Time for a little Spring Cleaning?

I have so much jewelry, and by making a new piece every day I am literally running out of places to store it.  I have jewelry boxes, I have those hanging closet jewelry pouch things, but it is for sure not enough.  I am at a point where my jewelry is getting lost or even worse, broken, because I just randomly take off whatever necklace or jewelry I wore that day and stash it wherever it fits...my car cup holders, in random handbags, even in yankee candle jars!  It has gotten pretty out of control, and my house has little to no storage as it is.  So the other day I got a random idea....why not store all my jewelry in my vanity/desk in my room?  I do not really use my vanity to get ready every day, it is more of just for 'looks' rather than actual use.  (It is my desk from elementary school, repainted silver instead of bubble gum pink)

And up until this point it was stuffed with random, mostly useless junk that I couldn't find another place for.  So I emptied it out and filled it with my 'jewels'!  The only problem now is what to do with the stuff that I took out of the desk, and I also need lots of drawer organizer things to keep the jewelry from getting tangled or something.  But that will come in time.  For now I am just happy to have one cohesive place to store it all.  And, after photographing these pictures of the filled drawers I started a hunt around my house for even more jewelry that was stashed around, and found even more pieces that are not shown in the pics!  And this is only necklaces and some bracelets.....my earrings are another story....hehe.  :)

Belated Valentine's Day Necklace

Yes, I realize that I was supposed to update this necklace almost a week ago, but with being sick I really had no energy or motivation to work on it....stupid flu!  But after getting caught up with all my homework and everything I am prepared to debut this very sparkly, red glass bead necklace!  If you remember, I sketched about this necklace with the post from Saturday February 12.




 Here is the original sketch:

And here is the final outcome!  Enjoy!  The pictures do not do the red beads justice, they are so clear and firey in real life!

Saturday Sketches

Today's sketch is an idea for a Valentine's Day necklace that came to me recently.  Valentine's Day, as you know, is Monday, and normally my boyfriend and I don't do much for Valentine's Day really but I still like the idea of the holiday itself:  to show people that you love them.  My necklace idea came from red beads that I bought on clearance for $1.  There are so many of them that I had no idea what to do with them, that is, until Snow.  I really want to create an almost bib-like necklace out of the beads, held together in the middle by a heart.  I plan on making this necklace for V-day, so look forward to Monday's post and I plan on posting the finished result for you to see then.  Until then, have a great Saturday!

Sorry about the sideways view, I can't get the image to flip after being scanned for some reason....

Orange you glad I made a pendant?

Lame, I know....but I just couldn't resist!  Today's pendant was made from a vintage orange piece that my aunt gave to me, along with beads I purchased from Fire Mountain.  I used a flat round feldspar bead, as well as peach glass beads and brown goldstone  chips.  I love the glittery sparkle that goldstone has.  I can never get enough of it.  It's sad that those beads are so expensive, or I would buy them all the time!  Maybe that's a good thing, though.  This necklace is so bright and sunny for spring!....Anyway, here's the necklace, hope you enjoy!

Wire Wrapped Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Ahh, Wednesday yet again.....One step closer to Friday!

For today's wire-wrapped post, I have created a wire wrapped piece from a stone bead that I got in a random miscellaneous bead bag from Fire Mountain Gems.  I have no idea what type of stone it is, but I really thought the dark gray tones meshed well with the tortoise shell patterning on these vintage beads.  These tortoise shell beads are from yet another necklace that my aunt gave me in my bag of vintage goodies.  I have yet to run out of interesting pieces to use in jewelry I make, and it seems like I use pieces from her almost everyday!  I still have much more to come, too!  I am saving some very special beads and pieces for later!  I really liked the way the copper wire looked bright against the dark gray of the stone, and the copper created more of a connection between the stone and the tortoise-patterned beads, bringing the whole necklace together.

Monday Rocks....

Well, not really....hehe.  But today's necklace is made of rocks, Jungle Jasper to be exact, that I bought from Fire Mountain.  I really like the different patterning in the stones, and how even though they are roughly the same size, each individual stone is carved in a unique way.  I love the simplicity of this necklace, and it would be great to wear with a blazer for a business casual look, or at the same time with a fun bohemian print dress.  The colors are, well, gray and black, so they go with a lot of things and make this necklace very versatile!  Hope you all have had a great Monday, more to come tomorrow....Wait until you see the re-vamped vintage top coming up!

My Monday Challenge

Today, while making jewelry, I challenged myself to a little game, and the result was a pretty awesome longgggg necklace.   While going through my jewelry I decided to use some beads that I have had forever and have never found a use for.  I had a whole little bead box of them, in all different little shapes and bright colors.  The challenge lay in not only using beads I had never seemed to find a use for before, but I also made it interesting by cutting an extremely lengthy piece of clear plastic thread and telling myself I either had to bead until the string was full or until I ran out of beads, whichever came first.  I didn't think it would take as long as it did to complete this necklace, strictly because that little container held a whole heck of a lot more beads than I ever thought it could...and it actually ended up that I ran out of string before I ran out of beads!  I love the look of these beads because the soft opacity of the glass and the bright colors make them feel like they are made out of little tiny pieces of sea glass.  The colors and the "sea glass" appearance make these beads reminiscent of warmer weather, something definitely nice to think about as a giant ice and snow storm approaches....

 

bead box when I just started...

 

bead box when I ran out of string!

 

In progress necklace strand....

 

Finished!!!

Vintage and Blue Magnesite Necklace

This necklace for today was created with a big, white vintage medallion pendant that my Aunt Penny gave me, along with other pieces of broken bits of vintage jewelry that she had gotten from Estate Sales....I know she has a ton more, I want to go raid her stashes again!  It is so exciting to see the amazing things she really probably was going to throw away anyway, since most of the things I take from her other people would consider junk since they are just broken pieces or parts, but that's all I need to create my own design!  The chain is also a vintage piece pulled from her pile of 'junk jewelry'...hey, all the better for me, right?  The bead that I attached to the bottom of the medallion piece is blue-green magnesite, which looks similar to turquoise.  I also bought a string of these beads at the $1 sale from Fire Mountain Gems.  This piece, along with the earrings from yesterday, really gives me the feeling that spring is near...and I guess you could say I am getting a little case of Cabin Fever with all this snow and cloudy weather lately!  I need some sunshine, and temperatures in the upper 70's-lower 80's..... :)

Wire Wrapped Wednesday, January 26

Today I made a pair of earrings for Wire Wrapped Wednesday....Making necklaces is fun, but sometimes I want to "take a break" from necklace making and create something different.  Today, that happened to be earrings.  I used peach calcite beads that I bought from the Fire Mountain Gems $1 sale back before Christmas.  The gold colored wire compliments the warm tones in the calcite perfectly.  The earrings really give off a bohemian feel, and bring to mind thoughts of warmer weather.  I can't wait for these cold temperatures to end!  Bring on Spring!  I am dying to break out my warmer weather wardrobe.  I think these earrings would pair well with a beautifully printed dress and a great pair of summery sandals...ah, sunshine, how I miss you!

Cincinnati Art Museum

On Tuesday, during the misty rain, my sister and I visited the Cincinnati Art Museum.  It was a perfect day for staying indoors and looking at art.  I needed to go, because in my Art History class I am supposed to be writing an 8 page paper on artifacts that I was supposed to find and document while I was there.  It was like an art scavenger hunt that took me all through the Asian and Islamic art wings!  I almost ran out of time to see what I really wanted to see while I was at the museum, which was the exhibit Wedded Perfection, a display of over 200 years worth of wedding dress styles.  It was so amazing!  I loved the Zac Posen dress that was made up of red poppies!  I google image searched it because I had to show you all what it looked like....(See images below).  They told us no photography was allowed in the exhibit (my sister tried to take a picture and got caught.....that's how we found that out lol).  My art history professor told us that photography was allowed, though only without flash, on the pieces that we were supposed to look at for class so we just assumed you could take pictures of the wedding dresses too...apparently not.  But if you want to catch a glimpse of some of the dresses in the show, check out this blog, the blogger did an interview with CAM about the show, and has some pictures of it on there.  If you live in Cincinnati you need to check out the show!!  It's only in the museum through the end of this month, so get there as soon as possible!  It is free to get into the museum but parking is $4.  I am so glad I was able to go and check it out!

 

jewelry from 1790

 

the only photo  I could find of the Zac Posen gown!

Wire Wrapped Wednesday, January 19

This week's wire wrapped Wednesday post is a necklace that I made using a piece of pink wire I randomly found in my jewelry making supplies.  The interesting part about the wire is that it is actually 6 or 7 years old.  The wire was a scrap left over from my junior or senior year in high school when I made these wire wrapped candle Christmas gifts for all of my friends.  I was so excited to find it, and I had to use it for this necklace.  There was only a small piece left, and I used the whole scrap for this project.  I wrapped a piece of Italian onyx from Fire Mountain Gems as the main pendant, and then made it kind of into a tassel look with little purple beads dangling off of it.  The purple glass bead at the top also has significance, because I got that bead when I was in high school with my dad at the Pendleton Art Center down in over the Rhine.  My dad's friend Litsa used to own an art gallery there, now her gallery is Art Design Consultants near downtown Cincinnati.  We used to go to the old Pendleton building once a month for Final Fridays, a fun art event on the last Friday of the month.

A Bit of Geometry

Today, the necklace I want to show you takes inspiration from a lot of the geometric statement pieces that are huge for Spring 2011.  I made the necklace out of the beads and pieces from a broken vintage necklace that I got from my aunt.  I loved the wooden look of some of these beads, as well as the bright turquoise color of some of the beads.  I arranged them in such a way that they almost remind me of something Egyptian, maybe the colors have something to do with that too.  And any one who knows me knows that I love anything Egypt, so I guess it makes sense that that would inspire me.

Gold Pendant Necklace

Today's necklace is a necklace that I actually made wayyyy back in November and wore on Thanksgiving.  It is an extremely long pendant necklace.  The chain I used on it is from the "bag o' vintage" jewelry that my aunt gave me from the estate sale.  The bits and pieces I used to make the pendant part of the necklace are a vintage Victorian-esque cameo piece, another vintage piece that looks like it was originally part of an earring, and opalite beads that I bought when i visited Stacey Kay back in the beginning of November.  The beads were from a bead store in Medina called  Potomac Beads.  Apparently, this bead store is a franchise-owned store that has other stores around the country....I NEED to own one of these franchises.  When Drew and I were there, he even mentioned that he would want to own a store like this, for me of course.  So now I feel like I should make that one of my goals.  To own my own bead/jewelry shoppe! :)

 an image of me wearing the necklace at Thanksgiving with my sister :)