new walmart goodies and some stuff i made

here are a few pairs of earrings and a bracelet I have made recently, as well as some walmart bargains. I used copper earring bases from Micheal's, with seed beads and other plastic beads. and two pairs of copper chains and seed beads. These were all super easy to make; however I find coming up with a design I like to be the hardest part.

Whenever I try to copy a piece of jewelery I have seen in a store or online I don't have any problem - but when I have to whip something up with beads and findings I have on hand I often take a long time to find a satisfactory finished product.

 black, brown & copper bracelet, copper earrings and copper chain earrings.

 pretty silver bugle beads, smaller toggle clasps, earring set ( times2) not shown, copper head pins

the new toggle clasps i bought on the left and the regular sized ones I usually use

even at full price, this is a good deal; except Walmart has changed their packaging and jacked up all their prices - i hate it when companies do that - but it is cool to find the discounted bargains........

 i snagged 3 of these for $1.85 each..... i never noticed this smaller size before

the larger size and the smaller size

O

a few new things & blue glass bead jewelery

 small glass beads from the dollar store

boooooo-  one of the dollar stores in my town went out of business, so everything was 1/2 price. I grabbed these few things below. I appreciate the beauty of glass beads but I am a fan of uniformity, so I very rarely use these in jewelery making or even purchase jewelery with glass beads = unless it is just 1 special glass bead.

anyhoo- here are few bargains I had picked up last month. On top is stuff from the dollar store.....and below is a small bag of plastic pearl beads as well as a large chain that I will utilize for other re-fashion projects.

 I have successfully painted these types of plastic pearls with nail polish - notably the discontinued sally Hansen chrome polish, and using a normal kitchen sponge to add some colour as well = they end up looking somewhat antique - but i like that. eventually i would like to use the nail polish water marbling technique on these in the future ( which is messy but soooooo pretty )....

on the right is a bracelet that I made with odd shaped glass beads from a beginners set of beads from Micheal's craft stores ( the pail of beads ) on the left is a bracelet I made with the smaller blue glass beads. I fished out the lighter coloured BI-CONE beads from the dollar store package and made the earrings, which i used jump rings to attach to a chain.

I know i don't have to jam pack these charm/bead bracelets with stuff, but they seem sparse on my wrists...... so I might make some small colour coordinated jump rings to add to the below bracelets

 For the above and below bracelets I used some large blue plastic beads that I found at the thrift store (a year ago!!!!!) real crystal, smaller faceted pale blue plastic beads and long cylindrical plastic beads from the .99 cent store.... those I also purchased quite a while ago. I used jump rings to attach them to a piece of chain and toggle clasps ( or course ) for the closures.

i thought that adding real crystals would really showcase the fake plastic blue beads = but = it actually isn't that bad. I especially love the silver wire cage i made for the beads on the left....

..... that's it for now, hopefully i will get the rest of my photos on here b weeks end to make up for the MONTH AND A HALF that i did not post stuff.

new stuff I bought - May/June 2011

above and below; here are some goodies I picked up at Micheal's last month. I am still waiting for their display of discount/clearance jewelry to be 50 cents each. However I have acquired a tonne of jewelery fix'ns in the last year at low, low prices.

this post is a few things I have picked up over the last month.

I picked these up at Portage La Prairie, Manitoba walmart on Clearance for $1.00 each. Walmart in Canada has  re-vamped it jewelery making section, and have raised their prices. It is still cheaper to hit up Micheal's with your 40% off coupon and get the same types of beads at Micheal's instead of Walmart.

They still sell these exact same beads - but have changed the packaging - sorry I missed out on this clearance in my town - but really, I could go without buying seed beads for at least a decade and be just fine.

I got this jewelery set at Micheal's on clearance for 13 bucks! one of the cases of seed beads was missing  (it was the pinks and yellows). I really didn't need to buy this, but I did want those copper, zinc and steel coloured metallic seed beads and the dark smokey black seed beads.

This is a terrible way to store seed beads because these plastic cases are poorly made, and so they pop open and all the beads will fall out. Thats why it was on clearance because the pink/yellow case exploded in the store. It took me almost 40 minutes to tape up sections, pour them into the zip lock bags  and  to keep them separated while I transferred them into the zip-lock bags pictured below.

There is very few pairs in this collection of glass beads that came along in this jewelery making kit but I am sure that I can whip up some pretty bracelets and necklaces with these. I already had a good pair of rounded jewelery pliers. The crimp beads and silver wire will come in handy.

- there is a tonne of seed beads in this cute little set -

ooo

Michelas and other haul'n

haul from Micheal's over the last few months.

This is a post of some things I have acquired in the last few moths..... I haven't been making as  much stuff as i wanted because I cut my finger and could not hold anything with that hand ( waaaah! ) I am slowly changing all my favirote jewelery to have toggle clasps. I constantly break nails with those ridiculous claw clasps. I would say 1/3 of the time, anything with a claw clasp that I have bought from Icing or Claire's jewelery stores, the claw clasp was either stuck or broken or very difficult to get open and I generally break my nails trying to open them.

On another note all 3 pieces of Jewelery I have purchased at Le Chateau stores in my life-time have fallen apart or were defective. So I never buy stuff from there.....

All The red tags were an additional 50 % off, so I found some good bargains here. I am waiting for these to be on sale for .50 cents each, usually Micheal's has a ridiculous clear out where there is a bin filled with stuff for 50 cents.  I have purchased a few finding and tools that I otherwise would not have, and figured out how to make a tonne of neat stuff this way.

Toggle-Clasps! Yeeeeeeeeah! love these things

Finally - I bought something with a 50% off coupon at Micheal's! 

and there was actually 63 in here, not 60!!!! Bonus!

yippee- I bought some of these last summer ( NOT on sale ) I like this finish and have found some chain that matches this perfectly, as well as some beads to go with this 'look'

I dont really like the deconstructed copper and gold finish, but I thought I should try some out. 

 BARGAINS!!!!!

I am leery about black powder coated jewelery fixings.... when I start working with these i hope the finish doesn't come off, but if it does I have my handy-dandy Wet n Wild black nail polish to fix these up.

These 3 things were from another purchase and even though they are on clearance for a good price, they were also supposed to be and extra 50% off! So they need to be taken back for a re-fund.

and some stickers... these are for some jewelery experiments and for my nail art. I need flat rhinestones for a few projects in the works.  I don't know why these were on sale?

whoops! This is upside down

this is supposed to be for knitting, but I saw this on an end-cap at walmart on sale and grabbed it so that I am not always jabbing pins, pliers and other sharp objects where I accidentally cut myself a few months ago.  I always end up hurting the pad of my finger on my left index finger....

♥

new sequin earrings & Painted filigree pieces

  a few sequin earrings I have made last week. I cut my finger badly in late February, and could not do much detailed crafty things. I never realized how important that small area of MY LEFT HAND and index finger was. I regret that I take things like this for granted.

I found some very beautiful opalescent and duo-chrome-ey sequins at an awesome dollar store in Grant Park mall in Winnipeg, Manitoba, as well as some new ear wires. There is photos below, some are also holographic= what an awesome find.

For the sequin earrings above I made some black jump rings with wire and painted my filgree earring bases with Wet n Wild Black nail polish. ( I let that dry overnight ) I also made some black ear-wires. I have tried to make ear-wires several times and they never turn out - but these I can live with. I used 20 gauge black wire for and painted the exposed copper area with Wet n Wild Black nail polish. This nail polish is a perfect match for the black wire found at Micheal's craft store.

 These were part of a pair of earrings I bought at The DollarRama, I cut them apart using a pair of tin snipers, and  FILED THE EDGES with an old metal nail file. Be careful - these were sharp after cutting. Also be sure to not breathe in any dust from filing them, who knows what these are made of.

I left a few packages at the store for someone else- believe me I wanted to purchase them all!!!!!

... and the Sequins

The silver chain earrings below were made from the cross necklace; I de-constructed parts of it, made a charm bracelet wit the crosses, and used some of the chain to make these earrings. I lost almost 2 months of fiddling around with jewelry because of my injury, but I have whipped up some awesome things in the last 2 1/2 weeks. Now I just have to photograph them, take photos and post!

sequins!!!!! & a few other things

below -  what  i have accomplished in the last week or so, I love the sequin jewelery I have come up with, I must say though, that working with smaller sequins was a major pain.  The larger ones are way easier to work with. my poor fingers were cramped up for a few days after these.

My Dollar-Rama treasures - SEQUINS -

 below - these smaller earrings were fun to make, but it gets hard to work with these tiny sequins after an hour or two.

I used tin snipers to dissect these filigree earrings I found at the dollar-Rama,I had been searching for tiny filigree pieces for a loooooong time and just couldn't find what I was looking for = so I had to improvise. I actually had these Dollar-Rama earrings for 1 month before I thought of dissecting them,.


here is a quick video on how I made these

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="510" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AYXjnP0XaCA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


ummm here is the link to the video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYXjnP0XaCA

I gently snipped these with a pair of tin nippers,  and I used an old metal nail file to file the edges. If you are into doing something like this BE CAREFUL!!!!! Thankfully I did not cut myself, but the edges were sharp at times.

I had to whip up jump rings that would fit through the sequin hole, and still have room for the sequin to move around. Making jump rings is easy, please take time to fil the edge of your wire with a metal nail file, just in case you poke yourself. You can purchase jump rings already made but you would need alot for a project like this.

so here are my pieces laid out

I graduated the lengths of the sequin 'chain'

 

 each pair of these small filigree sequin earrings took approximately 20 minutes.

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These beads are very pretty and the finish on them catches and reflects the light beautifully. I am getting much better at working with these crimp beads and black nylon string.  The package of 60 at Micheal's goes a long way, I think it is reg $4.99 (or with 40% - $3.00) off they are awesome to have. It is the easiest type of jewelry to make in my opinion, even if I struggle with getting the nylon cord intot he clasp properly hahahha!!!

Below - These are so awesome! I made them in hot pink as well. You can find silver sequins of this size at Micheal's crafts, I found these in a baggie of different coloured sequins at the Dollar-Rama. it took me 20 minutes to pick out all the silver ones - grrrrrrr.

below - the purple and black nylon string earrings I made with a set of beads I got at the Dollar-Rama, it looks like a small quantity of beads but I am certain to whip up alot of pieces with that amount. 

below - black earrings made for hair accessory I no longer wore and the long light blue earrings were made with the smaller Dollar-Rama sequins that came in a set of 4

Above & below, 2 hair things I was not wearing anymore and had had for a long time. on the left was one of those beaded bun cover things, and on the right was a very 'stabby' scrunchy. This thing drove me crazy when I wore it in my hair, plus it ripped a tonne of my hair out.  I would love to find sequins in this shape but in different colours, hot pink and silver for sure. i already made a pair of earrings with these { picture on board above }

I washed these well, they were sitting in my drawer for a long time. I like how the silver beads on the bun-thing below are  loosing their shine and look antique. and of course I had to show off my mani

.... and a few other items I found at the Dollar-Rama in the last few weeks,

These beads above came in baby blue, pink, clear, and purple ( above) I whipped up a quick pair of earrings with that black nylon string.

Above and below; these earrings are something I have been looking for  for a long time, I always hoped I could purchase these lightweight and thin flat rings somewhere for some designs I had in mind = these will be perfect for some re-fashioning.  They might be a bit too heavy for me as is, so I'll have to do a little tweaking

The necklace below- I swear to gosh I just saw earring at Claire's with the exact same design as the larger piece. It will be alot of fun to re-fashion this necklace, its very long and needs to be  alittle shorter for my liking.

Just a few things i picked up at the thrift store and at Fabric-land. I found some sequins that are shaped like stars for .25 cents as well as a small amount of clear glass beads for .25 cents as well ( it was 1/2 price day at the thrift store) I also picked up these Christmas ornament hangers. can you believe they charge 6 bucks for these regular? shameful. Not sure how to work these into some fun jewelery, but for 50 cents, why not!

I have a tonne of stuff to post, alot more project details to share, stuff I am working on and such = however; this will have to be a brief overview I am so busy with other things that I have to force myself on this blog to add stuff. I have to mention that this time of year is the best time to hit up mall jewelery stores for their year-end clear outs.

♥