I am currently organising my first swap on Craftster - been a steep learning curve - but think i've done ok! This is one of the parcels I sent - the other has not been received yet so not posting pics until it is!


Red
A pretty brooch I beaded. I used a large red glass bead and surrounded it by little glass ones sewn on peyote style. :)



Orange:

Orange has the project for both people in - so you'll have to wait for that!

Yellow:

Yellow was supposed to be a button bracelet - but I lost it before I was ready to send - so ended up sending this citrine and hematite bracelet instead

Green: 

Green was this embroidered and beaded pillow (tiny pillow - few inches by few inches) and added green beads to:

Blue

Blue was my favourite thing I made! It was the first time I had made anything more complicated than a pillow cover without using a pattern / closely following instructions. Although I used a pattern to get the shape of the bag - the rest was all mine - it is the same pattern as my 'orange' bag I posted earlier on this blog - so you can see how changed it was!

Indigo and violet I kind of mixed together and created two purple things! I made this hair clip and this beaded peace pendant:

The last item is: Rainbow - doesn't need to be a rainbow - but use rainbow colours. However my partner really likes rainbows and buttons - so I made her a rainbow button hoopla:

We end this transmission with a question for you to please answer and help me out! I'd like to know what you would like to see on the blog to make it more interesting for you to read? 

Have a good day :)

soap

one more tiny update. This is the soap I made for mothers for mothers day. It was supposed to be clear -with yellow and purple cut outs of shapes in it - but I did something wrong and the cut outs all melted - making an opaque green colour instead.

I still quite like it though. It was made as a circle - and cut into slices - still have some slices left. It is scented with lemon and tarragon.

I will send two people a slice if anyone wants some. Comment on here and let me have your address :)

Now i'm getting off this comp! Goodnight :)

Some random jewellery

Here is some jewellery I have been making - some for myself, some for other people - but not for swaps.

I joined my local WI this month. I have wanted to for a while - but they have always been too far away. We recently acquired a community centre just for our estate - and one was set up there last year - I emailed to ask about joining and was assured that a lot of the members were my sort of age - so I joined, the first meeting was last wednesday and was fabulous! We played bingo with chocolate for prizes - and I got a full house - winning a big Thorntons egg! I had made some jewellery to put in the raffle - but they were doing a special 'easter' raffle - I will just take it next month!

The first is another necklace made from dagger beads:

Some really simple, but effective, earrings:

 A simple strung bracelet:

I spent 5 nights in hospital at the beginning of March - while I was there I did some jewellery making to keep myself occupied. I made myself this purple bracelet - the big beads are round glass ones, and the bobbly bits between them are three small glass beads:

A purple and red bracelet - again for me! I did not have my fastenings with me when I made this - so I created my own fastening out of wire.

One of the other patients saw me making bracelets - and jokingly said I could make her one - so I did, when I gave her this she commented on how much she loved the red, as she did not have a red bracelet (apparently she loves beaded bracelets and has a lot)...

 ...so I made her a proper red one!

Lastly, a fun clip for myself - I am planning on making a couple in my current swap - and had never played with the clip base - so I made this for myself to experiment

Box of Colour

Oops I have to apologise - after promising photos life got hectic and I did not get on to post them! I will rectify that immediately! :D

Firstly - a bit of news. I will no longer be posting on Facebook when I post things on here. If you are interested in keeping up to date with what I craft, there is a box over there >>> to enter your email address and you will receive an email when I update. Please feel free to leave comments here too :)

So - this post will show what I created for the Box of Colour swap. The col,our my partner chose was orange - and said she liked the combination of it with turquoise

I made a bag with an elasticated top - and padded handles. I couldn't get a great picture of it - but this shows the basics!

Outside of the bag

Inside of the bag - plus pocket. 

while I was making this bag - I learnt several lessons - but in particular how to add the lining properly. I actually had to unpick most of my stitches as I had sewn the lining to the outer before putting them together. As I am still very new to sewing I am finding I struggle with understanding the pattern instructions - so every thing I make is helping me learn more and more!

Then I made this box - it took me many many hours! The box started as just a plain wooden box. I painted it in the orange colour, then stuck every single one of the orange and blue gems on with glue!!!! Then I glued a butterfly to the front, and made the legs. I had big wooden beads to make the feet - but they were painted and had a shiny glaze - so when I tried painting them orange - it did not stick. I then spent a couple of hours filing them to get all the pattern and glaze off before painting them again, and sticking felt to the bottom of them. I did not get a picture of the inside - but the top and bottom of the inside were lined with more orange felt.

From the front - the legs were glued on in a diamond formation to be different - and it was still well balanced.

The pattern I did on the top.

 A simple strung bead bracelet - this was TINY - and I am amazed it fit her - but I made it to the sizes she gave me, and double / triple checked - so it should have done!

 This was meant to be an 'orange' shaped and scented candle - but the orange colour did not come out as an 'orange' orange - so it ended up just being and orange coloured / scented round candle.

`Shrinkydinks!!!! These are really made for children (but often used on Craftster!) - they are sheets of plastic you draw an image on / colour in - then back in the oven, they shrink in size and thicken so are great for making jewellery. She is obsessed with orange cats - I had tried several mediums before settling on the shrinkydinks - but they all came out wrong. I traced the cat from the internet.

A bag charm or keyring made from orange and turquoise glass beads and some silver coloured metal charms.

 An orange semi precious stone which I strung onto some wire - made the spirals and attached to a necklace (she had a LOT of necklaces etc on her pinterest and specified it as something she would love to receive - hence making two!)

 And this is the piece de resistance - and the item of which I am most proud - an orange and turquoise peyote beaded bracelet. I made the pattern for this myself.

Showing the whole bracelet

Showing the bracelet closed and the fastening.

I think I will be doing another post in a minute - but hope you have enjoyed this one - again, if you want to know when I update please enter your email address in the box to the right!

Hello lovely people.

I'm sorry it has been so long since my last update, I've had a pretty crappy month health wise, spent some of it in hospital and more of it asleep! I have managed to fit in some crafting though, so this is going to be a mega upload.

Things I have made but not taken photos of include:

*necklace and earrings for mothers day for my lovely mother, made with purple dagger beads and silver coloured round beads. I love the effect created by dagger beads and have now made quite a few necklaces with them each of which has differed in some way.

*necklace and bracelet for mothers day for my wonderful mother in law. Made from small green round beads and bigger green (patterned) glass beads. We are visiting the in laws towards the end of April, so I will get a photo of those then.

*Orange coloured set for my mum who bought me lots of jewellery from charity shops, she and I loved one in particular but it was ever so long so I took it apart and put it back together creating a necklace, a bracelet and two pairs of earrings.

*soap, liquid soap and a candle each for my wonderful mother and my lovely mother in law for mothers day

*another dagger necklace and earrings for my 'step-mother' for her birthday.

All the crafting I have done for presents are because I have decided I am not buying any presents for people this year, they are all going to be handmade.

Right onto the interesting stuff, who wants to see pictures??

Tough! I have decided to upload them from the laptop instead of poor quality ones on my kindle, so you will have to wait for a while. Sorry!!!

Bad weekend= good crafting!

So, far from our lovely plans for the weekend which were to inclu

de a trip to the zoo I ended up spending far too much of it at the emergency doctors and the rest confined to bed with a vicious chest infection. The real kicker was I knew on Friday that I was getting one so went to my own GP. The nurse who saw me could not hear anything on it so told me it was viral. 24 hours later I was diagnosed with a"nasty and loud" chest infection! I wish I could have a note put on my file saying I know when I am getting one! Would save a lot of fuss! STILL it is the first one I have had since I stopped smoking (nearly 24 months ago!) as opposed to the 3/4 I would get each year, and my peak flow mid attack was 350, when I smoked I would be lucky to get 300 on my best days!

Anyway being confined to bed is boring so I have been occupying myself with some crafts. The ones I worked on yesterday are for a swap and have not yet been sent, so you will have to wait patiently =)

This evening though I worked on some quick projects. First are for another swap which has not even been created yet! It is called the Sweat Shoppe Swap, and has regular rounds. The idea is to make between 3 & 9 items, on multiples of three, so you can make 1, 2or 3 sets of three items, 1 set of six and a three (or just six) or nine items. Pictures of these are posted before the sign ups close, and we then send our top picks to the wonderful organiser who matches us up with as many of our picks as possible, and then fills the gaps from things not on our pick list. However many items you send are how many you will get back. It is great fun and this will be my third round of it (or fourth if you include the Christmas ornament round). First round I sent sock monkeys, second we flannels I sewed up from a rainbow fabric, handmade soap and a home made candle for six of them, and three bracelets of dyed turquoise skulls and acrylic square beads, also in rainbow colours. This time I decided to make bracelets, they are fairly simple but I believe rather effective. I made three sets of three. Each set has hematite and a different semi precious stone. Ok I have talked too much here are some pictures.

What a Gem (set a: amethyst and hematite.)

What a gem (set b, adventirine l[I think] and hematite)

What a gem (set c, hematite and citrine)

I also made a couple of small, quick and easy things for me. Two pairs of earrings, the first ones were so easy but I loved the beads and did not want to over complicate them. Made from glass bead, silver coloured wire and sterling silver ear hooks:

The second pair were slightly more complicated but still awfully easy. I need to look up some earrings and get inspiration as I always just tend to string the beads on, there must be more I can do! Made from brass colour wire and charm and a glass bead, which is an even deeper blue in real life.

Lastly a simple strung bracelet using glass bicones (the diamond shaped one's) amethyst rounds, and according to the picture 3 glass rounds, which look exactly like the amethyst in real life, but the flash shows to be fake!!

Winter wonderland

Necklace

Some winter inspired jewellery

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