Inspiration Bracelet

Here I told you about the newest challenge from My Life Under The Bus. Well lemme tell you. I had a terrible time with this challenge. It wasn't because the palette wasn't inspiring; I LOVE the colors! It wasn't from a lack of materials. I have tons. It was because this week I have been stuck in a rut. Everything I have tried working on has ended with me getting tired of sitting at my work bench and getting up frustrated. My creative streak is G O N E. I even wrote out a whole post about how depressed I was over not being able to create, about how I could not get a thing done. It sounded so depressing that I never did post it for fear of running off my few readers. lol.

So this was reallllllllllly a challenge for me. I probably put together and took apart my piece a dozen times. It started as a bracelet, then changed to a necklace, then a half a dozen arrangements as a necklace and another half as a bracelet again. I finally settled for what you see here. So without further ado, here ya go. My LABOR of love. lol.

I know it is pretty simple, but it took a lot of tries just to get something I didn't hate with a passion. I chose the darkest of the red-ish colors and gray from the palette.




 I literally just finished it, took the pic with the camera on my phone and made this post. Talk about last minute! I should have lightened the photo a bit, but I just wanted to get it up on my blog so I can go to bed! lol

Btw, as usual, there are recycled components. The large silver rings and the curved beads are from old jewelry :) 

I can't wait to find out what everyone else has created and I hope it was not such a challenge for the rest of the participants. :)

Hey Hey Crafty Peeps! A new Life on the Bus Challenge!

Yesterday Patty over at My Life Under The Bus gave us our weekly inspiration and color palette! Check out the cool inspiration!

 Lovely lovely! Be sure to go HERE to check out the challenge. No matter what type of craft medium you use, you are welcome to join in!

Riding The Inspiration Bus Reveal

Another Saturday, another reveal day for the My Life Under the Bus Inspiration Challenge! If you have not read about it before, Patty gives us an inspiration picture, which our color palette comes from.

I started out with this piece.(of course I always have to recycle something) It was originally a beaded brooch. I removed part of the back and the center section of beads and then added the yellow/orange rose to the center.


 I then searched my bead boxes and found an array of amber, glass and ceramic beads to match the  brooch. Check out how the green beads in the brooch match the green ceramic beads perfectly! Old and new- perfectly matched!

The completed piece 

 I created a clasp from brass and hammered it. The "ring" it hooks into was part of the middle of the brooch that I removed to add the flower. It turned out to be the perfect ring!

 So there ya go, my piece for this week. Old and new :)

Under The Bus Again

It's Saturday and time for the next Inspiration Challenge from My Life Under The Bus!

Here is the inspiration photo and color palette Patty gave us to work with. 











Ok, we have reds, grays, blues.....

Drum-roll.... Here's my inspiration piece.

I started with the beads. Red, blue and gray. The red and gray beads are from old necklaces that I have taken apart. The gold spacer beads are from my "gently used" stash also.

The blue beads are lovely detailed acrylic beads that I sell in my supply shop, Sweet Georgia Beads.

 

The compass pendant is from my up-cycling stash also. It looks like the gold part is all one piece, with the colors filled in. It's very cool and unique. The loop had broken off, so I drilled holes in the top to hang it from.

I added a pretty peanut shaped chain. (again, used)

I really do love up-cycling and reworking old parts and broken jewelery.  It's the best way to get truly unique pieces.

So that's that! Please do leave a comment and if you would like, follow me :D

A Few Weekend Things

This past weekend was pretty productive. I managed to create 4 necklaces and work on a few more things.
The Dragon Pendant and the chain in this necklace were both from my stuff stash- previously loved stuff.  I added the freshwater pearls. I thought of cleaning the chain before adding it, but I just love the look of vintage-y grungy stuff!

 This necklace was also made of all previously loved components. Bits and bobs of old jewelry, random beads and the lovely rose.

I have never really made wedding type jewelry.  When I completed it, I thought, hey, this would be perfect for a wedding! When my daughter came over later she said the same thing before I said anything. I had gardenias in my wedding and she was like "Oh, that would have been perfect for you to have worn at your wedding!" Coool :D

This necklace was a good bit of work. I started with the cool charm. It was a silvery color, so I bronzed it and then coated it in Renaissance wax to seal it. I used carnelian rounds, wood ovals and gorgeous black quartz. I decided to make the back from Recycled Sari Silk. I hand stitched around the edge and made a clasp for it, which hooks into a loop I made in the silk. It was still missing something. I thought about what the pendant meant, then remembered I had just purchased some word charms. I was sure hoping to see courage when I found the pack and YES! One that said courageous.

The 4th necklace I created I can't show just yet. It is for the  My Life Under The Bus Inspiration Challenge this week. Last week I waited too long and got busy and didn't get my inspiration piece made. :( This week I wanted to make sure I got it completed, so I went ahead and did it last night :D Yay! These challenges are really fun! Basically she gives us a picture and color palette to work with and we create from there. Here is this weeks inspiration pics:

I'll be posting the piece I created on Saturday for the "reveal."

My Life Under The Bus Inspiration Challenge

Ok, so I am not sure when we are supposed to post these. I =think= it's today (Saturday) but I am not sure. I suffer greatly from insomnia, so I can't be up early in the morning to check to see if the blog hop links have been posted and if we are indeed supposed to be posting. So, I guess I will post my challenge piece now and hopefully it will be ok.

This challenge is from My Life Under the Bus. You can view the post here for the challenge or use the links to hop back to the challenge page. 

Here are the inspiration pics that we worked with this week:

A Beautiful palette of colors!!

 

And here is my work....

 I work with all sorts of materials, but my passion is old and/or vintage components. These beads were some I bought in a huge lot of vintage stuff. They look like glass but are actually plastic! The metal pendant ...was an earring! The colors matched the necklace beads perfectly, so I took it apart. It was a two piece earring, so I used the bottom for the necklace.

 I had plenty of the multi-colored beads left, so I decided to use the top part of the earring (post removed and drilled two holes in it) to make a matching bracelet.

I hope that you like my creations for this challenge!








 Please do post comments and if you aren't too blogged out, (I know some people follow a ton of blogs already) pleassssse follow me *Really Sad I-Don't-Have-Any-Followers-Puppy Dog Eyes*


Thanks!!

My Life Under the Bus Inspiration Sneak Peek

So I was looking through my overabundant stash of  stuff and came across some beads that were PERFECT for the Inspiration challenge this week over at the My Life Under the Bus blog. I was so excited!  I was able to put everything together quickly.  I will be posting my piece Saturday, but here's a quick sneak peek :D

Jumpin' On "The Bus" & Out of My Comfort Zone

I remember when I was 7 and my family and I moved from Florida to South Georgia. In Jacksonville, we lived close enough to our elementary school to walk or for my parents to drop us off. Now, in South Georgia, it was a long drive (well in city folks eyes) to drive your kids to school. So my sister and I suddenly had to ride a bus to school.  I was naively excited about this. I had only ridden a bus a time or two in Jacksonville. It was only for school field trips, so I was anticipating nothing but fun on this new way of transportation!

Things did not go so well.

For the first entire week, I threw up every single day. I learned what "motion sickness" meant. The bus driver didn't like me so much and I HATED riding the bus. Yeah, it was not what I anticipated. Eventually I did get used to the bus. I learned to keep my eyes up and looking out the window. I had been thrown out of my comfort zone and into this new world. Once I got used to the motion of the bus, I did start liking the bus once again. It was a fun time to talk to friends and meet other kids.

So fast forward 37 years. I've been creating jewelry for the last 3 1/2 years in my car. Ok, not really, but I've been creating in my comfort zone. No buses. I create with what I want to create with. I pick the beads. I pick the focals. I pick the colors. I pick the design. Well, I've gotten a bit bored and am ready to try new things.
 
Last week I participated in a blog challenge by Lorelei here. She picked the beads and we went from there. Brown cinnabar.. ok. Wooden cube beads...alright... White pearls? well ummmm... Green pearls? Nooooooo White cinnabar? Nuh uh. Then I saw it. WHITE chain! What!?!?! Are you kidding me? Suddenly I was on that bus for the first time again. Uneasiness & discomfort. I went to Micheal's and gathered the beads and then picked up the chain. Reluctantly, I put it in my basket and purchased all the beads (plus a lot more- damn Micheal's!)

For the next few days I worked on a design. How the heck to use these components and make something I was not completely ashamed of. I finally finished it and posted it. The original post is on my  Designs By Debi blog.

After it was all over with, my design and creating done, the pictures posted, comments left, I felt pretty good! I had went outside of my comfort zone, got on that bus and had a good time! No, it wasn't the most gorgeous thing I have ever created, but it was fine. I was pretty pleased with it. :)

So now I am once again ready to ride the bus... but this time it's a new bus! My Life Under The Bus is offering a bus ride! You can view the challenge here. She has provided a color palette to work from. I'm looking forward to this bus ride and challenge. :)