Week 36: I Feel Special

It's been pointed out to me that while I make an awful lot of stuff, I don't normally make things with myself in mind.  So this week, I decided to only make things that I knew I would use, and use regularly.  It turns out that my aesthetic is mostly black and silver based.  Big surprise there!  But it's kind of neat; I feel like I have a cohesive "line" of accessories for my everyday use now.  So, uh, Merry Christmas to me?

Hat Pin!  Just not in the traditional sense.  I love adding a bit of extra flare to my hats.  The button was a super cool find at Joann's, and I  used epoxy clay for the first time to put the feathers and button together on the pin back.  For a first attempt I'm pretty pleased.  Plus, giant feather poof for my hat!

My second experiment with epoxy clay.  The ring base and spikes are both from Michael's;  the spikes appear to be some sort of plastic so the ring is really lightweight!  While this is totally not a work appropriate ring, I' think I'm going to end up wearing this a lot.  Plus I think it may double as a self-defense weapon in a pinch.  :)

WWTWW?  Or, What Would Tom Waits Wear?  If he was a girl, I think it'd be this necklace.  This bad boy is much fancier that I'd normally go with, but a girl's gotta play dress up sometime, right?  

I about peed myself when Michael's came out with their Art Nouveau  line of jewelry  components.  I was particularly taken with the fan-style wings.  Add a keyhole and skeleton key charm, and it's perfect!  I'm surprised at how much I wear this necklace.  It's pretty much a staple of my wardrobe now.

And if I don't feel like wearing the super sized version from above, here's a downsized version for more casual wear.  Keys and wings.  I don't think you can go wrong with that combo!

Once I got my box of keys out, I just couldn't stop!  These flat backed keys are from the scrapbooking isle at Joann's, and they're perfect for my favorite type of crafting; gluing things to other things!  I had this gunmetal finish filigree plate stashed away for a special project, I'm super happy I finally used it.

And my absolute favorite of the batch, my Get Smart earrings!  I had a box of these old bingo-style tokens, and once I saw these two tiles I just had to make something with them.  A bit of dremel work turned them into neat beads.  And I can't resist adding chain tassels to anything.  I wear these all the time now!  So far nobody has gotten the reference, but someday they will and that person will be my new friend FOREVER.

As much as I enjoyed designing for myself for a week, I'll be happy to go back to working with other inspirations.  My color palate for personal wear is super monochrome, and I really do enjoy working with colors!  Just not wearing them.  Expect a color explosion next week to compensate!  Thanks for checking in, and we'll catch you next time!

Week 28: Random Week!

It was really hard to come up with a theme that I wanted to stick to this week.  I had a bunch of different, unrelated ideas floating around in my head that were just begging to be made.  So I went ahead and did a them-free week.  Here are the results:

Sodalite and tiger skin jasper necklace.  I mostly made the necklace itself around an idea I had to make a bail out of leather for a gemstone donut.  It's pretty rustic, but I think that suits the necklace structure well.

Peacock feather earrings with "vintage" style rhinestone dangles.  These bad boys are going to be my new default holiday party earrings. 

Labradorite and Iolite necklace with silver swirl beads.  This necklace is actually a refashion of one I had picked up years ago from Goodwill.  Originally it was just the beads on knotted cord, but the cord eventually broke and this is what I did with the stones.  I'm very happy about being able to return the necklace to weekly wear.  : )

Wire wrapped bird's nest earrings. I've made a few necklaces like these before, but I wanted to see how tiny I could make the nest.  As it turns out, with 26 ga wire you can make them pretty tiny.

Fish scale dangle earrings.  My dear work wife picked out these super cute scale-like components at Michael's.  They jingle when you wear them!  : )

Fancy jasper necklace.  I found a bunch of fancy jasper components in the clearance isle,, and decided to try my hand a just a basic one strand necklace.  I'm happy with how the colors and shapes worked together.

The REAL reason for random week; the beaded chainmaille necklace.  A variation on the Japanese 6 in 1 weave, I used beaded eye pins to make the bulk of the weave.  I'm super pleased with how the necklace turned out,. but it took about a good five hours for me to put the whole thing together.  When I realized that "beaded chanimaille week" would take way more than a week, I moved on to other designs I'd been meaning to try out.

I'm happy to have just gotten around to some random designs.  I kept the theme-thing going for half a year, and I imagine I'll do more themes but it felt really good to just get back to "random" creation.  : )  Thanks for stopping by!

Week 17: Feathered Friends

This week I decided to give in a fully play around with feathers as a jewelry making medium.  They seem to be pretty darn popular right now, and as much as I hate birds themselves I do enjoy the different kinds and colors of feathers that have been popping up in our local craft stores.  I've used feathers a bit before, but mostly peacock feathers.  So I grabbed some bags of feathers and some stems from the floral department, where there are also super cool feathers, and got to work.  This is what I came up with:

Nothing special here, just feathers and beads.

More feathers and beads, this time with bead caps!  Ooooh.

This is where I feel like I really started to hit my stride.  Multiple feathers, bead cones, and crystals.  Now we're talking!

Just feathers and bead cones for this one, but I went with a black and white theme that I thought was pretty fun.

Again, just feathers and cones but this time with some color.  I had a great time picking out most of the feathers on these earrings from a variety of $1 floral stems I got on clearance.  Yay cheap!

These are without a doubt my favorite of the bunch.  The chains and rhinestones really did me in.  I can already tell I'm going to make about a million pairs of these for myself in different colors.  These feathers were also from the cheap-o floral stems. So hurray again!

Peacock feathers with accent feathers, bead cones, and a single crystal.  These earrings are HUGE.    I like big earrings and they're big for me; they dip past my collar bone. 

That's all for this time, but expect to see some more feathers in the future.  I didn't set out intending for all the pieces to be earrings, but once I got started I just kept going down that path.  I had so much fun with this "new to me" medium that I may try feather hair accessories or necklaces some other week.  Thanks for looking!