The Eclectic Element: Handcrafted & Vintage Jewelry: blue

Showing posts with label blue. Show all posts

Sunday, March 10, 2013

7th Bead Soup Blog Party: The Soup!

It's been quite some time since we got our partners for Lori Anderson's 7th annual Bead Soup Blog Party. Due to circumstances beyond both of our controls, my partner Kelly and I had a little issue getting each other our prospective soups; life just happened and our soups were put on the backburner.

Pun somewhat intended.

Thankfully, we were able to get our soups to their homes and I for one couldn't be happier with what Kelly sent me!

Click to Enlarge

A mixture of greens and blues with handmade copper components, this soup is downright magical. Especially with the handmade copper bound book focal Kelly made for me--I nearly cried when I saw that beauty!

"Once upon a time. My story by KP. And they all lived happily ever after."

I told Kelly she doesn't realize how appropriate and meaningful that gorgeous pendant is in regards to my crazy life. I definitely can't wait to give that pendant a perfect home so it can be a reminder to me everyday no matter where my story leads, we'll all live happily ever after in the end.

Now I'm just waiting on an Amazon shipment of copper wire to dive into this blue and green sea of bead and copper goodness!

On to the bad news...Do you remember that sneak peak I put up of the soup I sent Kelly awhile back? Unfortunately I must have misplaced or accidentally deleted the pictures because I can't find them anywhere! If Kelly posts pictures of her soup, I'll see if I can snag one and post it up here.

Regardless, I can't wait until our reveal to share what I make and see what Kelly makes from what I sent her ^.^

Did you get your soup already? Leave a link so I can visit and fawn over it!

Monday, March 4, 2013

I'm An American!

My very close bloggy friend Lu of Crocheted Little Things (check out her $15 gift certificate giveaway going on) recently did something amazing...

She's an Italian-American who has been living in America (legally of course) for the last several years with her family, but wasn't classified a US citizen.

The last few months, she's been working hard to try and get her citizenship and at the end of February, she finally got that coveted certificate; more importantly, she's now, officially, a United States citizen!

I'm so proud of her that when I heard, I know there was something I needed to do.

You know what that means: Jewelry!

For those of you seasoned jewelry stampers out there, be kind! This was my first attempt at stamping; it's not the greatest but I'm still proud of the way it turned out ^.^

Congratulations Lu!

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Artemisia's Studio & a Giveaway Win

This post is unfortunately way late in coming, but better late then never, right?

Back in the beginning of December I received an email from Emanda of Artemisia's Studio letting me know that I had won a handmade ornament from her website!

To be honest, I had NO idea what the ornament looked like or even how I won it so it definitely came as a welcomed surprise. Looking back, I now know It was won from a comment I had left on Emanda's Challenge of Color post, a challenge we both participated in at the end of November.

After chatting with Emanda for a little bit over email, she told me to expect a package in the mail within the next couple of weeks. When it finally arrived, I was surprised once again, this time by it's contents!

Not only was there the most beautiful blue, green, and silver colored Angel wing ornament that literally took my breath away, Emanda also included a gorgeous pair of Rose Quartz and 'New Jade' earrings for me to enjoy.


Breathtaking. Literally!

Merry Christmas to ME

I couldn't wait to add Emanda's ornament to our Christmas tree! It actually turns out that Angel wing was one of the first ornaments to adorn our tree this year. See for yourself...

Make sure to check out Emanda's Etsy shop, Artemisia's Studio and her Blog! She has some beautiful things to offer and is such a kind and wonderful person :)

Friday, November 30, 2012

3rd Annual Challenge of Color: The Reveal

I know I've been completely MIA on this blog and I take full responsibility in the fact that I'm all over the map doing 9 million different things at once! Unfortunately when you take on more than you can handle, things suffer and this blog is one that has suffered o.O

Either way, I'm glad I was able to at least finish my Challenge of Color pieces before my health took a nosedive early this week. Three things about this challenge and my pieces:

1. I suck at structured colors. I had the worst time trying to match what I had in my stash to the colors from my palette. It's very appropriate this hop is called Challenge of Color!

2. I wish I could have done WAY more than two pieces, but I'm trying to be happy with what I did get accomplished. A life lesson I'm still struggling to learn and accept on a daily basis: You can't be perfect!

3. I wasn't able to do the absolutely stunning color palette I received justice with all it's colors because I sadly didn't have all the colors that came with it in my stash. I had to pick out a few colors and work with those, but all in all I'm happy to have been able to stick to a few colors out of my palette even if it wasn't all of them.

Before we venture to my pieces, here is a little reminder of the color palette I received:

Sierra De Velasco

On to my pieces!

Firstly, I opted for a bracelet since they are my specialty...

Dream a Little Dream

For the bracelet, my inspiration came from the silver tone crescent moon focal piece and, of course, my color palette! As you can see, I went for a 'cool color' theme and pulled out the lime green, deep blue and plum purple to work with. All beads come from my stash whether they be purchased or upcycled.

The chain is one of the elements that is upcycled from a simple multi-chain necklace I took apart just for this project and is made to alternate sides of each larger bead in the bracelet.

The silver tone 'Dream' charm was a last minute addition because I felt the focal need a wee something else to make it perfect ^.^

Next in my Challenge of Color pieces is a pair of earrings, similar in color to the bracelet, but with more of a teal taken out of my palette rather than the dark blue.

Also, I chose to run with a gold tone base rather then silver.

To be quite honest, this pair of earrings was a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants creation; I had no idea what I envisioned when I picked up those large focal beads so I just ran with it and I think it turned out pretty darn good!

Used were smaller glass beads with little bits of upcycled gold tone chain in between to give it that 'full' look.

Just an FYI, I plan on selling both of my pieces in the near future, so if you're interested or know anyone who's name these two pieces are loudly shouting for a holiday present, leave me a comment or send me an email! :)

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Make sure to stop by our beautiful hostess's site, Erin of Treasures Found, and see what she created as well as the rest of the 80 other Challenge of Color participants!

Erin Prais-Hintz
Brandi Hussey
Rebecca Anderson

Kris Auderer

Chrizette Bayman

Lori Bowring Michaud

Courtney Breul

Lynsey Brooks
Stephanie Buss

Iveth Caruso
Shannon Chomanczuk
Lisa Cone
Cece Cormier