Shells on the Beach - An Art Jewelry Elements Blog Hop

Ahhhhhhh.....summer.  

That's really all I need to say to bring to mind all those lovely things that summer entails, including the beach and sun and sand and joy.  Oh, and the relief of aloe on a sunburn or icy-hot on an overworked muscle.  haaaaaaaaaa

I was wandering around in blog land this morning and found a lovely picture from Jen Cameron over on the Art Jewelry Elements blog...it's the inspiration for a beachy, summer, lovely blog hop.  I immediately thought of the shell-y pendants I made last summer, inspired by a lovely walk on the beach here in Hampton Roads.

So, I found these in my (massive) jewelry collection and want to share them here again since they remind me of last year's fun and hope for more beach adventures this year....

Plus, now I'm thinking about pulling out the resin and seeing what other summer lovin' I can capture

Or, maybe I should even try to sell these babies so my own jewelry collection is less massive.  :)  If you're interested...let me know...

Hope you get out and about to experience the joy of the beach as well as the joy of an inspiring blog hop!  I'm sure you'll see a ton of beauty in both places!!

Thanks to the Art Jewelry Elements blog for the morning push to create!!!

I've been busy with resin lately.  Here are the latest pendants added to my Etsy shop.  :)

I used a lot of different things to create little vignettes in each piece--some vintage dictionary clippings, copper washers, paint, sequins, wire and beads.  Working with these photos makes me want to go make more!

Bead Table Wednesday - Adventures in Resin

For this BTW I'm back on the kitchen counter...the bead table has too much stuff on it to actually work.   I don't often pore over BeadStyle magazine when it comes out, but this month I was inspired by all the resin projects that were a special feature. My friends at Bead Haven--my local shop here in Hampton--felt the same way, so we decided to put together a little resin play time:  Sunday, 26 June, 1-3 p.m.  I decided to work on some samples of the pendants that are possible using a pre-made bezel and simple things like chips or jump rings or little flower bead caps or wire swirls.  

I had this super-sized bezel that I was able to load up with a variety of chips.

Here's a shot of a variety of bezel shapes and sizes (and depths) plus an attempt at using a bracelet mold:

And here's a closer look at the bangle with the little pink "O"s floating in it.  This piece came about mostly because I mixed up too much resin and wanted to find something to do with it, but I recalled a bracelet idea like this from the magazine...it's by Sherri Haab.  It's not perfect--there are quite a few bubbles and I wasn't patient enough to wait and put the rings in so they'd actually be centered on a cured layer of resin but I'm still going to sand this baby up and wear it!

So that's my mess of the day.  Luckily I'm not the only one with stuff spread out and working on this Bead Table Wednesday...there are more of us at this Flickr group.  Oh, and if you can come join us on the 26th, give the shop a call and sign up!

Latest Colorful Wire Squiggle Pendants

New in my Etsy shop...I'm going to do better about putting things in there so I can actually sell them instead of just looking at them here in my house!  If you're in Bedford, there are some of these at the Arts Council shop in the Anderson House and you'll see them at Arts on the Square in June.  :)


These are colorful versions of the wire squiggle pendants in nice, deep resin-filled bezels.  There's a pinky-peachy one...

And an ocean-inspired blue and green one...

BTW in the Kitchen

It's Bead Table Wednesday!  I have a little time this morning to share my exciting kitchen mess...which is where the bead table action has moved as of late.  I'm working on some more pendants with squiggles but this time I'm trying a little color.

It looks like a disaster zone at the moment, but I'm thrilled that I ended up with some good ones.  I have to include this next picture because I live in a small apartment so when I say that the kitchen counter is involved that means the whole apartment is involved.  Thank goodness there are plenty of Cheez-its available to deal with the stress of the mess.

When I drive back and forth to DC to see Curt I stop at Hobby Lobby at the halfway point to break up the drive.  I get really sleepy when driving any distances, even in the broad daylight after a good night's rest.  So, I use crafty shopping as my little helper to get me through the drive.  A couple of weeks ago I struck it rich because these bezels, which I love, were 50% off.  My cart overflowethed. 

Luckily the resin didn't overfloweth too much.  I was so antsy to pour these that I went ahead without the waxed paper that should be underneath to keep them from sticking to the surface of whatever they're on and turning into a mess.  Only one of these had some drips and I caught them in time so nothing ended up with a black back.  

What's on your bead table...or your kitchen counter?

Squiggles + Resin = Awesome

I've had this 2-part resin sitting here in the kitchen for weeks.  It was there next to the sad little bezels that were waiting to be made into something interesting.  I've been thinking multi-media lately and wanted to come up with something really interesting and unique  But, there's so much potential "stuff" to put into the resin that I was feeling a little lost.  Last night, though, I had a breakthrough.  Next to the resin and the empty bezels I had a tray filled with some practice steel wire squiggles that I'm planning to use for links and whathaveyou.  It became obvious right then that one of those little squiggles would be just right for the bezel and then I could get a nice three-dimensional look with the resin.  

Voila!

My new cool results...

I ended up with a couple of overflows and a couple of air bubbles...those will be my pendant to work with.  Overall, though, I'm thrilled and now I have to go find some more bezels to cheer up with my squiggles!


I put the good ones into my Etsy shop.  :)

Nostalgia and Artbeads...and a Discount!

As an Artbeads.com Design Partner, I had a fun challenge with some pendant frames for summer designs.  I have been wanted to use ICE resin for ages, so I finally sat down and toughed it out.  I'm glad I did because I was able to present this pretty set to my Mom for her birthday in June.

Why is this post about nostalgia?  Because I used a piece of wallpaper from the house I grew up in for the focal.  My mom absolutely loved that house and put the wallpaper up herself, so when I came up on a piece of the paper while refinishing an old dresser from the hallway, I knew it would be perfect.

To add a little oomph to the resin, I used a few little embellishments to add some texture.  As you can see from a little shot of my workspace from that day, you'll see that I was all over the map with these pendant frames...it was a great experiment!  At Artbeads.com you can get all sorts of shapes, sizes, and finishes of pendants for resin or any other filling.

***As a bonus, I want to share a Savings Discount code for Artbeads.com that you can use until July 31, 2010:  enter SCF10P-ARTBEADS-0125 at checkout!***

The pendants used in the previous post, specifically referenced as from ArtBeads.com were provided as promotional gifts by for review or design partnership purposes.