Weekend away...

This is just a quick post before the Tin Man and I head out for a weekend away. I'll try to post some pictures in the next few day and see if you can guess where we are! Their may even be a prize in it for you.

Here is a card I made during a small Christmas spirit burst. Don't worry it didn't last too long. I'm saving it for the real deal. I find if I get in the holiday spirit too early I lose it by Christmas and it's just not as much fun. How about you when do you start to get into the spirit of it all? Have you started your Christmas shopping? No I'm not listening, I don't want to know! I have lots of time left. And don't be trying to tell me how many day there are till...

Have great weekend!

Resin Necklaces

So as promised here are some of my new resin necklaces. Most of them are on copper chains but the above one I added some pearls and coral beads for a change. I'm anxious to see how they do at the next show.
This one is a smaller version measuring about 2".
This was my largest piece, it came out about 3 1/2". This is a technique I learned at Bead fest back in August with Tracey Stanley. It's a fun technique but I'm trying to tweak it a bit so it's more my own creation. I haven't quit got there yet. I'll keep working on it though. That's what it's all about isn't it. Learning new techniques to make your own creations.

I was back at the Christmas card making last night for some reason so tomorrow I should have some cards ready to show you.

Have a great day!

Banner necklaces.

This a new design I created. I first got the idea to make these little banner tabs by cutting, texturizing, stamping, antiquing and polishing some copper strips. I wasn't sure how I was going to incorporate them into a necklace right away but when I made the curl at the top it limited what I could hang it on so that made things a little easier. I chose this chain, which I have in both copper and brass, because it's one of my favourites and I don't get to use it a lot . It's on the fine side so it doesn't go with a lot of my other designs. Sometimes I use small amounts of it combined with other chain but I've never had a chance to let it stand on it's own. I think it works pretty well here. Once I slipped the tabs on the chain I immediately knew that I just wanted to keep it simple by adding a few beads and such. I'm happy with the end results, actually I think I may just have to keep the Dream one with the key for myself. LOL!

Next time I'm going to share some of my new resin designs with you.

See you soon!

Focused on jewelry...

Well if you remember way back when in January, I said my word for the year is focus. I'd like to be able to say that I've improved on my focus but that's probably debatable. I have my good days and my bad days. Lately my minds been almost solely on jewelry. Which may seem focused but it's actually on many types of jewelry that I want to try out. I have a few shows coming up so I'm trying to work on items that have been popular at earlier shows this year. And this is where the focus gets kind of fuzzy. It's hard to work on things I've already done before when there is so much more to try out! LOL. I did get some necklaces finished today, some new creations and some older creations with a new twist or two to them. I didn't get photo's of them yet so this one is from a few weeks ago. I'll try to get some more photo's taken in the morning and give you a peek at what I've been up to.

Thanks for stopping by.

Christmas already?

I'm not a fan of starting my Christmas shopping or the whole prepping for it too early. I generally don't start decorating until well into December sometimes not even until the kids come home for the holiday so they can help. Son #1 is a December baby so he actually likes to decorate and I enjoy the company, as apposed to son#2 who is much like the Tin Man and will avoid decorating if given the chance.

But last week found me making Christmas cards, due to a suggestion of having a ChristmasCard workshop. It seemed like a fun idea until I started to make cards and the Christmas spirit just wasn't flowing too creatively. I did manage to make a couple of card but as you can see the traditional Christmas colours that I usually enjoy playing with for the season just weren't there. So I went with what I had, which as you can see was blue. It's a good thing I don't send out too many card for the holidays or I may have to resort to buying them:( Now that just won't do.

Oh and then on the weekend I actually started my Christmas shopping...well if you can call picking up a $2 stocking stuffer started!!

Tag Tuesday

Hey I had time for a little fun this week. It's been so long since I've done a Tag Tuesday challenge I thought this one was an easy challenge to get me back into it. The theme is Black and Orange. And although it wasn't necessarily for Halloween. of coarse that's the first thing that came to mind so I went for it.

I'm not actually a huge Halloween fan. We live in the country and don't get any trick or treaters and with no little kids anymore to take out we ignore it for the most part. I don't even buy those little chocolate bars for the Tin Man any more. How mean is that!! Well someone has to have some self control around here.LOL!

So my tag is made with a back ground of Distress Inks and Glimmer mist. I put them on my craft sheet and then smoosh(yes that's the technical term) the tag around into it. All the elements are from the seasonal grunge package. I have very little left of this package other than the Halloween sheets. So I thought this was the perfect time to use them up. They're all inked up again with distress inks and a few are frosted with some stickles for a little sparkle. An easy peasy tag, maybe next time I'll be up for a bigger challenge.

Check out some of the other participants over at Kard Krazy. See what people can do with Black and Orange and not all are Halloween.

Thanks for stopping by.

I'm back...

Yes I'm back. At least back at the blogging. I haven't been away any where just a little under the weather, so kinda unmotivated to do the blogging thing. But I think I'm over the worst of the cold I had and maybe I can think a little better to do some writing here. Have I ever mentioned that I actually hate to write! So why have a blog at all you say? Well I guess the joy of sharing my creations with others out weighs the hatred of writing. I did read a blog(sorry I've forgotten where it was) about writing and the loathing there of, recently and I think it's help put a little perspective to it for me. His main message was to write how you talk. This seems too easy to me but I thought I'd give a try. So far it seems to be helping somewhat.

Oh well, on to the fun stuff. I've been doing a little playing around with inks and stamps. I made some bookmarks to give away at the Fibrefest and they seemed quite taken with them. So I've been playing with some other options. I try to use scraps of paper so the ones at the top are a smaller version that I'll probably give away at the next show I do. The ones at the bottom are a little bigger and I've laminated them. I used my Xyron machine for this. It worked pretty good although a few didn't work out too well. I wasn't paying attention when I took the picture and you can see the one on the top got a crinkle in the laminate. I'm hoping with a little experience with the machine they'll all work out perfect.

Gotta go now. I'm off to Tai Chi this afternoon. Have a great one.

Metal Exemplar

Well, I haven't taught too many workshops this year and I'm looking forward to this one in a few short weeks.

All the letters are embossed on Ten Second Studio metal and then attached to a 10 X 20" Gallery Canvas. I don't know if you can tell in the picture but the letters are different thicknesses which gives the piece a lot of depth and dimension. This is a great class if you haven't tried to use metal before as we're going to learn lots of techniques. But if you've taken some of my metal workshops before you'll like it too because I've added a few new tips and trick to this project.

The workshop will be held at The Painted Pony on Sunday, October 24 from 9:30am - 4:30pm. If you're interested their are still some spaces available in the class. Just contact Cindy at the store.

Snaps and buttons...

I've been busy preparing for some upcoming shows, so the other day I was taking photos of some of my newer items. I made these two bracelets for Fibrefest. It was interesting to see peoples reactions to them. It usually took a second look for them to see what they are made of.This one is made of snaps with pearl dangles.
And this one is made of small buttons with pearl dangles. I've been thinking about creating with buttons for some time now. These are only a couple of the many ideas running around in my head for button jewelry. Now to only figure out how to get them out. LOL!

Fall clean up.

Well, Fall means gardening clean up and that's just what the Tin Man and I did this past weekend. After we got the gardens cleaned up, the Tin Man cleaned and filled my bird feeder. So this week I've had the company of many friendly birds. This Blue Jay was very comical to watch. I'm looking forward to seeing what varieties of birds visit us this winter. Ugh did I say winter? No, no I didn't say that. You didn't hear it from me. LOL