am taking enough time to remember it all!

Here goes:

This piece uses some gorgeous cut moonstones and a focal that I found in eBay for $6.50 but that is incredibly well made and fabulous.

This piece features speckled glass beads that look like egg shells, seed bead spacers, a Swoondimple focal, and a pink striped agate to play up the pink in the heart on the focal.

Check in soon- I have a full week to tend to one of my friend's shops in town and I will be whipping up a bunch of great stuff!