Oak leaves and owls from the Bahamas

Well, one oak leaf and one owl anyway - and a cute birdie too! One of the oak leaves that I sent out for the Oak Leaf challenge in November took nearly two months to arrive safely in the Bahamas. I was just about to give up on it and send another when Kim emailed before Christmas to say that it was finally there. Now that the holidays are over she's had the time to make it into a piece of jewellery, and she's used it with a cute lampwork owl that she made herself. I love it! You can see more pictures of Kim's necklace here.

In case you didn't get a chance to visit the other blogs taking part in the challenge you can find them here:

Melissa Meman of Art, Life, Love

Niki Sayers of SilverNikNaks

Amber Boorman of Larksong Studio

Rebecca Anderson of Songbeads

And you can see what I made here!

I've got another challenge planned - and I'll be posting more details on Friday!

Oak Leaves revealed!

30th November seemed quite a way away when I set this challenge, but it's actually come round very quickly! At the beginning of the month I offered one of my oxidised copper oak leaf hook clasps to the first 5 people who accepted the challenge of making something with it and posting the results on their blog today. The five willing volunteers were

Melissa Meman                Art, Life, Love

Niky Sayers         SilverNikNats

Amber Boorman              Larksong Studio

Kimberley Roberts          Bahama Dawn

Rebecca Anderson          Songbeads

We've all got very different styles of jewellery design, so I've been really looking forward to seeing what everyone came up with! And a little nervous too, to be honest, as this is the first time that I've set up a blog hop myself! The biggest challenge for me has been working with copper as, as I'm sure you've figured out by now, I'm a silver girl by nature. I kept trying out the clasp with different beads, but it wasn't until last night that it all came together! I did worry for a bit that I wasn't going to meet my own deadline as Jamie and I have both had a 24 hour tummy bug, but here it is, a combination of clasp and jump rings by me, lampwork by Mindy Macgregor (of course!), silk by Marsha Neal, Swarovski crystals and copper beads. I would have preferred to have used a blue silk, but I've run out so I may swap to that when my new silks arrive! I did consider adding more blue or purple beads to the mix as I love the combination of browns and blues/purples at the moment, but in the end I decided to keep to an autumnal theme to match the oak leaf.

I'm off to see what the others have made - join me?

Oak Leaf Challenge

The oak leaf clasps have now been posted to their new homes - three in the UK, one in the States and one in the Bahamas - and me in the UK of course. Hopefully the UK ones have arrived now and sitting on work desks waiting for their designs! The challengees are:

Jo Tinley (me!)              Daisychain Designs

Melissa Meman                Art, Life, Love

Niky Sayers         SilverNikNats

Amber Boorman              Larksong Studio

Kimberley Roberts          Bahama Dawn

Rebecca Anderson          Songbeads

We've all got very different styles and the colours we tend to use are very different too, so I'm hoping that we'll all come up with very different designs to use the oak leaves in. The rules of the challenge are very simple - create something, not necessary jewellery, using the oak leaf and on Wednesday 30th November post pictures of what you have made along with some information about the other materials used and where your inspiration came from.

I'm planning another challenge in the New Year, but in the meantime if you would like your own oak leaf I've just added clasps in silver, oxidised silver and oxidised copper to the daisychainextra shop and the coupon code OAKLEAF will give you 10% off all daisychainextra orders placed during November.

Challenge accepted!

No BTW post from me today. I've spent most of the day at college, firstly at a small craft fair that one of the ladies from HR (who's also one of my beginner students) organised, and then up in the adult ed office sorting a few things out for my classes and generally catching up with the ladies up there. The craft fair was a small one, 9 stalls with lovely goodies made by college staff, but we had a good trickle of people coming in during their breaks and lots of lovely comments. Beverley had the idea of organising it so that the staff who have creative hobbies could show what they do and raise some money for the college charities at the same time. She was really nervous about it, but all her hard work paid off and it was great. I was particularly pleased (and proud!) that one of my old advanced evening class students who works at the college had a stall with beautiful and beautifully made jewellery and made lots of sales - one very proud teacher here :)

Thank you to the five of you who have accepted my oak leaf challenge! I will be in touch with you tomorrow to get addresses and to give you a bit more information!

Anyone up for a challenge?

Do you remember this picture from a just over a week ago?

Well, they've now turned into these - cute little copper oak leaves with a hook on the back, a hook version of the oak leaf toggle clasps I sell in my daisychainextra etsy shop. I've hammered veins onto the leaves and oxidised them to highlight the texture, and then curved them slightly to give them a more natural look. Each leaf is slightly different as they are sawn out by hand and textured by hand, but they measure approximately 20mm by 13mm.

So the challenge - what do you think you could create with one of them? Each oak leaf is now wrapped up in one of my chocolate brown organza bags waiting to go to a new home and be made into a stunning piece of jewellery, and that new home could be yours! If you would like one of them then all you have to do is:

• leave me a comment on this post, complete with your email address
• grab the oak leaf 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 November, Wednesday 30th November. 

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 as soon as I've made myself a leaf! You don't have to make jewellery - if you think of some other creative way of using your leaf, go for it!

The first five people to leave a comment asking for a leaf will get one, and this is open to those of you overseas too!