easy earring tidy

so apparently the way i store my long dangly earrings (in a big knotted ball in the back of my drawer) was irritating SuperD's tidy sensibilities. So he jumped to the rescue with a cool invention that displays and protects the more delicate ones from being tangled and snapped in the drawer-runners...isn't he fabulous??

I love living with a crafty "neat-person" they are so useful!!

newton's cradle

Another one of the quick and easy earring projects that we made at poog's house. I love this hoop and how simple it is. The balls are just free moving and it makes a nice clicking when you move which reminds me of the 80's executive toy Newton's Cradle - you know with the balls hung on the wires and the almost perpetual motion?
At least i think it was called Newton's cradle...i just know that i loved playing with it!

girl with the pearl earring

So a quiet day at poog's house ended by us making up some simple earrings. I love this one with the little hematite star and pearl. Thanks poog!!

cherry "easy as" pie!

So i made these cute little earrings in all of 5 mins using the legendary bead stash of Gingerbelle Jewellery, the proprietress of which buys the most fabulous beads on the planet and then never blogs the stuff she makes!!!
Anyway they're cute, quick and so easy it's not even possible!
I ♥ craft!!

something crafted, something blue

I had made cool beach-rock-garden things for the table-centres for my wedding and had done out instructions for the hotel so that they would make them up just right - but i've lost the photos! This was in the days before any thought of a craft blog so i didn't keep them unfortunately. They had little "water-pools" of blue glass nuggets and everything! Oh well...i'll show something a little more simple but still wedding themed.....

So with all the chunky jewellery that we were wearing on the day, i wanted something simple for my earrings. It had to match in with the seaside theme with shells and pearls and with a touch of blue.
These took all of 5 minutes but they were just right on the day.

string your own stones

Since the colours i chose for my bridesmaids weren't really a standard combination it was proving difficult to get jewellery to match...so we made our own. We bought a bunch of mixed stones in the colour palette i wanted and set to work stringing them all quasi-randomly together. This allowed us to add a couple of little marine-themed charms and mini shells etc so as to tie in with the sea-theme.
I had the very welcome assistance of poog from Gingerbelle Jewellery who did a fabulous job advising me and helping to make the necklaces. It just added a lot to the fun of the day that we were able to be so involved in making the pieces.
click on the pic to enlarge!

ridiculously large rings!

Another aspect of the fun jewellery for my wedding was to be enormous dress rings that would match the colours of the girls' dresses.

You can just about make them out in this picture - click on the pic to enlarge - i really should've taken proper ones but didn't think of it at the time. The dark blue ring was made of lots of pieces of flat coral-shell all strung onto a base, so they were free to move about. The aqua blue was wired in the shape of a flower with little pearls in the centre and the sea-foam green was wired like a 4 leaf clover, again with the pearls at the centre...all were just wired to a simple base made by shaping silver wire.
easy-peasy!

flower power of 3

Since i had so many wedding themed posts, i thought i'd just go ahead and make this marriage-themed-may. So i decided to add a couple of retro crafts from my wedding...that occurred before i began the craft blog and so i didn't take great photos of the stuff, so bear with me!

I begin with a cheat post, i had wanted to make this craft, but couldn't get the quality of flowers that my florist could, so i told her what i wanted and she made these little corsages for my bridesmaids. The idea was to be low-key and carefree, so i didn't want to have them wandering around having to hold a bunch of flowers.
I was so delighted by how they turned out - i thought they were a lot of fun and not so serious as a reserved posy would have been.

retro craft rubber duck!!

HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA!! I was hunting for a bracelet the other day and i came across this little gem which i made 100 years ago. A retro craft from my early teens!!
O yes, what amazingly defined taste i did have....a mini rubber duck floating on a sea of aqua sparkly sequins...
...it's almost magical! HAHAHAHA!!
I'll have to start wearing this again....or maybe not!!!

matrimonial mermaid chic!

With all that camping time taken out of the craft-time of this month, i decided to post a retro-craft to make up my 10 pieces for august.

I wanted to have something to put in my hair for my wedding that would match with the seaside theme and match with my shells & beads jewellery. Not knowing what sort of thing that i was looking for, i made a strange shape out of wire to act as a frame and then attached shells, pearls and beads in my wedding colours. SuperD drilled little microholes in each piece for me...yay a team effort even then!
This is the underside...kindof messy, as you can see!!
And this is the piece on the day...thanks for the photo Roj, i'm so glad i have the craft evidence!!!
All my gorgeous bridesmaids had little mini versions on kirby grips to match each of their dress colours...gorgeous!

easy-beady cross

..that's easy to say..! Well i'm in the middle of an unbelieveably frustrating sewing project...a simple-looking jacket, to feature soon of course...but it is really making me yearn to craft something quick and easy..like this!!
At the beginning i thought the wonky-ness annoyed me...then i just went ahead and got over it.
Now...back to the craft-room to progress this jacket a bit more...groan

rings round my neck

Rings seem to be a big feature of summer jewellery this year and i recently acquired a large quantity of wooden curtain rings so i wondered if i could successfully incorporate them into a summery statement necklace. Problem is...they are really large curtain rings!! The necklace is possibly a bit too "invasive"!! I wrapped a couple of the rings in embroidery floss, one in beads and accessorised with a few rings of shell fragments and beads.
Then for a chain i chose plaited tie-dye to echo the beachy-ness and made a catch from some more of the wire that i had left over.
Finished! Now i wonder if i'll wear it?!!!

plaited PVC

Making jewellery is not really my thing...it's too fiddly and not enough fun unless im stringing golf balls or making bible story bracelets or something. So when i comes to making jewellery for my goth-loving neice...i was pretty lost...

So basically i stuck with the key elements reckoning that i couldn't really go wrong in the goth-sphere with strips of black PVC, silver chain links and silver dangly pendants! So this is a wrap around bracelet for my girl. Haha i love how i have displayed it in the most homely-kitchy-type way on a heart-shaped chopping board and a hand-painted rosy table...lol!!!

Not much goth about me i'm afraid!
But i DO like the stars!!!

gorgeous golf supplies!

hello from sunny Saint Georges de Didonne!! (at least, i hope it is sunny, since i'm writing this on 10 July and will schedule it to magically post on 15 when i hope i will be sunning myself on the beach in a blaze of rainbow colours!!)

speaking of rainbow colours...i was trudging round the supermarket in a mood yesterday because SuperD decided that we needed more food in the house or something equally boring and unnecessary, and demanded that we go shopping on the way home from work - seriously cutting into my craft time! - when my eye caught sight of a ray of rainbow sunshine in the sports aisle. (no i have no idea what i was doing there either...i was clearly lost!)

A packet of training golf balls, rainbow coloured lightweight foam with a suede-like furry surface!!!! I was in love!!! I think they were like £1 or something!!! (aaah..sigh of thrifty ecstasy)

So of course i ran home, called my poog from the lovely gingerbelle jewellery, and told her i had some supplies for a holiday necklace but needed some jewellery making advice!!!
i ADORE this necklace...i bet it will even float when i am swimming...FUN!!!

jewellery tools wrap

with little poog becoming all craftalicious i had to amend the crochet tools wrap to fit her jewellery pliers and knives etc so she can travel with craft everywhere she goes on her very special adventures. I recognise that the picture would be a lot more instructive if the tools were actually inside the wrap, buuuut i got fed up waiting for her to have time to come craft with me and decided to go ahead a post it empty anyway!!

It fits 3 pairs of pliers, a scalpel (what does she use this for??!!), a teaspoon (again...weird) and the paper tape measure fits in the elastic straps at the top.

All rolled up and ready to go!

wearing my heart round my neck?

Ever dream of the "perfect necklace" for you and just wish that you could have it for real???

Well i did...and now i do!!!!!

Super D handcarved me a wooden heart and painted it pillarbox red...is there any happier sight?

Thanks D, i'm sooooooo in love with it!

He's my superhero <3

Life of Jesus...with me daily!

Ok so I saw something similar to this in a Christian bookshop, liked the idea of it, but thought I could do a better job myself.

This is the finished result, and I love it!

Each bead represents stages in the life of Jesus. I love the fact that it actually means something to me, and it has already been a real encouragement!

.......

Click on the pic above to enlarge and read the meanings

Actually thought i was ordering single charms from eBay, but when they arrived there were 10 of each.....so i had no excuse not to make a couple more for the gorgeous poog and gill!

Changed some of the colours a little bit just to personalise them!