Celtic Bracelet

This is my favorite creation so far! I hope to make a matching necklace sometime.

 

I'll post instructions later...

Pearl and Wire Bracelet

 This was almost insanely easy, and it looks so classy. First, I put a bead through floral wire. Next, I shaped the 20 ga wire to mold around the bead. Then I twisted the floral wire that the bead is in around the 20 ga wire. Repeat until the bracelet is finished!

The bracelet is strudy enough to stay on without actually needing a clasp, but I made a jump ring and S hook clasp so that it can't get yanked off by baby brothers who are facinated with this stuff...

A Bottle of Pixie Dust!

This is made from an old plastic perfume bottle that my little sister had. I "weathered" (rubbed pastel or ink with a sponge) the paper, calligraphied it, and attached it with rubber cement. (glue works, too). I filled the bottle with water and glitter (shhh! Its pixie dust to the little ones!), colored the lid with Sharpies, glued a flower on top, and tied ribbon on. Ta Dah!

Heart Set

This was very fun to make! First I made the two dangles (or wirewrapped loops) that the glass pearls are on. Then I twisted the heart shape, putting the dangle into the bottom loop. Then I attached it to the earring hoops!

For the ring, I put a long strip of wire through the bead and pulled it backwards. Hopefully you can see that in the picture. I twisted it around my finger. I twisted floral wire around the spot where the bottom of the heart is. Then I simply twisted the ends of the 20 ga wire into a heart shape!

Chandelier Earrings

These chandelier earrings were a ton of fun to make! They were quite a puzzle to put together, though... except for the actual loop that goes into the ear, this is entirely handmade. I took a strip of wire and made a triangle with two loops in the bottom corner. The ends of the wire are attached to the middle beads.

The twisted ties on the beads took a bit to get the hang of, but are fairly simple. You curl the end of the wire and thread the bead on. Next, form a loop with your pliers slightly above the bead. Keeping the pliers in the loop, take the rest of the wire and twist it three times around the wire directly below the pliers.

That sounds confusing. :P I am terrible at explaining it...

 EDIT: I found a site with instructions! http://www.beadingdaily.com/blogs/howto/archive/2009/02/13/wirewrapped-loops.aspx

 I used some random leftover plastic beads. :P

Elvish Circlet

It hath long been a dream of mine to own Elvish jewelry. Who could not, if they but once hath seen The Lord of the Rings? (By the way, today I am randomly writing in semi-Old English. Just so you know.)

Such silver filigree as never known! Such delicacy, detail, wonders to behold!

And then, to the greatest of all dismays, dashing wild hopeful hopes to the ground and slathering them with the mud of disappointed, I made the amazing discovery that... any replica, of whatsoever quality, costeth at least $30. The beautiful detailed intricate creations... somewhere in the $200 range.

AND THEN I GOT AN IDEA.

Make my own.

So, I hereby present to thee... A Circlet (no kidding)

Much fun was gained from this pleasurable experience. Listening to some music (not to mention music and music), I worked with wire for a couple hours. There is nothing like the joy of creating something beautiful... (or, not so beautiful, but at least an attempt at beauty)

HERE IT IS!!! (I'm proud of it, even though its not much.)

I used 20 guage wire and one fake pearl bead. To connect the various swirls of 20 gague wire, I twisted floral wire around it. A couple of easy-to-break places I added a touch of fingernail polish to hold it steady. (You know you are a crafty [muahahaha] when you use more fingernail polish on projects than on your fingernails.)

The hook in the back was made with a beaded chain with an S-hook at the end. With this chain, there is no need to secure the circlet with clippies!

My apologies for a lack of better pictures. Sometime I will try to get one with a black background.


 EDIT:
 Guess who got pictures-- nearly a year later?! This has been a favorite tiara with all the little (and not so little!) girls playing over at our house! You can definitely see the wear and tear (and bending, from the swirls tangling in hair, which I didn't bother to correct) in these pictures.


Sorry there is so many; my sister was such a compliant model and too sweet.

On black; the one twist has obviously slid up. An easy fix had I caught it before I snagged the picture.

It can be worn as a crown instead of tiara!

She got a little annoyed at the end... she wanted to play princess, not take pictures!

Harder than it looks- wire crocheting

I once heard something about wire crocheting- apparently you can make some really cool things with it. So me being me (and I love to experiment) I pulled out my smallest yarn crochet needle and some floral wire.

END RESULT: My fingers were very sore. My poor needle was dying a slow and painful death from erosion. And I had only finished two rows.

I don't think I'm ever going to try that again.

How to make an S hook

     One thing about tiny towns is that you can't find craft supplies... you are therefore forced to make your own. Case in point: S hooks.
     These are perfect for all your jewelry. They can easily be clasped with one hand (think bracelets) and aren't a pain to attach (think lobster claw clasps). Use with jump rings.

 Step One

Use round needlenose pliers to create a loop.

 

Step Two

 Take the wire and carefully twist it around your pliers as shown. Make sure you twist it the correct direction- opposite of the loop you just made.

 

Step Three

Cut the wire halfway down the curve you just created. Use your pliers to pinch the part you just cut- shown here:

 

Congratulations! You have made an S hook.

How to make jump rings

These little fellas are really helpful. They make a perfect hook and eye clasp when used with an S hook. They can also be used to make chains, chain maille, or dangling things. :)

Your materials:

• Wire
  
• Wire cutters
• Crochet or knitting needles (to get exact measurements). Round pens can also be used.

Step One

Wrap the wire in a tight coil around the needle or pencil.

Step Two 

Take the coil off of the needle and cut out individual rings.

To open the jump rings, pinch the ring in a pair of needlenose pliers and gently pull. To shut, gently pinch pliers around the ring.


Tah-dah!!! Alot easier than it looks!

A Necklace and a Hair Thing

More pictures of stuff I made! A butterfly neecklace and an Elvish hair clip.

This is the butterfly necklace. I used floral wire and seed beads to make the butterfly. I used these instructions to make the beaded chains that attach the butterfly to the colored hemp cord. For a clasp I made my own jump ring and S hook.

 

The hair clip! Perfect to go with an Elvish or fairy costume! Now, if only I had one of those... :) The leaves are Czeck glass. Basically I just took some 20 ga and floral wire, twisted some beads in it, and tied it onto the clip.

New Materials!!!

Hooray!!! I have some new materials!!! Thanks to small towns like ours, it can be very difficult to find beads and wire... A friend suggested I look online, so I spent some of my birthday money on the most beautiful beads and a ton of wire.

I've wanted some leaf-shaped beads for making Elvish jewelry. After some reasearching, I discovered these awesome Czech glass beads. They are a bit pricey but very good quality. And pretty. Most sites have a pack of 24 for $4. I found a site called BrightlingsBeads selling them for $2. They have free shipping (no minimum order!) and had a great Labor Day sale.
For the wire, Mom found a website called Our Lady's Rosary Makers (OLRM). We also got a pair of round-needle- nose rosary making pliers from them. Ben fell in love with it and has already finished half a rosary!

Painting

I actually made this quite awhile ago but never posted it. Its an acrylic painting. Not too pleased with how choppy it looks- but if I term it "half Impressionist" its just fine. :)

Fairy Jewelry Set

More wire jewelry! I've simply fallen in love with it... the materials I used for making these shown here are:

1. 20 guage wire found at a garage sale
2. Floral wire from Walmart
   
3. Leftover beads from back when Walmart actually had beads
4. Longnose needlenose pliers (which I raided from Dad's toolbox)
5. Wire cutters (again, raided from Dad's toolbox.Before I found the wire cutters I had used an old pair of scissors.)
   

This a circlet I made for a friend who is going to a Renaissance festival as a fairy:

A bracelet, ear cuff, and ring to go with the circlet:

The bracelet was alot of fun- I twisted wire into two bracelets, overlapped them, and then twisted the wire and beads through it.

Ear Cuffs- what are they?

Ear cuffs aren't your typical peice of jewelry. To wear them, you push the 'hook' part over your earlobe and then slide it into place. Once the ear cuff is on, you can gently adjust it by pinching or pulling the part that wraps around your ear. The wire will not stand up to repeated bending, so adjust it once and leave it. (in other words: Do NOT open and close the ear cuff every time you take it on or off. Slide it over your ear.)

This is how they are worn:

The design of this particular one allows you to wear earrings, too.

And a picture of another one I made, so you can see its shape:

Rings

What a boring title. Rings. Well, this is all about rings, and only rings. :) Hence the unimaginative title.

 

The first two are the same design with different beads, the third is on of a myriad "okay" designs.

These wrap around the finger like a curly que. The middle one is supposed to be a purple flower- it acutally looks like a grape vine.

My hand!!! Isn't it thrilling? lol. This shows how the rings look like curly ques.

I was pretty proud of this design. Its Celtic-looking. A little large, though.

More Backgrounds

Here are more backgrounds (or rather, several variations on the same one) that anyone can use. Look at my earlier post to see how to use these.

 

 

  

Computer Graphics

You may have noticed a fancy new background and header on this blog. :) The header was made with a scan of one of my drawings, and was edited with Paint Shop. I am going to give instructions on how to make your own...




Header: (that things up on the top with my blog's name).

1. Using Paint Shop, Photoshop, gimp, picknik, or even the Paint that comes for free on Windows, create an image in a 1:2 ratio.(I used Paint Shop Pro, layering a scan of my drawing, background textures, and text. I got the font from this site)
2. Save as .jpg
3. Open up Blogger Dashboard. Click your blog. Click Layout. On the top there should be a Header option. Click Edit. Upload your photo, choose "instead of title and description" and "shrink to fit". Save.

Tah-dah! You have made your very own header for your blog!

Background: (the fancy design you see in... you guessed it... the background).

1.  Check out The Custest Blog on the Block's Backgrounds. They have a wide selection and easy instructions.
2. Or, create your own (as I did). Follow these instructions. Please note: For this blog, I did not use the Minima template, but the Scribe template. If you are well versed in HTML, you should be able to to tweak the code on any template. For beginners, I would suggest simply using Minima.
3. Or, use one of mine. So far I only have one. :( I hope to make more soon.

To use mine: 

1. Right-click above image (or the image of any background I post for use). Click "view image". Right-click on full-size image. Click "copy image location".
2. 
   

    Next go to ‚customize, layout‚ pick a new template‚ then choose a Minima template.Then click on edit HTML‚ You will see a big, long, crazy code (that is HTML). Scroll to where you see this:

body {
background:$bgcolor;
margin:0; color:$textcolor; font:x-small Georgia Serif; font-size/* */:/**/small; font-size: /**/small; text-align: center;

Change that part of the code to say this:

body {
background:$bgcolor;background-image:url('/direct link');background-position: center; background-repeat:no-repeat; background-attachment: fixed;
margin:0; color:$textcolor; font:x-small Georgia Serif; font-size/* */:/**/small; font-size: /**/small; text-align: center; 

3. Insert the image location where it says "direct link".
4. Preview, then save

Hooray! You did it!!!

Imported from my blog... crocheting!

Guess what I've recently fallen in love with? Crocheting.

The above are pictures of my in my beret. :) It was my second real crochet project. Its so fun! It was also the very first time I used an actual crochet pattern. I used an old 1936 pattern I found online. It is very simple and easy:

Beret

Ch. 3, join in a ring.

Row 1: 6 single crochet in ring. = 6 sc's

Row 2: 2 single crochet in each stitch. =12 sc's

Row 3: *Increase one by working 2 single crochet in next stitch, 1 single crochet in the next stitch. Repeat from * around Row. =18 sc's

Row 4: *2 single crochet in next stitch, 1 single crochet in each of the next 2 sts, repeat from * around row. =24 sc's

Continue to increase in this manner (1 extra stitch in every x, x+1, x+2, etc.) 6 times in each row, until work measures 10 inches in diameter. (You have just crocheted a circle). Work even for 1 inch. Then decrease by skipping every 10th st. in each row until hat fits desired head size. Work 2 rows even. Break yarn and fasten.-Minerva Yarns 1936

 

My brother looks like a mushroom from Mario Brothers in it. :) I had to really twist his arm just to let me take this picture.

 

It didn't take any arm twisting for my brother to wear the hat! He actually stole it off my head. He is so cute!

What was really funny was that I wore it to garage sales this weekend. Some random lady asked if I had made it, and asked me for the pattern!

Mom thinks I should put a pom-pom on it. :P

My sister, of course, had to have a hat, too. As has been the case with most of my projects, I simply made it up as I went along, the result being that it looks very 70's and is lopsided. :) 

She loves it, though.

 

So does Marcus, apparently.

I had made Mr. Harry Potter Fan a Gryffindor scarf for his birthday. Of course, my other brother had to have something, too. So I made him a hat (which takes 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of the time, lol) Here is Mr. Harry Potter Fan wearing his scarf and commandeering his brother's hat:

Erm... I'd post the pattern for the HP hat (the others I made up as I went along) but I seem to have missplaced the link... ::)

Imported from my blog... first attempts at Elvish jewelry!

EDIT: I've since made many, many more Elvish jewelries! 
In fact, almost half the jewelry featured on this blog are Elvish. 
I've got several tutorials (with more coming!) and I sell some on my { Artfire shoppe! }

Elvish style jewlery

So... I have always loved the clothing and jewelry in The Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and other movies similar to those. I've always especially loved the Elven style. I fact, I love everything Elvish. I am hoping to make an Elven dress if we can get the supplies. It would be blue and silver... Anyway, I have always wanted Elvish style jewelry. Way back in 5th grade, I got an Evenstar necklace (for $3, when it normally was $10!)



(It's not as nice as this one- this is the "official" $100 diamond one)


I also love "medieval" "fairy" or "Celtic" style jewlery, which I dub as "Elven" since it really looks alot like it. :)

Since it is virtually impossible to find anything like this in Rolla, and even if you did, it would probably be very expensive, I decided I would try to make some for myself. I HATE WAL-MART. Let me say that again: I HATE WAL-MART. They took away 3/4 of their fabric, but their worst transgression is the fact that they have deprived their art section of anything of worth. Once upon a time you could find beads and wire, embroderiy floss, random craft sets, paints of all kinds, etc. Now all you can find are: premade bead necklaces, some scrapbook supplies, cheap kids crafts sets, and wedding decorations. I HATE WAL-MART.

To get to my point: There are no other craft supply/hobby stores in Rolla that I know of. (Unless you count that moldy one downtown). I had to deal with a small Ziplock baggie of leftover beads from old projects and thin floral wire. At a garage sale I found a small spool of thicker wire, but I already use it up in these projects... Dad had a pair of needlenose pliars that are really helpful.

My first attempt that didn't fall apart:

 

I was actually fairly proud of this next creation. I'm calling it an ear cuff. Sounds funny, I know, but what else should I call it?

Here is how it is worn:

(random girly thing- my hair looks curly in that picture! And not super frizzy... :P)
I think you would probably only wear one of these, and you can wear earrings with it, too.

I made these before I made the ear cuff I made "earrings" for Adelynn. She simply loves dress up and has been deploring the fact that her ears aren't peirced (keep delporing for 5 more years, Rosie!)

 

I also made a rock necklace:

This was laying on my desk, and so I just had to take a picture of it. I can't claim credit for this one: Rebecca made it. :)

 

Maybe next time I should lay a piece of white paper underneath when I take the picture...