Tiny Book Necklaces......

I made little book necklaces last summer but made them so they stood up and could be opened, however I saw a similar idea on Pintrest with putting the headpin straight through the book to make a necklace and I really liked it.  I just had to make some.........

Book of the Sea necklace.......

The Book of the Pebbled Beach........

The Book of Sunset Beach.......

The Book of White Shell Beach......

This shows the size of the books. They are 1 inch by 1 inch........ yep, that's my very wrinkled hand!  A palm reader would have ball reading all of my lines!

Summertime Jewelry

Ahhhhh, summertime!  Even though it was so cold that I had to turn up the heat yesterday, I'm feeling summery today!  I've been creating summertime pieces of jewelry.........

leather heart with mother of pearl dangle......

 Leather bracelet with a charm created with on photoshop with a 1900 image of a little dude in a dress....

Karma........when I say the word, I think of the color green!  Leather with glass and stone chip necklace.........

Leather distressed heart with bubble dangling charm on handmade batik fabric cording........

Ok, that's enough "summer" for one day, there's plenty more to come............

Busy Week!

This has been a busy week so far!  I've got exciting news.....Marsha at Tumble Fish Studio has invited me to be on her Creative Team!  She creates the most amazing digital elements kits to use in Photoshop and they can be found at Deviant Scrap.  I will be using her digital elements to create altered jewelry like the 2 pendants you see below.  They are created in Photoshop and then printed on InkJet Shrink Plastic.

Super Hero Life Guard 1927 Necklace

The life guard was created with digital elements from Tumble Fish Studio and the green fish is from Studio Tangie.  The heart layered behind it is painted and stamped leather.  She's available over at Honey Girl Studio Jewelry.

Dottie DelMar Pendant

 Dottie charm:  face and crown from Tumble Fish Studio and fish body from Studio Tangie.

I was also pouring resin this week.....ICE Resin that is.  I LOVE this stuff!!!! It has always set up for me without any problems and dries crystal clear with no clouding or stickiness.  Whenever I'm at a flea market I always pick up little spoons to fill with goodies and resin to make necklaces.  These are also over at Honey Girl Studio Jewelry.

Yesterday I went to my crafting BFF's house.  We went to a few little shops then came back to the house to work on Shirley.  Meet Shirley...................

Tracey bought Shirley a few months ago.  She is a foam dress form and kind of spongy so Tracey wrapped her in Rigid Wrap to make her harder.  Pretty smart, eh?

Tracey, Shirley and me.....Shirley's smiling too.....kind of hard to tell with no head, but trust me, she's smiling.

So Tracey had this idea to cover Shirley in many layers of tissue paper.  So we decided to put on the first layer.........

Hard at work not hardly working!............Shirley said the brush tickled.

About an hour and a half layer and almost a whole small jar of Mod Podge, this is what Shirley looked like.  She's going to be awesome with the other layer added!  You can check out the progress of Shirley on Tracey's blog, Glitterbug Studios.

Water and Shade............

Happy Memorial Day!

It is very hot and humid here in Northwestern PA today!  A beautiful sun filled day with 87 degree temps.  Two things would be great right about now....one would be water to take a swim in and the other is a shady spot to cool off in.  Those 2 things inspired my two newest necklaces.  You can find them over at Honey Girl Studio Jewelry.

water.......

shade.........

Ahhhhh.................

Enjoy your day!

Got Beach?

The first public beach in the United States was Revere Beach in Boston, Mass.  It opened on July 12, 1896.  An estimated 45,000 people showed up on opening day.  This new necklace is a tribute to any beach you have ever loved to visit!  It's over at Honey Girl Studio Jewelry.

Here's a little update about Buddy the Wonder Dog.  For those of you who follow my blog, you know he got hit by a car on Easter morning and was in pretty bad shape......broken back leg, punctured front leg, and half of his face just about ripped off!  Well, here he is today.  His face is healed up and  the cast is off his leg (but he's still not putting it down to walk).  Buddy is a tough doggie!

August Daze......

I needed a mirror to take with me to the art shows.......not just any mirror.........a unique mirror.........one that when someone picked it up to check out how a necklace looked on them, they'd say, "cool mirror!" Enter inspiration and the Dollar Store! I bought a very ugly print on a 1/2 thick Masonite board and peeled off the very ugly print. Next collaged the entire board with decorative papers then using my Tim Holtz embossing plates embossed some white wash cardstock and blue cardstock. Sanded the embossed white washed cardstock and swiped over the blue with Distress ink then glueed then down. Sealed the whole piece with 4 coats of sealer. Lastly I glued on the mirror with E-6000 then glued the shells around it. Most of the time when I start a project I have no idea of how it will turn out but I like how this one turned out!

Next to my flip-flops, my Keds are my favorite summertime shoes but the plain white laces just weren't making it. So I used the same technique I use to make the fabric cording for the necklace and made laces! I think they add a nice splash of color. What are your favorite summertime shoes?

Just some new jewelry you can find over at Honey Girl Studio Jewelry........

Have a great day!

Many Peppers & Still More Summer!

I don't like to brag or anything but my peppers I planted in my pots are beating Gary's peppers in the raised garden bed! Yahoo! Check out these Cubanella peppers.....

How about these hot banana peppers? I planted four plants in this pot and I counted 32 peppers with still more blossoms! These are so good stuffed with spicy turkey sausage.

Here comes August!!!! We still have more summer left and as August the month for beach vacations so in honor of August, I broke out the sea glass. You can find these wire wrapped sea glass necklaces over at Honey Girl Studio Jewelry.

I found this short poem about August that I really like by R. Combe Miller

August
Fairest of the months!
Ripe summer's queen

The hey-day of the year

With robes that gleem with sunny sheen
Sweet August doth appear

This charm bracelet is made with new teal batik fabric I got last week. I love the deep blue color.

I think Shakespeare put it best with this quote, "Summer's lease hath all too short a date". Enjoy the last one third of summer!

Driftin' Toward Summer........

Memorial Day is next Monday and I'm driftin' into summer with my newest Beachy Bohemian Jewelry creations.

This bracelet reminds me of the ocean with floating green sea glass and white fluffy clouds floating overhead.

Another braclet inspired by the colors of water and sky. It has glass seed beads, shell, fresh water pearls, an aqua square ceramic bead and handmade fabric cord.

This necklace has been created with 3 fiber cords, a suede cord, tiny seed beads are sewn onto one of the fabric cords. The danglies hanging above the shell are wood and bone beads along with orange sponge coral beads. This one is my favorite!

Fibers.........fibers...........fibers...........fabric..........seed beads.............

I wire wrapped this antiqued metal cross with silver wire and stone chips and nestled it into a shell.

Can't you just picture this necklace with a cute sundress? or tank and shorts?

If you're interested in any of these pieces, they are available, just give me an email shout!

A Filing Cabinet Brain.....

I've been experimenting with fiber and making my own cord out of strips of material. I don't know about you but I have a "filing cabinet" type of brain, meaning that I see something I like and I file it away deep in the inner recesses of my brain only to have it resurface at some strange time, sometimes even many years later.......Such is the idea for the fabric cording! I remember seeing a fiber art display at a modern art museum many, many years ago with a necklace made from about 50 fabric cords and last week while I was driving to work that memory resurfaced.
Suddenly I'm driving down route 82 designing a necklace in my mind!

And, this is the end result of my filing cabinet brain, resurfacing ideas, a long drive to work!
The necklace is made up of 2 plain fabric cords, one cord with tiny seed beads sewn on it, one cotton string with antiqued bone beads, one knotted cotton string with wooden beads on it, a leather hand painted heart, silver metal charm, tiny shell and orange fresh water pearl. It measures 16 inches.

Does anybody else out there have a filing cabinet brain? :-)