May Component of the Month - Poppies at Sunset

It was Sue Kennedy's turn to design us something special for the AJE Component of the Month this time round. She did warn us that she'd been playing round with contrasting colours, so I knew that whatever she sent me was going to be a challenge - and I was right - an orange and purple lampwork flower! I forgot to take a photo of the flower when it arrived, but it's the one on the far right of the picture that Sue took of all of the beads for the AJE blog.

The flower sat on my desk for a good couple of weeks before I had any idea of what I was going to make with it. I've realised over the years that this is actually the best way for me to work - I'll push beads and stones around on my desk in little bowls, adding in and then taking away other components until everything finally clicks together. I used to worry that I was leaving things to the last minute, but in reality by the time I actually make what every it is that I've decided to make I've spent so long subconsciously thinking about it, working through potential problems in my head, that it tends to all go smoothly and quickly once I actually pick up my tools. 

Poppies at Sunset - not yet on the website but it can be yours for £30 plus a little for shipping if you email me quickly!

And look what I added to Sue's flower - more orange! Yes, the colour that I usually avoid using! I tried more purple, or even using a mix of the two, but in the end I decided that the orange really made the purple 'pop', and the patinaed copper toned down the orange nicely. The beads are dyed jade. Not something that I usually use but they went perfectly. The poppies you will probably recognise by now as being from my Daisychain Extra shop.

Poppies at Sunset - lampwork flower by SueBeads, copper poppy links, charms and clasp by Daisychain Extra

To see what other colours Sue put together and to see what everyone else made follow the links!

Guest Bloggers

Lorelei Eurto http://www.lorelei1141.blogspot.com/
Birgitta Lejonklou http://lejonklou.blogspot.com/
Heidi Post http://www.expostfactojewelry.blogspot.com/
Lola Surwillo http://beadlolabead.blogspot.com/
Kay Thomerson http://kayzkreationz.blogspot.com/

AJE Team

Jennifer Cameron http://glassaddictions.com/
Jenny Davies-Reazor http://www.jdaviesreazor.com/blog
Susan Kennedy http://www.suebeads.blogspot.com/
Linda Landig http://www.lindasbeadblog.com/
Melissa Meman http://melissameman.blogspot.com/
Rebekah Payne http://www.treewingsstudio.com/
Kristen Stevens http://kristen-beadjourney.blogspot.com/
Jo Tinley http://daisychaindesignsjewellery.blogspot.com/ (you're here!)
Francesa Watson http://francescawatson.com/
Lesley Watt http://thegossipinggoddess.blogspot.com/

Finished Projects!

Well, almost finished anyway. I did actually do all the work you can see in these photos last week with the intention of blogging about them and linking up with the post on Art Jewelry Elements last Saturday but blogging time has been short recently.

So, this is what I did with the unfinished bits and pieces that I showed in my last post - apologies for the over bright photos but I realised too late that I'd left my camera on the wrong setting after taking photos of the boys! This is also the reason that none of these are on the website yet, as I need to go back and take better photos!

Chrysocolla "bubbles" pendant with handcrafted silver bead and smoky quartz bead - this is eventually going to be a long necklace on a length (or maybe a double length) or soft brown leather. I've made the back of the pendant just as interesting as the front as a longer necklace is more likely to swing round so I wanted it to look especially nice!

I knew I wouldn't be able to complete this pendant, partly due to time and partly because I am still using it as a teaching example - honest! I need to add a bail, tidy up the prongs, polish, and then the stone is ready to be set.

Another one that is waiting for that soft brown leather. The bird is a clasp that hooks onto the ring at the top of the Botswana agate, and I'm planning a double strand of the leather to complete it.

Of course, a blog post showing off new jewellery designs wouldn't be complete with a Moogin bead! I know I've said it before, but I absolutely love Mindy's use of colour. The cage above was made with the longer piece of curved wire I showed in my last post.

And this is what the shorter pieces of wire became! I made myself a pair of these pretty petal stud earrings for my cousin's wedding in March and I've worn them almost every day since. They are so light to wear and have got me lots of compliments - so they will be on the website very soon!

Although I haven't yet put the moogin bead pendant and the stud earrings on the website yet they will be there very soon - but if you are interested in them please email me- address on the left!

Finishing projects!

I have a growing pile of projects in every stage of creation from sketches in little boxes with the components I need to make them, to rings and pendants with the settings complete and polished and just waiting for the stone to be set. It has got to the stage that I am almost out of room on my desk, and it's not a small desk!

Two of the many cabochons that I've started to make settings for! I'll often make lots of bezel settings to fit some of my growing collection of stones and then they are ready for when inspiration strikes - and time allows!

I've always used the excuse that, because I teach jewellery making, I need part made projects to use as examples with my students, but as I have a pendant that has been waiting for its stone (the beautiful Botswana agate in the picture above) to be set for nearly three years now I think it safe to say that things have got a bit out of hand!

Beautiful picture jasper to be set in pring setting - may not completely finish this one as I am still using it for teaching!

So, at the weekend I set myself the goal of finishing off the projects that you can see here before the end of Saturday, which is going to be a bit of a tall order as I taught all day yesterday, I'm about to start teaching again all day today and I'm teaching for college all day Saturday, not to mention my usual Tuesday and Wednesday night evening classes. My inspiration was a post that Melissa Meman wrote for the AJE blog nearly two weeks ago, challenging readers to show off the projects that they managed to complete before the end of Saturday.

Mystery lengths of square wire - any guesses as to what these will turn out to be?

My questions to you are, will you be joining me in Melissa's challenge, and do you have any part made projects older than my poor three year old pendant?!

AJE March Component of the Month

As I think you may have guessed by now, it was my turn to design something new for the AJE Component of the Month challenge, and I sent out lovely copper hollow beads to my team mates and to some of the AJE blog readers. Normally we have the challenge reveal on the last day of the month, but as we thought we'd all probably be a bit busy on Easter Sunday we'd do the reveal today instead.

And this is what I made....

This pendant is actually the third piece I made for the challenge. I kept thinking that I had to make something more elaborate as it was, afterall, a challenge with my own component, but nothing seemed quite right until I kept it simple. I've used a gorgeous lampwork bead by (of course) Mindy Macgregor (Moogin Beads), a palm wood square bead from Smitten Beads and a purple Czech glass bead. I've been wearing it strung on a length of purple silk from Marsha Neal Studios, but I think that this particular pendant will be better on a length of brown leather - which I haven't actually got yet, which is why I'm showing it to you like this!.

I'd love it if you could take the time to visit the designers taking part in this month's challenge - I am really looking forward to seeing what they all made with their beads!

The guest designers this month are:

Carolyn (Carolyn's Creations)

Jess Green
Niky Sayers

(Kathy  (Northern Light) hasn't been able to take part due to her mother's illness -
I hope she gets better soon Kathy!)

And the AJE contributors taking part are:

Jo Tinley (me!)

Jennifer Cameron

 Jenny Davies-Reazor

Susan Kennedy

Linda Landig

Melissa Meman

Kristen Stevens

Francesca Watson

Lesley Watt

Making Hollow Beads

 Have I mentioned before how addicted I've become to making hollow beads?! I think I may have mentioned it once or twice! The components I made for the AJE Component of the Month challenge for my turn this month were the copper hollow beads that you can see above, and if you'd like to see how I made them click here to see the post I wrote for the AJE blog today!

P.S. I'm currently working on a limited edition batch of these beads to go in my Daisychain Extra shop!

AJE Component of the Month - Giveaway!

First of all, thank you so much for the lovely comments on my Mum's earrings in yesterday's post. It was so nice to wake up to them this morning!

Secondly, GIVEAWAY!! Did that grab your attention? Good! It was my turn to create something new for the AJE Component of the Month challenge. The challenge itself isn't until next month, but so that I can get the components out to the challengees early enough I've reveal them today. As I'm enjoying making hollow beads so much at the moment I thought that I'd make some for the challenge, and here they are!

Antiqued copper hollow lentil-shaped beads, measuring approximately 15mm in diameter and with the holes running across the beads. If you would like the chance to win one and take part in the challenge then visit the AJE blog and leave your details in the post comments before Friday midday eastern time. Winners will be revealed on Friday evening - good luck!

P.S. these are not available in my Daisychain Extra shop yet - but watch this space!

New Daisychain Extra designs now available

It's been far too many weeks since I listed new designs in my Daisychain Extra shop, but there are lots in there now, from new toggle clasps with lovely textured daisies in copper and sterling silver....

 

to Lovebird bangle blanks like the one I used in the Art Jewelery Elements challenge last month.

There are also reels of 1mm and 1.2mm patinaed copper wire following requests from customers and leaf connectors to match the leaf rings used in the new Daisy and Leaf toggle clasps.

And if you'd like to find out how to make your own Daisy and Leaf toggle clasp (or to see just how much work goes into making a handcrafted jewellery component!) then please visit the third of my Soldering Tips tutorials over on the AJE blog today!

AJE Component of the Month - Spring Leaf

It was Karen Totten's turn to create and send out the Art Jewelry Elements Component of the Month for January - beautiful beads that have made all of the AJE team dream of pies! She wrote a blog post yesterday showing how she made them, and I am amazed at how much work goes into making them. I always find it fascinating to see how artists create with other materials.

And this is what I made with my pie bead.....

I made a bangle with a lovebird - a hopeful spring symbol to go with the green leaf on the bead that Karen sent me. The wooden beads are from Smitten Beads, and I've used copper wire to twist peanut seed beads around the thicker wire of the bangle to stop the larger beads from slipping around too much. I'm really rather pleased with it, although it's not my usual style of jewellery. And I'm very pleased with the bangle I made! I've got daisy and poppy bangles in my Daisychain Extra shop, and I think lovebird ones will be joining them soon!

I'm really looking forward to seeing what the rest of the AJE blog team and this month's guest challengees have made with Karen's beads. You can see what they've made too by following the links below...

Our guests:

ArtZhodgepodge
Shirley Moore
Boot-C

The AJE team:

Karen Totten, our hostess

Jen Cameron 
Kristi Bowman
Diana Ptaszynski
Kristen Stevens
Lesley Watt
Francesca Watson
Melissa Meman
Jo Tinley
Linda Landig
Sue Kennedy
Jenny Davies-Reazor

Lights, camera, earrings! (oh, and snow!)

My mission to get more organised has continued this week in between teaching and making lots of clasps. Remember the new photo set up I showed you here? I have finally, after five years or so, bought some new, proper photography lights and umbrellas to throw lovely diffused light on my jewellery. They arrived on Wednesday but I only got round to opening them this afternoon - we had a snow day today so while the boys were relaxing after a morning playing in the snow I went and played in the workshed!

It's going to take me a while to get really happy with the photos I take with the new lights - I only got the chance to play for an hour or so - but I'm pleased so far. I took some quick photos of a couple of pairs of earrings I've made for the Art Jewelry Elements Earrings Challenge, and they are definitely a lot better than the ones I took last week, but I want to find a few more props to show off the jewellery better on my new background as I don't think the lovely wooden box that I've used for a few years now goes that well with the lighter backdrop. I'll get there! Both pairs of earrings are now available on my Daisychain Jewellery etsy shop, and I've pinned them to the AJE Earrings Challenge Pinterest board too. If you haven't had a chance to go and look at the Pinterest board yet please do so - there are some really beautiful entries so far!

Getting organised

That's what I feel I've been doing this week! I'm teaching quite a bit this month, both privately at home (including tomorrow!) and at college, so I've been sorting out the workshed after the pre-Christmas, making lots of last minute orders, rush. It definitely needed a good tidy, but I've also taken the opportunity to do a couple of jobs that I've wanted to do for a while, including putting together a new photography set up.
 

Not the most exciting photo I've ever shown you!

 For the last few years I've been using a table top photo tent that I wrote about here. I've been wanting to change it for a while though as it's not big enough to take decent photos of long necklaces, and the backgrounds I've made for it get creased really easily. Putting up the new roller blinds in the window of the workshed gave me the idea of using one to take photos on, and I finally got it set up this week. It's not really anything fancy, I've just fixed the blind to the wall above the table, but it draps really well, it's not going to get creased (I hope!), I can roll it up out of the way when I need to and I love the texture of the material. I still need to perfect the lighting for it though as the lights I've been using seem a bit dark for it. I can turn up the exposure on my camera to compensate for that, but as I hold my camera rather than use a tripod so that I can get the angles I prefer turning up the exposure can result in some rather shaky photos!

Blackberry Earrings

 The first piece of jewellery I took photos of using it was the pair of earrings above. They're my first pair of earrings for the Art Jewelry Elements Earrings Challenge - we're challenging you to create a pair of earrings a week during 2013, making sure that each pair includes art beads or art components. The challenge is broken down into 13 week sections, so you can just do part of the year if you wish. You can find the full details of the challenge here, and if you'd like to see how I made these earrings head over to the AJE blog for a step-by-step tutorial. And if you really like the earrings you can find them here!

Happy New Year!

Ok, so I know that we're a couple of days in already, but I seem to have taken a while to get going this week! I'm blaming the cold that knocked me out for most of the first week of the school holidays, and the travelling around that we did at the start of this week. We spent New Year's Eve with lovely friends in Wales - great company, good food, lots of laughing and relaxing. My favourite way of spending New Year's Eve, although Jayne, if you're reading this, I'm holding you to your promise of never playing the Krypton Factor board game again!

I've had one day back at work this week, but I seemed to spend most of that tidying the workshop up after the pre-Christmas rush. At least that means that I'll be organised and ready to go next week. I like starting a new week, and the New Year, feeling organised. I've promised myself that I'm going to try and be more relaxed this year, as last year, last term especially, got a bit frantic. It took me longer than I thought it would to get used to teaching three college classes a week last term, especially as I hadn't been able to prepare for them at all, or prepare any Christmas stock, while we were away in  New Zealand over the summer, and there definitely were times when my stress spilt over into family life. And one of the reasons for leaving full time school teaching and setting up the business doing something I love was to have less stress in my life. We'll see how I do, but tonight is a good start - T is out, so I'm watching the end of series 1 of Downton Abbey (yes, I know I'm very late to that particular party!) while trying not to eat the whole tub of Belgium Chocolate ice cream!

Trying to be more relaxed doesn't mean, though, that I haven't got any plans for 2013 - quite the opposite! I'm just going to try and get less frantic about them and stop taking on more than I should - although that is usually easier said than done. I've got some new designs to take photos of to add to both my Daisychain Extra and Daisychain Jewellery etsy shops, and more designs sketched out. I've got a new challenge coming for you in the spring, lots of writing planned and new workshops planned. We've also got a fun new challenge planned for you on the Art Jewelry Elements blog, but you'll have to visit there on Sunday to find out more about that!

I'll be adding the first of the new designs to my shops at the start of next week, but in the meantime there are two days left of my New Year sales. This is your last chance to grab some of my more autumnal and wintery designs in the Daisychain Extra shop for a while as I'll be giving them a rest until later in the year - so if you fancy an owl or an oak leaf, get'em while you can!

AJE component of the month - Wisdom

It's time to show you what I've made with the AJE component of the month. With everything else that December brings I only just met the deadline for this one! I planned out what I wanted to make with Jenny Davies-Reazor's lovely ceramic labyrinth pendant a couple of weeks ago with the idea that I would bring everything up with me to the inlaws this weekend and make it up here. But you should know me by now - it's very rare that my jewellery designs stick to the original plan! I'd packed everything I thought I'd need to make a long necklace, and as you can see I ended up with a bracelet!

(not my best photos I'm afraid as I've had to take the photos on my iPhone in my inlaws garden!)

Jenny chose a labyrinth symbol for her component as, in her words, "As they are a path to the center, your center, your self...they can provide insight and at times inspiration", and so appropriate for the New Year when we try to have a fresh start. You can read more of what she wrote about labyrinths here. I always remember the labyrinth at the centre of the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, so I thought that one of my owl clasps would be appropriate as owls as the sacred symbol of the Greek goddess Athena, the goddess of learning, and a symbol of wisdom. I've also used palm wood beads from Smitten Beads and made some lengths of chain from hammered sterling silver rings. I think I might still tweak the bracelet a little as at the moment I think it's a little too big and I need to replace the last bead with a jump ring or two. Just taking the bead out would make it too small, but of course as I was originally going to make a necklace I didn't bring any jump rings with me!

You can see what the rest of the Art Jewelry Elements blog team made with Jenny's pendants through here. We're off to Wales to spend New Year's Eve with good friends so I'll be back again in 2013! I hope you all have a wonderful New Year's Eve wherever you are!

 

Snowflakes - AJE Component of the Month

As this is my first month as a member of the Art Jewelry Elements it's the first time that I've taken part in the Component of the Month challenge. The November challenge was set by Lesley Watt who designed a brand new component for the occasion - bronze snowflake discs.

I love the snowflake that Lesley sent me, but it definitely set me a challenge! As soon as I opened the parcel it screamed "Christmas ornament!" at me - which was not useful as this is supposed to be an art jewellery challenge. So, I sat it on my desk for a couple of weeks, laying different beads, pieces of leather, cords etc etc next to it and did come up with a couple of ideas. My favourite design had an enamelled ruffled disc in the centre of the disc with beads on twisted headpins holding it in place and a bail passed on this one going through the middle - and but the bail just did not sit properly without pushing the enamelled disc out of the way and I was worried that the enamel would get chipped as the wire rubbed against it. So it was back to the drawing board.

And all the time the snowflake kept yelling "ORNAMENT!" at me (in big shouty letters just like that), partly because I make my Mum a new Christmas ornament each year, and I knew that if I did make a piece of jewellery out of it I would only take it apart and make an ornament anyway......so that's what I eventually did! (I did check with Lesley that that would be ok first though)

I based it on the ornament I made for Mum with Mindy Macgregor's sweet chicken bead for Easter. I've used Lark's Head knots to make the loop at the top and Half Knots for the main section. The cream bead is Czech glass, the small round bead is a ceramic bead that I've had for years so I can't tell you who made it! The red heart is a lampwork bead made by Laura Sparling. I think if I made it again I'd probably leave the cream bead out, maybe add another red ceramic bead instead, but I'll let Mum hang it on her tree for a year first!

To see what everyone else has created with their snowflakes, please visit:

Jennifer Cameron

Kristi Bowman-Gruel

Diana Ptaszynski

Kristen Stevens

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Lesley Watt

Francesca Watson

Melissa Meman

Joanne Tinley

Linda landig

Sue Kennedy

Jean Wells

Marie- Noel Voyer-Cramp 
Therese Frank

Holiday Open House

Just a quick post to day to direct you over to the Art Jewelry Elements blog, where we're having fun and games all day with tutorials, favourite recipes, tools and art bead wish lists - and discounts in our etsy shops, together with giveaways and auctions!

Use the code "AJEholiday" to get 20% off in both my Daisychain Extra and Daisychain Jewellery shops until the end of Monday 26th November, and visit the AJE blog to see a full list of which shops are taking part in the sale. I will be adding new designs to both shops over the weekend.

Tweet Twoo!

Owls are now available in my Daisychain Extra etsy shop! And a flock of lovebirds and a few houses too.
I do enjoy making my owls. They start off looking like strange almost egg-like pieces of metal, but with a little texturing and shaping, plus some liver of sulphur to highlight the textures, bring them to life! If you haven't had a chance to do so already, do go and have a read of my post on Art Jewelry Elements and you'll be able to have a closer look at how I make them.

My owl clasps are also my entry to the Artisan Whimsy Hooters Owl Challenge. This challenge is open to jewellery makers and makers of components - all you need to do is join the forum and add your blog link to the list! Photos have to be added by Sunday 28th October, and Artisan Whimsy members can vote for their favourites until Halloween (of course!).

And if you fancy owning your own owl, visit my Daisychain Extra shop on etsy!