New Materials!!!

Hooray!!! I have some new materials!!! Thanks to small towns like ours, it can be very difficult to find beads and wire... A friend suggested I look online, so I spent some of my birthday money on the most beautiful beads and a ton of wire.

I've wanted some leaf-shaped beads for making Elvish jewelry. After some reasearching, I discovered these awesome Czech glass beads. They are a bit pricey but very good quality. And pretty. Most sites have a pack of 24 for $4. I found a site called BrightlingsBeads selling them for $2. They have free shipping (no minimum order!) and had a great Labor Day sale.
For the wire, Mom found a website called Our Lady's Rosary Makers (OLRM). We also got a pair of round-needle- nose rosary making pliers from them. Ben fell in love with it and has already finished half a rosary!

Painting

I actually made this quite awhile ago but never posted it. Its an acrylic painting. Not too pleased with how choppy it looks- but if I term it "half Impressionist" its just fine. :)

Fairy Jewelry Set

More wire jewelry! I've simply fallen in love with it... the materials I used for making these shown here are:

1. 20 guage wire found at a garage sale
2. Floral wire from Walmart
   
3. Leftover beads from back when Walmart actually had beads
4. Longnose needlenose pliers (which I raided from Dad's toolbox)
5. Wire cutters (again, raided from Dad's toolbox.Before I found the wire cutters I had used an old pair of scissors.)
   

This a circlet I made for a friend who is going to a Renaissance festival as a fairy:

A bracelet, ear cuff, and ring to go with the circlet:

The bracelet was alot of fun- I twisted wire into two bracelets, overlapped them, and then twisted the wire and beads through it.

Ear Cuffs- what are they?

Ear cuffs aren't your typical peice of jewelry. To wear them, you push the 'hook' part over your earlobe and then slide it into place. Once the ear cuff is on, you can gently adjust it by pinching or pulling the part that wraps around your ear. The wire will not stand up to repeated bending, so adjust it once and leave it. (in other words: Do NOT open and close the ear cuff every time you take it on or off. Slide it over your ear.)

This is how they are worn:

The design of this particular one allows you to wear earrings, too.

And a picture of another one I made, so you can see its shape:

Rings

What a boring title. Rings. Well, this is all about rings, and only rings. :) Hence the unimaginative title.

 

The first two are the same design with different beads, the third is on of a myriad "okay" designs.

These wrap around the finger like a curly que. The middle one is supposed to be a purple flower- it acutally looks like a grape vine.

My hand!!! Isn't it thrilling? lol. This shows how the rings look like curly ques.

I was pretty proud of this design. Its Celtic-looking. A little large, though.