Resin bauble slider reveal

Welcome! Today is the day to see what a group of designers inspired by Lorelei Eurto’s Michael’s find could all come up with.  No surprise, she finds the coolest stuff. I knew I wanted in as soon as I saw her photo and thought “what the?”  Girl on a mission, I was happy to find both colours.

First a false start…



She wants to be a butterfly, but we had words over what her wings would look like and I stripped them back off.  So she will languish in the vicinity of the work table for the perfect inspiration another day.

I switched to working with the blue ones.  I made a joke about not showing you bugs on fire when I was talking about my initial inspiration – I guess I couldn’t get that idea out of my head since I bring you a bug made of bugs or, well, bug products.
 

I used brass wire to create  a bunch of teardrop shapes that I hammered. Two of these I turned into integral parts of polymer components.  The large blue circles you see are the ends of a silk worm cocoon that I created a polymer bezel for, so they are hollow.  The center portion of the cocoon I cut and twisted to become the “tail” of my bug focal.  The body is a polymer base with a natural gold silk overlay (this is a cocoon that has been eaten through).



This picture gives a better sense of the height of the silk and polymer element.  Below you can see the the silk I included on the bottom side and have a better idea the size of the holes.  Isn’t it amazing that that gold is natural?



This necklace clasps on the side and I created it by twisting one teardrop and covering the other in polymer.



Just a glimpse of the chain which I had hanging around the studio salvaged from a thrift store find once upon a time.  Literally the only goldy tone chain I had on hand but I like how the circle links echo the resin baubles.  I wasn’t going to include this last photo since it is so washed out but it lets you see where that clasp sits on the upper right.



Many thanks to Lorelei for tossing the challenge out there, I would have never found these on my own and they did present a very interesting design challenge.  Lorelei’s blog will have the full list of participants and I will update here too. Can’t wait to see what everyone came up with!


Lola

Denise McCabe

Mustard Bead

A Polymer Penchant

Pearl and Pebble

Peacock Fairy

Beads for Busy Gals

Dawn Williams

Shirley Moore

B Street Studios

Sally Russick

Pamela770

Erin Prais-Hintz

Heather Powers

MirandAck

Lily

Karen Firnberg

Tanya

Mary

Rosebud101

Ann

Toltec Jewels

Micha

Terri

Resin Bauble Slider challenge accepted!

I found them! They were tucked in behind the others but I sure did find them!

My little pink ellipses are showing you the most unusual resin sliders that I first thought “what the heck is that?” when Lorelei Eurto shared them the other day.  She thought they would be the perfect component for a little challenge.  Now hearing her plan was to have participants the next day I thought I’d have to give it a miss.  But when she shared the participants “so far”this morning it seemed the door was open to go see if my Michael’s would be as up to date.  I was practically shocked to find them. Yay!

I have to share this picture in particular for Lorelei’s post



Their shape, that little zig-zag makes me think of butane. That’s /\/ shape is how you represent the structure of butane, and it was the first thing to pop into my head.  Next thought was bug eyes because of that photo above. 

This is going to be fun!  I promise the final piece I share on reveal day, March 27th, will not include any bugs on fire.

Michaels Toast of the Town Necklace hop

And a Finally Friday necklace, make that two - or really four since they’re both reversible.  Since the Toast of the Town necklace can also be worn a bazillion ways I’ve totally lost count.  Lets go straight to the pictures.



Now I did my level best to follow the directions so thoughtfully written by Erin Prais-Hintz, but I did adapt on the fly a bit.  I talked about my shopping trip and how my palette changed, but I ultimately steered back to more blues.  I started with the pale green shell beads and the few oval pyrite.  Then I grabbed the teal ring and the Crystazzi glass pearls I had already (both also from Michaels).  Next up I made two styles of polymer beads and the toggle bar (the bar is actually a bead gallery pendant hanger I transformed).  Once I had all that I was still needing something in the 4mm range to spread all over.  I was craving a little more texture, so in went the blue apatite chip beads and I love them here, I should have used more.


I can’t wait to see all the variety born of this design, this is a blog hop after all.  Please be sure to visit Erin’s blog to check out her next incarnation of this design and link on to all the other participants.  Many thanks to Erin for the design, and inspirational push to try it out myself.

…But before you run off, I did promise you two other necklaces.  The focal pendants for these I created a few years ago and once I saw the Design Seeds palette I thought of them right away.



The beads featured along with the pendants are all created from the same polymer canes, I think this particular cane design I learnt from a Donna Kato book.  These longer squiggle beads and large hole beads are both available in my etsy shop.



Here is the second design.  I’m pretty sure that the clasp below is a Vintaj one I think I will need more of, since I really like how this design came together – if I do say so myself!

Many thanks to Shannon also.  Her regular choosing of palettes helps me not get lost in the sea of gorgeousness that is Design Seeds.

The Michael’s trap

It began innocently enough.  I saw Erin Prais-Hintz’s post offering up a challenge involving her stunning “Toast of the Town Necklace” she had created for Michael’s.  I’m borrowing her picture to show you – isn’t it beautiful!



Her latest challenge shows three different colourways, each up for grabs, and my first thought was “hey I have those blue ceramic coins!” See I just had to join in.  You can join in too, if you comment on the post – her post – today.

Then I saw Shannon Chomanczuk’s Finally Friday post featuring a primarily blue palette for reveal also on November 2nd.  It sure felt like a blue version would be the way to go.  This is “crashing blues” from Design Seeds



I set about collecting blues and decided that a quick trip to Michael’s was in order.  It was 50% off beads this week…



Bear with me on the iphone pics, I just had to share tonight. On the left are some polymer coins I made a few months ago and a couple of glass rings (from Michael’s too) that I’ve had for years and a die formed two-tone polymer shell starting point that I had in mind as a toggle bar. On the right are some of the blues I had on hand, destined to be part of the bracelets I have planned for 7000 bracelets.

So off to Michael’s I went, coupon in my pocket, and polymer coins in hand to pick out some more bits. Here’s what I came home with



Hmm, sorry if there was some natural light you would see that is a whole mass of green beads, not blue at all.  You know what’s better than 50% off beads?  Still great 80% clearance beads, it’s not like they go bad! Now dear American friends, you get a much better price on beads than we do, it depresses me to see the difference. But still, a good deal all the same. On the left we have the mass of pale green shell beads (they say “Aqua” but they lie) and one stand of Pyrite ovals.  In the center I’m auditioning some other glass rings I had.  Lastly, on the right I couldn’t say no to the jade and ceramic rondelles.

This is the point were I decide it’s time to hurry up and leave so I don’t spend more. Which I do.  While making stops at the thrift store and Homesense for show display type items I realize I left Michael’s without what I meant to buy with my coupon!  This is the trap. They always keep me coming back.

That’s my story. Oh wait, no that’s not it, I almost forgot.  When I got home and walked over to the mailbox to pick up the mail I had left Friday since it was raining,  I found this



I tried not to get my heart set on it since I was pretty sure my sweet hubby was not going to be keen on picking this up for me. (I would totally help but someone has to stay with Averleigh).  I showed him the picture, he claims there was a “guilt trip” and it’s now in my garage.  Thanks babe.  I’m also not allowed to ask him to carry anything heavy in such a scenario for the rest of the year.  Fair deal I say.