DIY Snuggly Owl Pillow

Need to get a gift for a toddler?  Why not make this adorably snuggly owl pillow?  I made this one for my boyfriend's niece's first birthday.  The materials cost me about $25 and it took me about 2 hours to complete.  I used fleece so it's super soft.  The only thing I changed from the pattern is that I used buttons for the blacks of the eyes instead of sewing on a black circle.  For those who want to keep their costs down (who doesn't?), one thing I found was that it was much cheaper to buy a pillow and cut it open to get the polyester stuffing than to buy a bag of stuffing at the fabric store.  You can find the great free pattern and instructions here to make a snuggly owl of your very own.

How to Make Beaded Snowflake Earrings

Even though it's not winter yet, I made these super cute beaded snowflake earrings the other day.  They really sparkle and catch the light.  I thought I would share this free tutorial with you so you can make some of your very own.  (Excuse my quickly made diagrams, hopefully you can follow them easily!)

Crystal Snowflake Earring Materials

- 24 4mm crystal bicone beads

- 36 size 13/0 or 15/0 glass seed beads

- Fishing line or beading thread

- Glue (if using fishing line)

- 2 earwires

 1) Cut 20" of thread/fishing line.  Add 6 seed beads and pass the thread back through the first bead to make a loop. Make sure that you leave a thread tail that is a few inches long.

2) Add 1 bicone, 1 seed bead, 1 bicone, 1 seed bead and 1 bicone.  Sew back through the bead you first came out of in the central loop.  Then sew through the next seed bead in the central loop.

3) Add 1 bicone, 1 seed bead, 1 bicone and 1 seed bead.  Sew down through the bicone that makes up the right side of the outer loop in Step 2.  Sew through the seed bead you were coming out of at the beginning of this step.  Sew through the next seed bead in the central loop.

4) Repeat Step 3 more times.


5) Sew through the next seed bead in the central loop, up through the bicone that makes the left side of the loop you added in Step 2. 

6) Add 1 seed bead, 1 bicone and one seed bead.  Sew down through the bicone on the opposite side of the gap and through the seed bead you first passed through in Step 5. 

7) Weave both your thread ends to the outside of the snowflake.

8) Take the longer thread end and do a complete circle around the outside of the snowflake passing through the seed beads and bicones.  (You should go through 2 seed beads and then 1 bicone repeatedly).  At one point in between 2 seed beads, sew your thread through your ear wire loop and then continue on.

9) Once you return to the other thread end, tie a secure knot.  If I'm using fishing line, I like to add a tiny drop of epoxy onto the knot as a back up.  Wait for the glue to dry (if you added glue) and then snip the ends as close to the knot as possible.

Another Wire Wrapped Cab Ring

Normally, I'm pretty good at staring at a piece of wire jewelry and figuring out for the most part how it is made.  Nicole Hannah's Over Under Ring, however, had me stumped.  Wires were coming from where there should have been no more wires left to use and the stone in her picture looks like it could fall right out the top (though I'm sure that's not the case).  I broke down and bought her great tutorial, broke out my copper wire and gave it a go.  I ended up making my intitial loops too small, quickly ran out of places to tuck all my wires and had to improvise to finish of the ring.  I really like how it turned out though even though it doesn't have as many wraps around the stone as the original.  I then LOS'd the ring to give it even more depth and texture.  Sadly it is too big for my tiny fingers and so I have decided to sell it.  You can find it in the jewelry shop if you'd like to have it for your very own.

Nicole Hannah's over under ring

My take on the over under ring

My version after LOS

My Jewelry Supply Black Hole

I have a secret to share. I have a really bad habit of buying supplies that catch my eye, organising them into my many many boxes of beads and baubles and then doing nothing with them. Kind of like a black hole... for jewelry supplies.  Months ago I got a bulk order of stone cabochons.  They were and still are beautiful, and yet until two days ago I hadn't made anything with them.

Lately I've been trying to challenge myself.  For me this is wire wrapped rings.  They don't have an obvious beginning or end which my brain sometimes finds hard to incorporate into a design.  Having had some success using beads as a focal point I now set myself the challenge of coming up with a design that would set a stone in place.  No glue - that's cheating!  Just wire carefully wrapped to hold everything in place.

I ended up choosing a 10mm round labradorite cab for this project.  In my head my original thoughts were for a more angular design with corners above and below the stone.  However, when I got to wrapping the stone into place, the wire bundle just seems to flow so nicely around it that I had to go with it.  Here it is.  My first wire wrapped ring with a stone setting.

I had to wear it around for an entire day before I had convinced myself that the stone would actually stay in place.  Not because it felt loose or there were physical signs of it doing so, just because I couldn't believe my first attempt had been successful and actually looked good too!  I've decided to put this ring up for sale.  Though I enjoy making them, I'm not not a big ring wearer.  (Wearer?  I don't think that's an actual word, but I'm adding it to my personal dictionary).  Hopefully someone will get as much enjoyment out of wearing it as I did out of making.  I've also made a tutorial on how to make on of your very own if you're of the craftier persuasion which you can find in the tutorial shop.  I'm going to have to make a dent in my collection of stone cabs now and actually put them to good use.

Sparkle, Shimmer and Shine with Sweetdelight.ca

Guess what! I've been invited to participate in sweetdelight.ca's September 2012 sample box promotion.  The theme is Sparkle, Shimmer and Shine, so my jewelry fits right in.  How it works.  I send in a whole bunch of jewelry pieces to the Sweet Delight team.  You can then go to http://www.sweetdelight.ca/buythebox.html and buy a sample box for a grand total of $26 including shipping and handling. What a steal!  You then get a box mailed to you filled with samples and full size products from a variety of businesses focusing on bath, beauty and style worth way more than $26.  I know I would sell some of my pieces for that amount or more just by themself.  Here's a sneak peak of some of the pieces that I sent.

Wire Wrapped Copper Earrings

I don't usually use copper in my jewelry.  However, I was inspired by Taniri's Helen Earrings to give it a try because the oxidation makes it look dark and rich rather than....orange.  I used 18 gauge round wire for the structure and wrapped those with 24 gauge round wire.  I usually use thinner wire for fine wrapping, however, I needed to get these done fast because I was making them to wear to a wedding this weekend and thus didn't have time to wait for a wire order to show up in the mail.  I used the hard boiled egg method for the initial oxidization and have ordered some liver of sulfur to make them even darker.  The beads are 4mm amethyst AB crystal bicones.  These have great texture to them, which I love.  Maybe I'll have to work with copper more often.

The Inspiration

My Interpretation

Wire Wrapped Bow Ring

You know that old saying that if you need to remember something, tie a string around your finger?  I don't think anybody wants an ugly little string on their finger all day but a cute little bow ring is a different story.  I've had this idea for a while, but couldn't quite figure out how to 'tie' the bow.  My first attempt was an absolute disaster and sent me back to the drawing board.  I had to get my mind out of the rut of how you tie a traditional bow, since wires don't like to bed that way, let alone a bundle of wires already wrapped together.  I came up with a nifty solution that let to this super cute ring.  It is made with 24 gauge round and 30 gauge round dead soft sterling silver wire.  If you want to learn the secret to tying this bow you can check out the tutorial in my tutorial shop. 

Don't Give Up If Your Original Plan Fails

In my mind I had this idea of a bead surrounded by fine wire weaving that would join together to form a four stranded braid above the bead up to the ear wire.  I wanted to take the 4 woven sections and then weave them together like the pattern on the right.  However, they didn't want to cooperate and ended up being too stiff to get all the intricate bending needed.

I was frustrated, but I had just spent 2 hours doing all this fine wire weaving so I wasn't about to throw away all my effort (or all that sterling silver wire).  I did me best to straighten out the 4 woven sections and then just started to play with them and join them together in a way that the wires wanted to go.  The result was a beautiful teardrop shape.  I love the gentle curves of these earrings.  They're just so elegant!  If you like these as much as I do, you can buy the tutorial to make them yourself in the Tutorial Shop.  If you'd like a pair but don't want to make them yourself, please feel free to contact me.  The lesson here?  Don't give up when your original plan doesn't work.  Accidental designs can turn out to be even better. 

New Tutorials

I have a couple new tutorials up for sale.  The first is a beginner level wire wrapping tutorial for my Crystal Fan Earrings.  You can find it in the Tutorial Shop.  To make these you require:

Material List:
- 22.5” 24 gauge dead soft square silver wire.
- 12” 22 gauge half hard half round silver wire.
- 20 4mm crystal bicone beads
- 2 ear wires
- Scotch tape

Tool List:
- Flat nose pliers
- Wire snips
- Ruler
- Round nose pliers
- Half round half flat nose pliers (optional)
- Marker

 The second is a intermediate level tutorial for my Embellished Oval Beaded Earrings.  This pattern is based on the right angle weave technique.  You can find it in the Tutorial Shop.  To make this pair of earrings you require:

Material List:
- 246 size 15/0 miyuki delica beads
- 280 size 11/0 miyuki delica beads
- 208 size 10/0 seed beads
- Beading thread                                                     
- 2 ear wires

Tool List:
- Beading needle
- Needle nose pliers

Happy beading and wire wrapping!

Layered Silver Swirl Ring

While browsing the gallery at jewelrylessons.com I came across nikkihanna's Wire Wrap Swirl Ring.  It inspired me to try a wire wrapped ring with a focal bead again.  I used 24 gauge round sterling silver wire and 28 gauge round silver wire to do the wraps.  The stone is jasper.  I am really pleased with how it turned out and ended up giving it to a friend as a gift.

Pathway Beaded Bracelet

I recently made this bracelet as a birthday gift for my boyfriend's sister.  The alternating pattern kind of reminds me of a stone garden pathway.  It was based on the Even the Odds pattern found in Creative Beading Vol.4.  It is basically an odd count peyote stitch with some square stitch mixed in.  You can make it fairly quickly once you get used to the stitch.  I finished this in a couple of hours.  The materials I used were glass rectangular pillow beads, size 10/0 seed beads, 2 thread protectors and a silver plated filigree clasp.  I hope the recipient likes it as much as I do!

DIY Wall Mounted Planter

Check out this DIY wall planter that I made recently.  I love that it frees up some surface space as well as combining living things and art.  The most time consuming part of this was stenciling on the design.  If you were to make this back board a solid colour, you could probably put this whole thing together in a couple hours.  Want to know how to make one of your very own?  Check out the instructions below.

Materials

• Plywood (mine was 1" x 10" x 36")
• Paint
• Permanent marker
• Stencil
• Scotch tape
• 5 x stainless steel clamps adjustable ring clamps
• 12 x Wood screws 
• 2 x eyelet wall hangers
• 2 x drywall plug + matching screws
• 5 x glass containers
• Soil
• Gravel
• Plants

  Step 1: Paint the plywood

Step 2: Tape the edges of your stencil where you want the design to be.

I suggest starting in the middle of your board and working to the edges.  This way your design with be symmetrical.

Step 3: Use your permanent marker to draw the design.  Move the stencil and repeat as necessary.

I centered my stencil at 0", 6", 12", 18", 24", 30" and 36".

Step 4: If you want to fill in the gaps, keep stenciling!

I added the top and bottom edge designs at 3", 9", 15", 21", 27" and 33".

Step 5: Flip over your board and screw on your eyelet hangers.

I put one on either end of the board.  I used 3/4" #5 wood screws to attach them.

Step 6:  Attach your ring clamps.

Make sure the size of your ring clamps can accommodate the containers you plan on using to pot your plants. To attach them I used  3/4" #5 wood screws.  Two screws per clamp with 2 'slots' in between each screw.

Step 7: Install your drywall anchors (or anchors appropriate to the surface you are hanging it on).
Screw in the matching screws leaving a small gap between the heads and the wall for the eyelet hangers to hang on.  The anchors I used were rated for 50lbs.  Make sure your two anchors are the same distance apart as your eyelet hangers.

Step 8: Hang up your planter!

Step 9: Pot your plants.
I got my glass containers at the dollar store.  You could also use old jars or other containers you have lying around.  Just make sure they aren't super heavy.  I suggest putting a small layer of gravel about an inch thick at the bottom of each glass pot to provide drainage for the soil.

Step 10: Put your plants in the planter.
Loosen the ring clamp until it is slightly larger than the glass pot.  Insert the pot, and while holding it at the desired height, tighten the ring clamp until the pot is held tightly in place.  You shouldn't be able to rotate or move it at all.

Step 11:  Repeat Step 10 for all your glass pots and you're done!

Copper Wave Wire Wrapped Ring Tutorial Now Online

The tutorial for my copper wave ring is now available in the tutorial shop. Now you can make one of your very own!

Material List:

• 25" of 24 gauge round copper wire
  
• 14 size 11/0 miyuki delica seed beads

Tool List:

• Needle nose pliers
• Flat nose pliers
• Wire snips
• Ring mandrel

Copper Wave Wire Wrapped Ring

Check out this ring I made today.  Didn't really have much of a plan going into it, but I really like how it turned out.  The wire wrapping has a fluid feel to it and the colours are really earthy.  It's made from 24 gauge copper wire and size 11/0 miyuki delica seed beeds in 'avocado green'.  If you like it and want to know how to make it, leave a comment and I will try to put together a quick tutorial.

Origami Flower Ball

I know it's not quite jewelry, but it's still pretty and crafty so I thought I'd share it with you.  I made my first origami paper ball.  I found the process surprisingly relaxing and the completing the project very satisfying.

From this...

...to this!

I used a pad of dollar store post it notes.  They're convenient because they already come perfectly square and exactly the same size.  Don't worry if only one side of the paper has a pretty pattern as the other side gets hidden in the folds.  The tutorial I used attached everything with glue.  I opted to use double sided tape instead so that I didn't have to wait for the glue to dry in between steps.  Here are a few different tutorials that give you variations of the origami flower ball.  Enjoy!