Wonder wallet Fantastico

My sisters, mother and I gathered to sew on this fun project this week. WE cut out and made lots of these little wallets. The pattern is available from Lazygirldesigns.com or perhaps your local quilt store. These worked up super fast and we made lots of different color variations. One fat quarter piece of fabric 18x22" makes two. We mixed them all up and dove headfirst into our scrap fabrics. Our favorites were the last ones with the candies! This was so fun, It is very small and hods just your ID a few folded bills, a credit card and that's about it! Perfect for kids school ID's or bus passes or even for your gym bag when all you need is ID and a few dollars for the water machine---

Crack that Whip!

My friend Pam told me that she knew how to crack a whip, she tried to teach Zack. Surprise!  It works your whole core! He came back all sweaty with this whip she had "loaned" him. It is so gorgeous and looks handmade and has interesting little leather shapes sewn to it.

Quilted bag in the Round

This bag was a gift, my friend did not make it herself. No Names, no tags. Nevertheless, what an interesting idea! This is a quilted circle faced with pockets and the little loop tabs all around the outside edges. It is gathered up by fabric covered cord which is also one big circle. Then you pull it up and tie two big knots on each side to keep the gathers in place. It also has some velcro in the center.

My Kaleidoscopes

Kaleidoscope collecting is a fun hobby of mine, I decided to make some of my own. I worked with a plastic company to form the tubes and I got a class together. We made the front surface mirroro assemblies and made our own object chambers with bits of dichroic glass ,glass and plastic beads and even broken glass bangles from India floating around in mineral oil. I only did this for a short season and then moved on---

Aunt Susie's Kaleidoscopes

My Aunt Susie made me these fabulous kaleidoscopes with stained glass wheels. She used interesting glass gems and pieces of dichroic glass in all colors. One has pressed flowers on the sides and the wheel. She used high quality front surface mirrors on the insides. I have a collection of kaleidoscopes.

Book Bag

No book bag is ever big enough for my library addiction. Mama made me this wild colored one for my birthday. It has darling bug fabric as the lining. I am off to spend the week with my sisters and do lots of crafting and gabbing.

Green Stone Necklace

I have always loved necklaces with lots of different shapes and types of stones, But I am too cheap to buy a 16 inch strand of twelve different shapes. Since I don't sell jewelry, that is too much of one thing.  Never before have a gone to a show where there were bins of mixed shapes for sale individually like these!

My first design included smaller silver wirework components,(3rd photo) but they were just distracting. I ended up putting the stones on silver wire loops and using silver oval jump rings to attach them together.

Wild Lampwork beads

These great handmade Lamp work beads in lime, black and periwinkle blue are one of my favorite purchases this year. It has taken me ages to get this necklace put together. Nothing seemed special enough. I  bought all I could afford of these at a show in Grapevine TX.

I was looking for a black metal component spacer to go with these, which I never found. I did find these acrylic spacer shapes. I like them but they were half the size I expected from their photos. 

I  strung the components and lamp work beads with black crimps on black Soft Flex wire. I was lucky to find a strand of vintage french beads in this periwinkle color to extend this a little. Look what fun shapes these are. I made the cone ones into funky earrings. When I strung the cones upside down with the point up they looked to much like Christmas trees, Now they look like umbrellas. Or Ice cream cones. I like them anyways.

2 Copper and Teal Necklaces

 The first one feels more heavy and casual to me, It reminds me of Egyptian stuff. The Glass beads were such a glorious shade of teal but very large with huge holes. I may do these again on leather lacing, but I did not have any this weekend. These copper beads are coated ceramic, they have a handmade rough ethnic quality.

The second necklace is made of dyed stone called chrysocolla jasper in shades of green/turquoise. This one is strung with copper accent beads and spiral pendant. These stones were beautiful.

Double Chain Necklace

I have found it hard to get inspired by these black cloisonné rounds, I have had them forever. They always seemed so traditional and boring when I string them up. I decided to use a fancy embossed chain and wire wrap the cloisonné beads and space them. I also had these interesting rectangle tube  painted beads that were painted to look like millefiore. I found some strange twisted metal vintage gold colored beads and used them also.I made two necklaces and then just hooked them together.

Creative beading Truth in Blogging

My husband came walking by and said "You really should show them what a mess you work in!" Yes, I  need to have all my stash on the table at once when I am working---There are even boxes on chairs across from me that are not in these pictures.

I like :

Jewelry tools out--Round nose pliers, crimper tool, chain nose plier, wire cutter, snips, jeweller's cement, tweezers.

a design board, lots of little plates, Those bead keeper springs to hold your strand secure, scrimps. Soft flex wire in lots of sizes and colors

I am even using all those jump rings and stuff that fell on my floor. Waah, The whole box tipped off the table and is gathered into that tin!

I keep a lot of my stuff in plastic compartment containers, but some stranded stuff and packaged items are just in a bin until I get to them.

No Warm Tones

I bought this strand of dyed shell chips to make some kind of fun casual necklace. It had many colors but I painstakingly separated out all the orangey ones!

Richardson TX bead show and all my goodies pt 1

I went to the bead show and had such a great time. Besides the usual fare of: strung crystals. stones, cloisonné etc they had many lamp work bead artist and others representing one of a kind wares. I bought this lovely porcelain pendant and matching string of Peruvian opals. I needed to extend it a bit, I auditioned different metals and ended up adding these fish beads in silver.

The funniest part was when I went to check out the seller DG Designs, Danis Garcia, recognized my name and said she had read my blog. She lives about 4 hours from me, but what a surprisingly intimate world crafters live in! Lots of entries coming-I have been beading up a frenzy--