Poppy Challenge Blog Hop

It's here! The date of the Poppy Challenge Blog Hop seemed ages away when I set it, but the last week has flown by! I planned out what I wanted to make early on, but I've come to realise that I'm the type of person who will plan and plan, sketch ideas out, work out how to do it in their heads and then, finally, make it just before the deadline. Which usually works out just fine as all that planning means that the making is usually quick, but with Jamie being ill I did start to worry that I was going to miss the deadline - which would have been embarrassing considering I set the challenge!

So, this is what I planned and planned and finally made on Sunday.....

The challenge was to make something lovely from two of my poppy headpins. I sent five pairs of headpins out to the people listed below, a mix of oxidised copper, oxidised silver and bright silver, and made a pair for me too. I had a pair of oxidised silver poppies, and I knew that I wanted to make a pendant rather than a pair of earrings. I twisted the stem of the poppies onto one of my large teardrops, making them sit slightly to one side. I liked that, but knew that I wanted a bit more movement and a little bit of colour so I used normal headpins to wind tiny faceted amethyst beads onto a smaller teardrop, and then used a jump ring to hang both teardrops together from a chain. It's got more of a romantic feel than most of the jewellery I've been making recently, but I really like it, and it's lovely and light to wear.

The other poppy challengers are

Marissa                Sea Flowers Studios

Molly Alexander               Beautifully Broken Me

Kristi      Curiosities by K

Fiona     TizDuster

Jennifer Cameron            Glass Addictions

I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone has made - please do go and look and join in the fun!

P.S. Thank you to those of you who left a comment/emailed/facebooked about Jamie - apart from being tireder than usual and not having his full appetite back he's back to his normal happy, smiling, crawling round the house at top speed self!

Cuddle time

Source: zazzle.ca via Joanne on Pinterest

No, not for you, sorry. It would be a bit difficult to give you a cuddle through the computer screen, but I expect you can find someone or something to cuddle at your end. It's my poor poorly Jamie who needs lots of extra cuddles at the moment. He's having a bad reaction to the MMR jab that he had last Tuesday, and although I know that the fever, loss of appetite etc that he's going through is nothing compared to actually having measles or mumps it's still horrible, especially as he doesn't understand what's going on. Yesterday seems to have been the worst day, his fever has just about gone now and he's a bit brighter than he was, but he's still not himself today. So, lots of extra cuddles with Mummy.

I'll leave you with thanks for comments on my last post - it's been really interesting to find out what people did before turning their hands to crafts, or how you juggle everything! And a quick reminder too - it's the Poppy Headpin Challenge blog hop tomorrow so come back then to see what everyone made!

The Poppy Challengers!

Thank you so much to all of you who left such lovely comments on the poppy challenge. It's always so much more fun with more people playing along!

I wrote everyone's names on pretty lilac paper and Ben picked five out for me and they are................

Jennifer Cameron
Kristi
Seaflowerstudios
Molly Alexander
Fiona

Congratulations! I will be emailing you tomorrow to get your addresses.

Thank you again to the rest of you - I wish I could have sent you all something, but I will be doing more challenges, promise! By the way, there are still a couple of hours to enter my £20 voucher giveaway - leave a comment on this post to enter!

My 500th post and a challenge!

Who would have thought it? I've waffled enough over the last few years to have written 500 posts! As promised I have finally uploaded some the new designs I've been working on over the last week, mainly daisies with a few baby poppies thrown in the mix for good measure.

There are toggle clasps, hook clasps (and connectors are on their way) in two different sizes and with a different texture than the ones I listed before Christmas. I love this texture - it's made with my favourite hammer (yes, for those of you who are relatively new or who haven't come to one of my classes, I have a favourite hammer!), and I don't know why it I didn't think of using it on the daisy clasps before now!

The poppies I listed today, and a week or so ago, are lovely little baby ones. There are poppy headpins and dainty poppy charms, and the challenge I promised you earlier today is on the poppy headpins. There are 5 pairs of poppy headpins, a mix of silver, oxidised silver and oxidised copper, available to 5 people willing to turn them into lovely jewellery. I'm running the challenge a little bit differently than the Oak Leaves Challenge - this time I'm going to take a leaf out of Lori's book and run a lottery - although I expect that it'll be a lot smaller than the Bead Soup lottery!

To enter the lottery, leave a comment on this post before the end of Saturday 21st and on Sunday I will pick 5 names out of the hat. If your name is picked out:

• grab the poppies button on the left to put on your blog with a link back to this post
• make something beautiful with it and post pictures of what you have made on your blog on the last day of February, Wednesday 29th February. 

You will also need to tell us a bit about your design process, what other ingredients you used etc, and link to the other people taking part. I'll be taking part in the challenge too. You don't have to make jewellery - if you think of some other creative way of using your poppies, go for it! As before, the challenge is open to those of you who are overseas as well.