Jewellery, events & updates! [lots of images!]

Hi there bloggers!
Another long stint since my last blog post, but I have been busy this time, and I do have things to share. We are now in the final weeks of the house buying, and hope to find out our completion date this week. Our solicitors on both sides are pushing for the end of this month so hopefully we can get in and settled well in time for Christmas.

Here (finally!) is my finished Laura McCabe cuff:

I am so pleased with this, sorry for the shabby photographs! The leather is a joy to wear, it's so soft, and it's so lovely to have been able to make an embroidered piece without having to cover every square millimetre to make it look good. The stone is Willow Creek Jasper, so I was quick to hunt down a stone to make a matching pendant:

Again, apologies for the poor photograph, it looks so much better in the flesh. This is a teardrop Willow Creek Jasper stone, stitched around with my remaining grey/silver delicas and gold size 15 charlottes. Nailheads embellish the left and a 10mm Swarovski flat back crystal sits at the top. The glass nugget at the bottom is one made by Linda from Bead Buddies - you can visit her website here.

It was my mother in law's birthday yesterday, so out came the beadies again, you might remember my blue cluster necklace I made for my mum earlier this year, well she had commented on how lovely that was. She loves all things cupcakes, so I finally found the perfect use for the charity cupcake bead I bought from Laura Sparling quite some time ago as well. This was the final piece:

I was very happy with this one as well, and not only that but it only took about an hour from start to finish, I do love those projects! It's all made with cream/mocha glass pearls and crystal rondelles, topped with a lemon meringue cupcake.

So, in other news, I have recently been re-broadening my horizons, and typically when I have none of the things I need, I really felt the urge to draw. I made a trip out to our local art store, came home equipped with pencils, black pens and a new sketch pad, and this is what happened:

I've been browsing a lot of Zentangles again recently, and it just made me want to draw. Now I can't stop looking at my butterfly. Very chuffed. I also used to frequent DeviantArt, and haven't visited the site for a long time. Today I returned and was looking back on some of my previous work - I really need to get my Illustrator back! I miss playing around with vector art. Don't get me wrong, I was never anything amazing at it, but I used to enjoy the hours spent tweaking and re-colouring images I had created from a photograph. You may or may not be interested, but if you'd like to take a look this is my DeviantArt page. If you do take a look, do leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Well, I will leave you all with a lovely image that met my eyes whilst I was on the phone at work on Thursday evening. I just had to take a picture... or three.

All tangled up

Hi again everyone! No beading to show this time I'm afraid, but there will be another pretty piece to come hopefully by the end of the week. I've got Friday and next Monday off for a long weekend, and boy am I looking forward to it.

In the meantime, I have given Zentangle a go, as I figured having mentioned it a few months ago, it would be a shame not to follow my interest up. This title to the left was my first attempt last night, swiftly followed by another pattern (I've actually started a new A5 sketch book to do these in, so I'm hoping I'll really get into them and enjoy doing them) So far, so good - they are a little bit addictive. Now, these tangles are hand drawn by me, but I've scanned them and sharpened them on photoshop for your benefit as the ink on my thinner pen wasn't as black as it looked on my page!

To be honest, for a first go, I am pretty pleased. What do you think? Don't blow them up too big as that's when the flaws on the sharpening show unfortunately - but they look alright at this size! On a slightly different tangent, I did try adding some colour whilst I had them in photoshop, would you like a peek? Tell me what you think as I'm not sure yet:

Hmm... Still deciding... I do like the originals though. Anyway, stay tuned as I've got a necklace in the making and I've been experimenting with cabochons as I've been meaning to for so so long.

LittleTreats loves... Monochrome

Good evening one and all, here are my picks for tonight

1. Ikat Millefiori Cat Quernus Crafts  2. Alice in Wonderland necklace Niche Handmade  3. White Flowers on Black bracelet Sorcery & Sparkle  4. Black satin hair bows Talulahblue  5. Black lace boudoir resin picture frame PennyDog Jewellery  6. Nora Evening Bag Clutch one off Les Sacs Magique

I'm loving these pieces, and I think I could be developing a bag fetish as well as my ever-growing bead fetish! Oh dear, perhaps I'd better apologise to my bank account in advance... 

This theme brings me neatly onto Zentangles. Have you seen any? They're amazing! Here are a couple of Maria's pieces just to whet your appetite, you can view more of her pieces and others here

Maria and Rick developed this art movement, seeking to help people find a state of relaxation, almost meditation. They say that anybody can use Zentangle to create a beautiful and elegant piece of art, line by line. If you're interested they offer a Zentangle starter kit for $49.00 on their site, linked above. I can't help but be fascinated by how these pieces come together, and especially at the fact that you're not allowed to erase anything - eek!

Happy crafting!