Adventures in Jewelry-Making

If you read my Living Stones blog during my Drawing Near hiatus, you are familiar with the Word of the Year group that I belong to.  Each of our members has chosen a Word for the Year, and we are meeting face-to-face four times during 2016 to share our progress and our projects, and offer each other encouragement.  Every month in between meetings, we are emailing a partner, and responding to prompts that keep us thinking about our words; some of us are also keeping journals to record our experiences with our words.

During the month of March, we had a kind of "choose-your-own-adventure" prompt, with several project options.  One of the possibilities was to make our own piece of jewelry that featured our word in some way.  Though I've dabbled in a few jewelry-making projects (enough to have purchased many of the tools and supplies associated with jewelry-making...ha!), I don't consider jewelry my strong suit.  I figured that with a little help from Pinterest, though, I would be able to identify a project within my skill boundaries.

I scanned my Jewelry Projects Pinterest board, and came across a link to Adrianne's book page necklace project at Happy Hour Projects.  It sent me dashing to my supply stash, as I remembered certain creative supplies that I've been hoarding, unused, for probably eight years.

These are Inkssentials Memory Glass and Frames from Ranger.  The packaging itself gave me an idea for my project:  I would choose one of my vintage photos, cut out the definition of CONTENTMENT (my Word for the Year) from one of my dictionaries, and create a necklace that melded the ideas from Adrianne's post with the Ranger packaging.

My first step was to search my photo collection for faces that spoke "contentment" to me.  There were several strong contenders in my collection:

Even though I didn't end up using these, I just had to share these lovely, contented faces from the past.

In the end, I went in an entirely different direction.  I have two pages of "Transparent Winged Cuties" produced by ArtChix Studio (also purchased many, many years ago!), and I thought one of the figures would be perfect to use since the dictionary definition could then show through.

I did a simple bit of measuring, cutting, and layering between the glass slides before popping the whole thing into the frame, creating the main part of my contentment-themed necklace.  My next step was to follow Adrianne's directions for adding a "hope" charm and a bead at the top.

Sweet, don't you think?

To read more about our April Word for the Year meet-up, you can visit my Living Stones blog post here!

I enjoyed this project so much, and had all the tools and materials out and ready, so I made one additional necklace with a vintage photo.

Meet Gertrude and Curt.  I didn't make those names up!  The names were written on the back of the photo, and I was able to use them on the backside of this pendant:

To embellish this necklace I used a bead and a "bliss" charm that reflected the happy faces of young love so many decades ago!

If I manage to find more of these frames and glass, I could imagine making many, many more pendants from my collection of vintage photos.

What do you think?  What materials from your stash would make their way onto your pendants?

A Pinteresting Crafternoon

 

The remains of the day

My mom's in town, so you know what that means:  time for a crafternoon! 

Cords and beads

This time we played around with ideas from pins on my Miscellaneous Craft Projects board on Pinterest, using wine corks for key chains and Christmas ornaments. We came away pretty happy with our projects. 

 

We used eye hooks in both ends of the cork to hold a keychain on one end and charms on jump rings on the other end.  Here is one of my mother's creations, using beads, charms, and milagros :

Here are three Christmas-themed ornaments I made, using charm sets from Jo-Ann:

My mother saw these lightweight metal frames in my stash, and had the idea of pairing them with some vintage photos she brought for me. 

Then she used a jump ring to connect a bead at the bottom, and made it into a necklace using a crocheted-bead necklace I had already made.  Pretty, isn't it?

 

I used my framed photo to create a keychain, adding a jump ring filled with seed beads at the top, and a milagro charm hanging from the bottom. 

My final two key chains continued our theme of dangling beads, charms, and Milagros:

Here is a closer look at each one:

Handling such tiny elements got a little rough on our eyes and our fingers, but overall we had a fun crafternoon.  And I was happy to use up some more of my stash.  I knew that set of jewelry pliers was going to come in handy some day!

 

For other cork key chain projects, check out these links that I have pinned to my Pinterest board:

• Artsy VaVa
• Rustic Crafts Chic Décor
• Simple Crafter
• Lavender Clouds

Just what you needed:  another excuse to drink wine!

Welcome to the Neighborhood!

In my last post, I shared with you the adorable birdhouse pendants that I purchased from Heather Alexander's soon-to-close Etsy shop, Art by Heather.  I have made a few more birdhouses myself to add to the neighborhood!

Heather sells kits for making the pendants, including the wooden pieces, collage ephemera, screw eyes, and directions.

I used some of my own postage stamps, and inked rubber stamped images to some of the bare wooden surfaces using black Staz On ink.  I stamped the underside of the roof and the bottom of house itself, as well.

Heather's directions call for drilling a little circle for the door to the birdhouse, but I tend to stay away from power tools, so I simple created black Sharpie circles for my doors.

I ordered some ball chains from her other Etsy shop, Art By Heather Supplies, so I will have three new completed necklaces.  My daughter Katy calls the owl image above "Hedwig" from Harry Potter, and wants it for herself!

I've already let my husband know that I'll be looking to him to cut some more wood pieces so I can make some more of these adorable birdhouses.

Be sure to swing by Heather's two Etsy shops for some deep discounts on beautiful art and awesome supplies!

Make a Little Birdhouse in Your Soul

A long, long time ago, I bookmarked a link to Heather Alexander's Etsy shop, called Art By Heather, where she sells the very cutest wooden collaged birdhouse pendants. 

I was poking through my old bookmarks recently, and discovered that she is closing her shop on December 15!  I quickly placed my order for a couple of her adorable birdhouse pendants, along with a kit that will allow me to make a few of my own. 

What a delightful package to receive in the mail this past week!

Along with the two birdhouses, which I absolutely adore, I also ordered a writer's pendant.  I am very interested in applying myself more diligently to my writing, and I thought:  why not encourage myself with a little writer's talisman?

I have become quite smitten with typewriters of late, and have created an entire Pinterest board in their honor, so this typewriter charm was especially compelling!

So now I have the happy task of using Heather's kit to create some birdhouse pendants of my own.  I'll be back another day with the results!

I encourage you to take advantage of Heather's impressive store closing sale on her two Etsy sites.  One shop is focused more on her own finished art pieces, and the other shop provides a really exciting collection of collage, assemblage, and jewelry supplies.  I've just now placed my second order with Heather to her supply shop.  Be sure to place yours before the 15th!

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For those of you who didn't pick up on it, the title of my post comes from an awesome little song by They Might Be Giants that always reminds me of my high school friends.  Take a moment to watch the YouTube video here.