A Big Hit

I made a pair of earrings a couple of weeks ago, but needed to add something to them to make them a little bit different.  The earrings have a hammered silver chandelier top and have just enough RePurposed chain to make them look super trendy.  I added black cut glass beads that I salvaged from an a broken necklace from an estate sale to give them some depth.  But there was just something missing.  I needed something to equal out the top...and then I ran across the silver circles from a broken bunch of large chain.  I posted the final picture on Facebook and I had multiple friends comment on how adorable they turned out.

My mother in law was the lucky buyer, but another friend is trying to determine what color she would like the earrings to be made in.  I love it when a plan comes together.

Cross Promotion with Etsy.com

From Hawaii, With Love

Recently, a friend mailed me a broken coral necklace that she wanted to have fixed.  It is a lovely long piece that I am sure looks amazing on the tall blond that owns it!!  I wanted to post the picture of the finished product because it is a bright color and reminds me of it's current home....Hawaii.  The warm coral colors just make me feel warm!

Enjoy Andrea!

Creativity

There is nothing quite like the feeling of being creative!!!  One of the reasons that I make, do, and create stems from a long-standing family Tradition.

My father's family decided about 10+ years ago that instead of drawing names and buying gifts we would MAKE our gifts.  This has been an amazing journey for what is already an amazing family.  One of my counsins put it perfectly when she said that it is really incredible to see what each individual comes up with.   Not to toot our own horns, but we are a pretty "crafty" bunch.  We have seen many different handmade gifts given and received through the years, there have been group favorites, repeat items and planned exchanges to get a favorite handmade item made by that one individual.  The gifts range from bird houses, blankets, pillows, clocks, shelves, shoe racks, oil paintings, pencil drawings, decorative tiles, cookies, tables, chalkboards, clipboards, baseball bats, wall hangings, quilt racks, candles, aprons, duct tape wallets and potatoe canons to name just a few.

This year I have my Uncle Lee and I will not reveal the gift that I have made for him, but I will say that this wonderful tradition makes each of us require the need to know our family members even better to get the creative edge in order that our gift will be something they will treasure forever.

Thank you to Nancy for suggesting this idea so many many years ago!  You are a gem!

Charm Bracelets with Special Meaning!

As I mentioned in a past blog post, my mother-in-law Nancy is a romance novelist.  As with most writers, she has a close group of "writer-friends" that she uses as editors and/or critics and vice versa.  This Christmas season, she asked me to help her find special charms for each of her writer friends specific genres to incorporate into a bracelet for each.  She also wanted to use charms that represented her own recent set of books.  We used several different colors of beads, some found from my bead-stash and others purchased, and used a stretchy, fits-most wrists easily, thread for stringing.  Some of the charms were Werewolf paw prints, handcuffs, handguns, hearts, books titled "romance novels", typewriters, Egyptian themed charms, horses, horseshoes, fairies, dragons, and almost anything else you could imagine.  Many of the charms Nancy was able to special order from Chubby Chico Charms!

The gifts were presented to each friend and were much loved!

Finished Product

So, I have finally finished the project for Danielle.  I had a specific look in mind for what I wanted this to end up as.  If you want to wear it as a long necklace...you can do that, or you can double it up with the s-hook clasp and turn it into a three strand necklace.  The beads in this necklace are from two separate necklaces that were not getting worn.  However, the chain, links and square link chain are new purchases.  The links are antiqued copper and hand made by an etsy.com artisan.  I am hoping that Danielle will like her new necklace...

Business Cards

It is a mad house around here!  I find myself daydreaming about all of the projects, crafts, jewelry and odds-and-ends that I would rather be working on than my actual job or housework.  Why is it that time goes by too fast and we never have enough energy or time to do what we REALLY want to do?  That is the eternal question...right? 

This evening I am attending a networking gathering here in Downtown Kalamazoo and I was busily working on making business cards to take.  I like to make my own cards out of recycled paper/cardboard boxes...It just makes sense that if I make my jewelry out off repurposed items that I would make my marketting materials out of recycled materials as well.