Treasures by Louise

First, thanks to Linda Anderson for hosting this #BeadPeepsSwapNHop. Great job done by Linda, and thanks for the angels who worked behind the scenes to help her.  Life happens! My family needs me! It's been a busy few weeks. We've had a few trips to urgent care and one to the ER. Beading helps relive the stress! Thus the reveal is of works in progress . (Please visit again for future updates! ) I recieved a wonderful group of beads from Heather Richter of Desert Jewelry Designs . She sent me some fun and challenging beads and findings. I started out trying some wire wrapping, and stringing. I made a charmy, wirey bracelet that I'm pretty happy with: I love the soft greens and tan, contrasts of stone, glass and pearl. I embellished one of the brass leaves with beads: to be attached to a chain... This will be part of a focal pendant. I have more leaves to play with, and more ideas.  I strung some of the colorful freshwater pearls together. It needs fi...

My package from my swap partner Heather arrived yesterday, and I dropped everything to open up those beads! The beads are awesome and will challenge me. Heather sent some favorites, like some gorgeous turquoise!  There are pieces that will challenge my skills; three really cool cabochons, calling for peyote bezels and bead embroidery. There are some beautiful spring green beads, both glass and serpentine-new jade, and some bright tropical shell beads. Not to mention strands of pearls and natural pearls in a rainbow of colors. These are the makings for several pieces, I will have fun and hope to do them justice. Since now, Heather has recieved her swap beads from me, I will also share a pic of what I sent her: There are two focals, a  porcelain one from Linda Landig on Etsy, and a Dog's Tooth Amethyst cab, with some 6 mm amethyst beads. Super Duo's in a lavendar luster, and two types of stripey seed beads. Fibers from my quilt fabric stash; a strip of purple om...

I just won a blog giveaway of a Journal and Freezer Paper! Now if you are a beader and not a quilter, that second item will not make much sense! But freezer paper is a handy tool for creating applique and stenciling, and perhaps other things you do to make marks on cloth. Printing or dyeing your own cloth is a wonderful way to make your quilts ART and beyond what you can purchase. I have some wonderful marbled and dyed fabric in my stash... but that is another story for another post. If you can, check out the blog of Julie B Booth,  http://www.threadbornblog before February 14th. She's the author of a new book entitled: Fabric Printing at Home.!!! This book will have you pulling the whole produce drawer from the fridge and starting to print on fabric. Be sure to follow the links on the book tour for about 15 chances to win this book. You'll be inspired and intrigued. I know I want to find out what else I can do with my freezer paper! 

"Welcome to my Blog" to new visitors. Here is my introduction for the purposes of joining the Swap 'N' Hop. I started by stringing beads after several of my store-bought costume jewelry pieces broke.  I looked at the methods of construction and the stringing materials. I was already a quilter, and had tried many other crafts, so stringing beads was the next step. Here are some early pieces, still some of my favorites:   The style of jewelry I make has changed over the years, from stringing to more mixed media, as I became a Michaels Jewelry instructor and started following blogs of jewelry makers such as Lorelei Eurto. I soon became aware of artisan beads and have started to incorporate more hand crafted beads and to move beyond store-bought findings to working with wire to create my own eyepins and connectors. Technique-wise, I joined a bead guild a couple of years ago, which has expanded my interests, so I am trying out bead-weaving and bead embro...

October's Halcraft Pretty Palettes inspiration was full of color. I joined in the monthly challenge issued by Erin Prais-Hintz on the Halcraft Blog. I was attracted to the paintings by Erin Fitzhugh Gregory, as our palette inspiration to use Halcraft's Bead Gallery beads from Michaels.    I had some of the beads pictured, & similar beads from Bead Gallery in my stash. I also pulled out a porcelain pendant that I had picked up a year ago. I love finding beads in my stash that I purchased "just in case". Edit: This fun pendant is designed by Jennifer Heynen and was purchased at Michaels. (Thanks Erin for info.)  The bright colors called for a color-blocked arrangement, and I started with the earrings,  stringing dog-bone coral beads with turquoise (howlite) rondelles, adding a dark blue ceramic round on a headpin dangle.   Earrings: Coral, turquoise, and dark blue ceramic Pretty Palettes October Color-block Necklace Detail: Birdhouse Fo...

My necklace from Jeannie K. Dukic was a chain of beautiful semi-precious jade and faceted czech glass crystals. A long wire wrapped chain by Jeannie Dukic, jade and Czech crystals Coordinating Bracelet   Earrings to match I had a moment of hesitation as I cut into the beautiful chain of wire wrapped jade and crystals. The delicacy of the chain was not to be matched...at least by me. But I had a vision, so I went ahead. At first I planned to remove the crystals and go all "natural", I wanted to add a complementary color and some variety of shapes to the chain. The lovely chain became a lariat, as I decided to keep the ring part of the toggle, and I spliced in wire wrapped sections of red agate and sections of rust-tone Czech disc beads with the crystals. The crystals became a contrasting texture to the stones and disc beads. The decision on the focal came later, after auditioning a number of artisan beads I recently ordered. Auditioning some porcelain foca...

Jewelry Treasures by Louise is the new name. It's time to decide to do a fall craft show. There's no question really, it's at a great time of the year, and I need the practice. I joined last year, and it was a little slow, because it was a new venue and not strongly promoted. This year should be better as everyone learns the ropes! Hopefully it will also generate more traffic to my Etsy store. So I will be busy creating new designs and preparing my displays in the coming weeks...In preparation, I've decided to order official business cards, and wanted my blog to reflect the name I will be using going forward. Meanwhile here are some things I have been playing with, putting some new designs in [PicMonkey] collages. I love how these pictures came out: Chandelier Earrings in crystals and glass pearls   Bohemian Feather Necklace and Earrings The Bohemian Feather Necklace and Earrings has been claimed already and I will be making more of this style.

I just signed up for Jeannie K. Dukic's Jewelry Do-over challenge with JKD Studios. This is a different take on a jewelry design challenge. Participants must have a blog. For a small postage fee, Jeannie sends some of her old non-artisan jewelry creations. The challenge is to photograph the before, and using 50% of the jewelry, make something new. Designers are encouraged to use artisan and hand crafted beads/components in their new designs. I have watched this blog challenge for at least the last two and decided to make the jump and try this one for the first time. You can sign up,  too! To learn more about Jeannie, the Do Over Challenges or her Echo Creative Club, visit her new blog at: http://wheethepeople2.wordpress.com/

A visit to a Car Museum turns up a Jewelry Display. It's fun to find jewelry inspiration in the fashions of the past. At a recent visit to the Gilmore Car Museum, a section on the display focused on the 1930's era. To answer the question: "What did the people who rode in these cars wear and look like?", there was a 1930's fashion display. I learned that "...at the start of the 1930's, trends emphasized the natural waistline as a way to close out the boyish look of 1920's fashion." This lovely jet seven-strand collar was displayed with a beautiful dress once owned by Matilda Dodge Wilson. Museum Display: Vintage seven strand choker: Seed beads and Jet ( Copyright: my own photograph, 2014) This elegant pale blue crystal necklace on gold metal chain is displayed with an exquisite beaded embroidered pale blue gown. Museum Jewelry: Graduated crystal necklace strung on gold chain (Copyright: my own photograph, 2014) I...

This giveaway is closed now. Congratulations to the winner! Please check out Lorelei's Blog for a giveaway of her fantastic linen cord: Week-of-giveaways-wednesday and go back again for more giveaways on Thursday and Friday! Pretty colors from Lorelei's "A Jewelry Accord on Etsy"

If you are looking for BSBP #8 click HERE   I recently started listing some vintage china from the 1950's. This interesting porcelain pattern is from Princess China, and is called Tru-tone Flair. It was sold door-to-door until 1955. It is a pink Lily-of-the-Valley pattern with charcoal grey foliage and is edged in platinum. I have a set of six place settings, plus a few chipped pieces. I have always found this pattern intriguing and unique, similar to the Mod "Atomic" style dishes, but with a more delicate look. I have used them once or twice a year for holidays over the past years, and they look very nice paired with pink depression glassware on a grey table cloth. They also would coordinate well with similar china pieces that have a silver or platinum rim. The central motif: a delicate spray of pink Lily-of-the-valley The six cup and saucers sold quickly, they were listed for just a few days. Tru-tone Flair by Princess China: Cup and saucer: SOLD ...

Check out the giveaway at Lori Anderson's Pretty Things Blog: Edit: This giveaway is over. Congrats to the winner! There's another giveaway,  (you know how I love these) and you can win a marvelous book; seven chances to win in all! Check out Lori's post and review. Here's the link: calling-all-seed-beaders-book-giveaway.html The title is Beading All-Stars: 20 Jewelry Projects It looks to be just the thing to kick up my skills a couple of notches! Have Fun and Good Luck! This is a Beaded Bead I made earlier this year - just for fun! P.S. I can't get the link for a picture of the book to work, so here is a beaded bead ( not from the book ).

I have been trying out Kumihimo lately:       Kits and Kumihimo materials have been showing up in the local craft stores lately, so I picked up a loom to play around. Here are the results. This bracelet was the result of a happy accident in measuring incorrectly. I was frustrated it was too short, until I remembered I had the matching beads in my stash. This may be the beginning of a new series!      Here's a Tip : An easy way to remember is to cut your eight cords 3 X the length that you want your bracelet to be. So since I use four doubled cords, I would recommend cutting 4 cords 6 X the measurement of your wrist. (You can make it an inch shorter to accommodate the clasp.) Bracelet: Beaded with Kumihimo This necklace is made with red-orange, black and white rat-tail cord. The butterfly focal is dyed Howlite and is finished with bead cones and chain, which makes it adjustable at the back of the neck. I am finding that point i...

For the original Bead Soup Blog Party post go here This has been both fun and challenging to be a participant. I do hope that this Blog Party will continue in some form. I now realize how much monumental effort our hostess Lori Anderson has put into this and all the past blog hops. I only came to understand how much time she and her team put into this after trying to hop to the nearly 500 posts myself. Thank you for stopping by. I'm still hopping, so if I haven't visited your blog yet, I hope to soon. I want to visit, read and comment. I appreciate all your comments, so if you stop by please leave a quick note. Now, a few more pictures that missed the deadline: Stone Butterfly with copper headpins on waxed linen cord For this necklace, I tried a number of new to me techniques: The copper headpin bead dangles of different lengths, the asymmetrical arrangement of the beads on each side of the focal, and knotting on the orange waxed linen. I'm not sure that I...

When Grandmother called the family to dinner, she said: "Soup's On!" (When my Grandma served Sunday dinner, it always began with chicken vegetable soup. She made a good hearty soup that I have never been able to duplicate. But that's because I'm not using chicken feet! Well time marches on... spending hours in the kitchen is not my thing, unless you include the beading projects at the kitchen table.) Let's play with Bead Soup! I love the soup my partner Leslie Wayment sent me! It was full of turquoise and turquoise dyed howlite; my favorite color. In fact it is full of color. I have enough beads to make several more items. I will share the first two, to begin. Focal with wire wrapped bail and embellishment by Leslie This focal deserved to be served up with just a few beads to accent . I love how the colors of the Czech glass, aventurine and howlite work with the copper tones. I used bright copper spacers and antique copper chain. design...