New Things and Possibly a New Line of Jewelry

Ahh, I got rid of the puter virus and am back to normal (however normal you could call me) I really haven't been making much lately. I dunno, I just got burnt out and needed a break. Anyways, here are a couple things I made recently.

 This necklace started off with a couple things I got at the flea market: the domino, which I roughed up and aged and the little girl disk. It came from the tin lid I got here.

There is, as (almost) always, a lot of recycled components. The girl from the tin, the domino, the white spacer beads and the two lengths of chain. The brass connectors are all vintage, but I don't know for sure if they are used or "new" vintage.












I really like jewelry pieces that "mean" something. The domino piece is a talisman necklace for family. The 2 dots on the domino represent man and woman. The little tin disk represents the child. One meaning of green is harmony... jasper represents help in childbirth- and there is a lot of jasper on this necklace. 

This piece started with a cool wooden cheetah.The cheetah, wooden beads and pearly chain came from the flea market stuff here. The elephant came from more flea market stuff here.




This piece is for getting things done. The cheetah represents intent, focus and making things happen quickly. The elephant is for strength, wisdom and power.  Green again is for harmony. When you are trying to get things done, harmony is certainly helpful!

Blue is representative of inspiration and devotion.

I haven't decided on how to name my new talisman pieces. I will have to think on that. I need to decide soon though so I can get them listed. lol

Technical Difficulties...we has them!

Hubby and I both have a crazy sense of humor. And, as I told you a few posts below, I have hearing problems and tend to hear words incorrectly.  So I'm joking around with my husband about Christmas shopping.

Me: So I got you that sex game you wanted for Christmas

Hubby: Huh?
Me: Yeah, I had to go to a few unsavory websites and I think I got a virus on my computer, but I ordered that game for you... Call of Booty"

Hubby: *Laugh* That's a good one.

He actually wanted Call of Duty and yes I did understand him correctly. It was just a joke! I did buy it for him. No sex sites, I bought it at Best Buy.

Then today I am working on some jewerly pics and my computer is pretty lagged down, so I decide to reboot. UGGH! It rebooted up with a virus!!! Mannnnnn, it was JUST a JOKE!

Anyways, I am currently on my other computer posting while Malwarebyte's Anti-malware is looking for the virus. So no posting my pics until I get my main puter back up and running. *cry*

Cool Giveaway by Fancy Linda

Oooo guys, you need to check out Fancy Linda's Blog HERE for an awesome giveaway! She's giving away one of her Cheerful Holiday Mini Kits! They look so fun!

Sale! Yay!

I've put everything in my DesignsByDebi shop on sale! 15% off through Cyber Monday! Prices have already been marked down :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I'm headed out of town to see my family! Yay!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! May God bless you and yours to have a wonderful holiday together :)

~Debi :)

The Crickets In My Head

Hard of hearing

Three retirees, each with a hearing loss, were taking a walk one fine March day.

One remarked to the other, "Windy, ain't it?"

"No," the second man replied, "It's Thursday."

And the third man chimed in, "So am I. Let's have a coke.

I have had tinnitus for as long as I can remember. My tinnitus sounds like crickets at night. It doesn't come and go, its constant, 24/7. I can't understand people when they speak unless they are looking at me so that I can see their mouth. I miss out on a lot of what I watch on tv, cause I have no clue what they are saying. My family gets a kick out of what I "think" they say. My hearing has gotten worse over the last few years. So today I went to an ENT center to see what's going on with my ears. The doc said I have pretty bad hearing loss for a woman my age. (43) Basically, I need hearing aids. Uggh. Really sucks to have no insurance, no savings, no credit cards and a bunch of shops that sell nuttin.  Maybe in a few years I can save up enough to get what I need.

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. :)

New Techniques- Ice Resin

I bought some Ice Resin a couple of months ago, but I have been afraid to play with it. I tend to do that- buy new things but not get around to them for a while.

I bought some old rusty lids which I showed here and thought this would be something fun to use with the resin. 

Here are the results:

For the left one, I left the lid the way it came. I added a dried flower and some text. For the one on the right, I first used a patina on it to make it almost black. Then I added a flatter dried flower and text.

I mixed the minimum amount of ice resin suggested, (1/4 oz each of part A and part B) let it sit for 5 minutes, then drizzled it over the lids. I had a LOT of resin left, so I half filled some frames which I sell in my bead shop. I still had a lot left so I grabbed a piece of ephemera paper and coated that too! Note to self and others trying resin for the first time: Always have plenty of things prepared to use resin on. You won't believe how far that stuff goes!

I am very pleased at how the pieces came out. Of course you have to allow it to cure for 3 days, but you can work with the pieces (carefully) after 6 hours.  Although things went pretty much faultless, there are a few things I learned in my first experience with Ice Resin.

1. Always have plenty of things ready to coat/fill with resin. I would rather have too many things prepared than to waste unused resin.

2. Always stick loose pieces down. I thought that pouring the resin on the flowers and text would hold them down. Wrong. They tried numerous times to float up on me and I had to use toothpicks to keep pushing them back down.

3. Watch for bugs. Wait, what? Yeah. I had put my Ott lamps over the pieces for a little while after I poured them so that it would help with raising bubbles to the top. I went out of the room for a few minutes and when I came back, a skeeter hawk (dunno if that is their real name but that's what we call them in the South) had landed on the piece of paper. (Guess he was attracted to the light and the paper was like 9 inches below it.) He had gotten into the house earlier last night but was in my living room which has a vaulted ceiling, so I could not get him out. I didn't even know he had made it to my studio/office.  Man that was NOT fun, pulling him out of the resin. I am terrified of bugs. My hubby said I should have just left him there but I don't care to sell resin coated bugs. lol

4. If you do add pressed real flowers as I did, you may want to coat them with mod podge or something before using them. I knew that the resin would make the paper more transparent, but it also really made the flatter flower very transparent. I wish I had coated it. The thicker flower turned out great!

5. Watch videos and read tips online. There are a lot of resin videos out there on the web. After watching a few, I felt confident that I too could use resin! It really is easy and fun!

I can't wait to make some cool jewelry out of the pieces I made :D

Ship My Stuff! -and talk to me about it!

I normally only bring to light wonderful sellers and supplies but today I am ranting a little bit. I placed orders on November 4th with 3 Etsy sellers. I received 2 of my orders promptly. (although there was a bit of a goof on one of them) As of Monday, the 15th, I still had not received one of my orders. So I convoed the seller. Nothing, nada, no response. Today I finally received my order. It was shipped on the 15th, the day I convoed them. Eleven days before they shipped it!?!?!? Hello!

The seller only has 25 feedbacks, so I really hate to leave them a bad one. I'm not sure what to do. Eleven days to ship. No response to convoes. Not shipping until I asked about my order. Pleeeeease! Top that off with the fact that they live in Tennessee... I live in Georgia. I should have received that order first, not last. Very dissatisfied and will never shop with there again! Of course the seller has not left feedback for me yet, so there is the risk of bad feedback retaliation if I leave a bad one. Uggh

/rantover

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!