pretty teal bead bracelets & a few other bracelets

 Two teal coloured bracelets I have made in the last month or so. using some of the beads from a starter set of glass and seed beads from Micheal's..... a few plastic beads and some pretty teal plastic pearls ( also from Micheal's). The teal froggy beads ( on the left ) are taken from a necklace i bought 6 years ago and removed- but hung onto......

The bracelet on the right has a few real crystals, I also used the large jump rings with seed beads to 'beef' these up, i still think they are a little sparse but i have to try to not overdo stuff.

a few more button bracelets that I have made.... I am still into these and try to wear a button bracelet at least once a week..... they are just buttons.... so simple....

These are on large black jump rings on black chain

i found these bags of buttons at my favirote dollar store in town, Loony Twoons dollar store for $1.29 each.

 And a few other bracelets. Starting from the left, clear round faceted plastic beads that I made a cage with thin black wire - I would still like to add something to this one - no sure what.

The teal acid wash looking beads were found at a thrift store in my town for like, 25 cents.  I used black wire & small black jump rings to string them together

Third is a simple style. Large black wire jump rings with 3 to 5 copper beads.... so simple

And finally, black and copper seed beads on jump rings, some pretty copper design drum-shaped beads on a black chain.

 .... another angle

 that's it for today..... just a few more posts and I will get caught up

o

Charm bracelets

Here is a few charm and button bracelets I have made over the last month or so. I used silver toggle clasps and chain from a necklace. The buttons came from the thrift store or from the fabric-land, and many of the charms came form re-fashions from Necklaces that I picked up at a 5 for $10 deal at a mall jewelery store.

so here is what I started out with. My goal was to make 4 bracelets in 2 weeks.....

These gold buttons were purchased from a thrift store, I think I got them all for 75 cents. I used a short piece of gold chain from a necklace

these crosses were from a necklace I picked up at a 5 for $10 sale. The chain came from the same necklace.

these charms were also part of a necklace that I picked up at a 5 for $10 sale at a mall jewelry store.

These black and silver beads were part of a necklace that I had from 2 or 3 years ago that was ridiculously bulky...... I re-fashioned them into a bracelet.

I found these pretty buttons at a thrift store, and some came off of a jacket that I changed the buttons on. I painted the small silver ones with holographic nail polish because the center area looked weird and murky/tarnished silver

♥

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!

some things I whipped up - Feb 7th to 13th 2011

What I accomplished this week; I fixed up a too-big-for me necklace by making it smaller and removed some of the components and whipped up a pretty pair of earrings and a bracelet... I still have a few things to make with the material I took off of it. The shortened necklace is above, along with the earrings I made and the bracelet.

Below, the earrings in the top row on the left, and the earrings first on the bottom row used to be 1 earring.... they were very heavy and too big so I cut them apart, filed the jagged edges with an old metal nail file and added chains to them. I am not finished with the pair on the bottom, I still need to add more swooping chain and some jump rings to tie them together ( make sense? no I will have a better description when I finish this pair of earrings )

This is the original necklace, I took off those silver round things, and the two chain fringes on the side so it only has 1 fringe in the very center.

another beautiful hand model pose..... I missed my calling

accomplishments - Feb 7th to Feb 13th

I am still enjoying making these simple and easy earrings out of that black nylon string stuff that I found at the dollar store in my town. I used fold-able crimp beads from Micheal's, those things are fabulous. Since they are gold, and I am trying to use up the package I have before I buy anymore, I painted them black ( Wet n Wild Black Creme)

I strung on some silver and black beads, sooooooooo easy! I haven't added the ear-wire yet, its actually easier to take a photo without it,

and another pair.... the silver beads that look like grenades were found at my favirote dollar store in town. I used some random black circular beads and the beads I re-purposed from a beaded hair accessory that I didn't use anymore.

These were components from a necklace I found at dollarrama last weekend. I dismantled it and so far have put these together.

I did not take a proper photo of this necklace..... but it is very pretty, just a little too heavy for me.

This stuff is so awesome, there was two packages of these at my favirote dollar store...... just sitting there for months. I do recall picking them up and wondering they were for and what I could do with them, I am so glad I bought them because using this material has been fun and the earrings I have made are versatile, and definitely the easiest. I would love to find this in different colours one day!

Here is a sampling of some of the earrings I have made using this black nylon string. It is possible to make lightweight but bulky earrings.  I have used regular crimp beads, as well as those fabulous folding crimp beads from Micheal's. Next time I visit Micheal's I will hunt around EVERY section to see if this material is available, it may not even be for beads or jewelery.

Here is a package of crimp beads I purchased at Micheal's this weekend, 800 crimp beads for $3.99 !!!!!!! Dang that's awesome! I think that the package at Walmart is $2.50 for 100 beads so even at full price this would still be a great deal. STRANGELY I NEVER SAW THIS IN MICHEAL'S during my regular shopping. I must allot time to browse through that store every month, because this is a great deal!

..... and a silver metallic pen from DollarRama, which is awesome, and some necklace bases also from DollarRama. OKAY>>>>> I put on one of those necklaces and I couldn't get it off!!!!! I had to CUT it off, for some reason I kept trying to unscrew the silver component, but it is the actual BLACK piece of wire that you hold onto to unscrew! I panicked and just snipped it off.

seeeeeeeee what I mean. holding and twisting the black part to unscrew.

In conclusion ~ I did not create as much as I wanted to, I started alot of things and did not finish, but I am happy with what I have accomplished this week. My bare minimum goal is to accomplish at least 5 pieces, and I did that.

♥

what I've been up to Dec 31st.....

SEQUINS!!!!! I finally found black sequins, and not just black sequins, but FLAT black sequins and HOLOGRAPHIC black sequins..... as well as plain shiny sequins. Most of these earrings I made by adding a sequin to a jump ring, then creating a chain of jump rings with sequins attached... some I added 2 sequins to    the jump ring, then added the next jump ring in-between ( with 2 sequins)

I feel like I am really bad at explaining this, so I will need to do a better picture step by step post on that. I love how much light reflects from the shiny silver sequins.... I really have to find a better way to photograph my jewelery....

Its super-duper fun to whip these up, making these is kinda mindless - I just throw a movie on and make stuff.

Since it is Dec31- and tomorrow is a start of the new year I dont want to be a negative Nelly but I did want to make more things in 2010 - but tomorrow is a new beginning, and I have tonnes of idea and tonnes of beads and wire from the dollar store...... Only my sore hands and wrists can prevent me from reaching my goals♥♥♥

♥

December 2010.... so far - so good

 Above - The first pair on the left are huge! I am very happy with these, they are bulky but light♥ They are made with the gems and jump rings, I bent a wire and put loops on each end then gently bent in the center.

 I did not make as many pieces as I had hoped too lately, I am always up to some craft, or messing around on the internet - I find that my hands get sore alot faster lately, so I only managed to make a few pieces.

For anyone who visits this blog; 
1. Do you make/re-fashion jewelery?
2. How do you decide what to make? 
3. Where do you get your inspiration from.
4. When you see a nice pair of earrings or a bracelet, do you think you could make it? 
5. Where do you get your supplies from?

I aspire to post on this blog - deez-jewelz - at least every 2 weeks ( or more), the next time I check in I will answer those Q's above.

I made most of the black jump rings with wire by wrapping it around a b-b-q skewer, I wish I could find a thicker wire than 26 gauge in black in my town - becuase this is a little too thin for me. I also will be adding a small amount of black polish to all the raw edges of my wire,  I can really see the center of the wire material on alot of these earrings.....

Below; these 3 at the top are made using chain, wire and the gems. simple and easy. The two on the bottom I made by adding a plastic bi-cone bead to a jump ring and added it to a chain....those are very easy to do a swell.

L- jump ring & graduated chain, I think I need to add more chain graduations to this, they look a little skimpy. I also have to close the jump rings a little tighter and add a small amount of Black nail polish to side the copper . The earrings on the right need a little something else; not sure what, I may just add another gun-metal crystal hanging from a small piece of chain from the ear wire to fill up that empty pace.

these are the gem things I found at Fabric land... I bought ALOT. they were 50 cents each, regularly $1.98 to $4.98. I personally wouldn't pay more than 50 cents for these, because they are totally trashed and scuffed up just from being in the package. I purchased some non- shiny ones and they will be okay to sew onto my clothes ( eventually ). But these shiny ones will go through the laundry once or twice and be scuffed up and damaged in no time. The holes were also closed up so I had to forcefully stick a tack in each hole, so I could put jump rings through them.

so far this week ( I hope to whip up a few more earrings this weekend, and possibly some bracelets, too♥)The trick is for me to have all my beads and stuff out in the open at home, and not in a container under my bed ( lol) otherwise, I do not finish as much stuff as I like to. This goes for all my crafty endeavors =  I need to have it in my face or I casually forget all about it.