Summer Carnival 2014 Blog Hop Reveal

Wow this was really fun once I got started.  I had a hard time at first even though I loved the colors of all the beads.  I was just stuck for some reason.  Lisa Lodge of  Pine Ridge Treasures   sponsors this hop.  She likes us to use as many as the beads in the kit as we can as well as beads from our stash but not purchase any.  Of course all beader's have more beads than they know what to do with.   I used quite a bit and still have enough to make a few more things, or add to my stash for another day.
A reminder of all the wonderful beads.
  

   I decided to work on a necklace first.  I wanted to make something that dangled in front. I laid out all the colors and thought I would use the yellow and blue sea glass with some of the white beads. I had a really cute silver head pin that has flowers on it and I used that to dangle some more beads.  So reminds me of summer!

 

Then I decided I needed a bracelet and earrings to go with the necklace. The glass beads that look a little green in the photo actually are this wonderful warm shade of yellow gold.  The bracelet is a simple stretch bracelet and is very light.  The bottom pair of earrings I also added a green crystal along with the blue and gold crystal.

 
After I finished those I thought I would make a gold set but with a longer chain.  This necklace can be worn with jeans or even that little black dress don't you think?

I love these gold earrings made with the crystals and sea glass.

Well that is it for this blog hop.  Hope you enjoyed my creations. Be sure and visit Pine Ridge Treasures to see all the other artists.

Anchors Aweigh!! Design Challenge

 Rita of Toltec Jewels invited me to participate in Anchors Aweigh!! Design Challenge Featuring  Suburban Girl Studio 

 

We received two very cute porcelain anchors for free to use in our designs. Each artist received either green or blue. 17 of us will be participating and the reveal will be on September 2nd so make sure you check back to see what I did.

I received green ones although they look blue :).

 I think this will be a fun one!

 

Pine Ridge Studio Summer Carnival Blog Hop

Lisa Lodge of Pine Ridge Treasures is holding a fun Summer Carnival Blog Hop.  The reveal will take place on August 2 which is coming up really quickly.  I have been very busy trying to get our house ready to put up for sale so I haven't had much time to be creative.  I had such a hard time coming up with a jewelry design even though I love, love, love the colors in the beads that Lisa sent me.  I think I might be having trouble because of the sparkly glass beads.  Kinda funny when I make sparkly dichroic glass pieces all the time.  When you join the hop you get a whole bunch of beads and Lisa lets you know the guidelines which are to use as many beads as you can from the kit, use what you have in your stash and don't buy any beads etc.  The hop is supposed to be challenging.  Anyway here are the beads!

A little blurry because I took them with my phone, but the sparkly beads are just a beautiful light golden color and I absolutely love the blue sea glass.  Well stay tuned for the hop and reveal which is August 2nd and see what I came up with.
So fun!

Ocean Blog Hop Reveal is here!

Well the day has finally arrived!  I have been working on my pieces for awhile.  As you recall I wasn't thrilled to get items that were orange because it happens to be my least favorite color,  haha.  Took me the longest time to get my mind wrapped around the colors and a beach theme. The focal is so cute and I just love the blues and pinks in it so I decided to add some turquoise and some shells to the mix.  As you can see in the first pictures the top two photo's are what I got in the package.  Thank you Lisa for stretching my creativity. 

I remembered I had these cute little anchors in copper which I thought would go well with the colors so I figured out how to attach to the beads and have it lay right, which I gotta tell you turned out to be a little bit harder than I expected.  I tried to add copper wire guards but they weren't wide enough. Then I made this cute bracelet with a fish clasp and made three pairs of earrings all different so depending on how sassy you want to be you could get several looks.

These last two are close ups.  Don't you just love the cute sea shells in orange sea glass that hang from the first pair of earrings on the left.

Please comment and then hop on over to the rest of the participants at Lori Lodge's Pine Ridge Treasures   Beach Hop Blog Party! 

Thanks for taking a peek.  If your looking for my post on the Bead Soup Blog Party scroll down just a few entries and you can comment there too.

Marianne

Ocean Blog Hop

The Ocean Blog Hop starts this weekend May 31st.  I am in the first reveal so stop by my blog to see what I made!   Remember the orange and white soup I received......well come see what happened to it.

The Reveal! Bead Soup Blog Party

The Reveal is happening now!
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Remember what my partner Marti Conrad sent to me in this really cute packaging:  I immediately thought of my friend Jeannie who made my husband Gary a yo-yo quilt when we got married. Jeannie is such an excellent quilter. We all spent many hours making over 500 yo yo's.  I vowed I would never make another one until I saw the packaging! 

Marti loves buttons so as soon as I took these little packages out of the box I remembered I had these cute buttons made out of polymer clay ( I am sorry I don't remember the artist) that look like quilting squares:

So from the packaging and my buttons I made this necklace after I made yo-yo's out of the blue jean wrappers for my friend Jeannie!

 

 I just love how it turned out.  I even used the yarn Marti tied it in.  I also used the adorable heart clasp in the necklace because it went so well with it. The clasp was made by Jean Wells especially for Marti to send to me. The clasp is handmade in copper.

Now the actual Bead Soup!

Marti sent me a huge array of beads and a beautiful focal

 

 Here is the focal and clasp by themselves.  The focal is so unusual you have to visit Marti's blog to see her inspiration.  I think she totally nailed it!

I never work with gemstones but this soup was so colorful and had so many different textures it was really fun to step outside the box and come up with a necklace. I added some gold links and a gold clasp.  Here is my finished piece. Reminds me of summer which is just around the corner.

I also made 4 different earring sets so you could wear different pairs depending on your mood:)  I added some chain from my stash and a couple of beads. I have enough beads to later make a bracelet!

I promised earlier that I would be giving away the second bead soup I made for my partner.  If you make a comment to this post I will randomly select the person who will receive this special Soup that features one of my new copper focals. I am not going to reveal it just yet but I think you will enjoy it.  (I may even include one of my fused glass pendants:)  Drawing will be held on June 15th so everyone has a chance to enter.

Also please visit our wonderful leader Lori Anderson who started this event and does all the work to keep track of everybody, match partners and keeps us up to date which is no small feat because there are almost 500 of us.
Here is where you can find the list of participants.  Bead Soup 8 participants  Please visit as many as you can.
Enjoy,
Marianne