Sunday Swarovski

Sunday often needs a little help in the sparkle department as we do our chores and get ready for the coming week. These 10mm swarovski cubes helped cheer me up quite a bit. Wait until you see the squaredelles I bought to go with them!! They are as yummy as sparkly beads get!

I bought quite a few bits and pieces today from Ally Beads so I could put a new holiday bracelet together. I haven't mapped it all out yet, but it will definitely sparkle!

Have a great week!!

Sparkle, Sparkle and More Sparkle!

Hello! I picked up another strand of these aqua pearls at the grocery store today since I didn't have a chance to make something for myself with them before. I had my bead box open and was looking through the stones because I knew I had the perfect one to go with these pearls. I hadn't planned on posting the final product here since I vowed that I was done talking about pearls and stones...HOWEVER, these swarovski buttons were in the same bead box and just for fun I experimented with putting them on the memory wire with the pearls.

As you can see, I liked how they looked so I went back and added a 3mm crystal bicone between each pearl just to help set them off and provide some matching sparkle. Talk about some serious sparkle, these buttons are amazing! It looks like they have a flashing light inside of them or something. If you ever come across some of these buttons, I would encourage you to pick up a couple of them just for fun.

Have a great weekend!

Creamy Pearl & Stone Earrings

Since I'm still a little obsessed with pearls and stones with crystals right now, I thought it would be appropriate to share a pair of earrings with these materials. These are nice winter white earrings that can be worn with just about anything!

I'm afraid it's time to dig out those turtle neck sweaters, the only good thing is they really set off earrings nicely!

Have a great night!

Sparkly Blue Button

WOW! I was so attracted to this button it didn't matter that I had no idea how I was going to use it, I just knew I needed to have it in my collection. To top it all off, the two matching buttons were packaged on this very cool pink card which set off the blue so well. I believe these came from JoAnn, Etc. The package was appropriately labeled, "glamorous gems".

So...what to do with this awesome button?!

I recently came across a project that involved clipping off the button shank and gluing it to a ring blank. I thought that was such a cute idea and would probably work great with this button. I love the multiple colors of rubber tubing available these days and would like to experiment with using several colors of tubing going through the button shank. Maybe knotting the tubing on either side of the button would be a nice way to stabilize it. I need to put a little more thought into this and if I figure it out, will share it with you.

If you have any ideas, please let me know!

Holiday Green Faceted Cube

Isn't this a great color?! A great shade of green that is not too dark and not too bright. It is the best of both worlds! This would make any holiday jewelry seem nice, rich and warm. Paired with cream colored pearls and a few gold accents such as bead caps would give it a subtle but festive appearance.

Of course, if subtle is not your goal, add bunches of red beads too! I like the darker red color "siam" for making holiday jewelry. Oh gosh, I wonder if I have time to make something tonight?!

Have a good one....!

Silver Leaves

Today's bead is a very small silver leaf. I normally buy packs of beads like this to use as a spacer or to add some whimsy to a simple bracelet. I was just thinking it would be nice to make a dainty bracelet that consists mostly of these silver leaves, but with a few clear ab crystals for sparkle.

These leaves remind me of the few leftover leaves out in the yard that are now covered in a dusting of snow and ice. Add a couple of milky white or bright white faceted rounds and a nice sparkly dangle for a sweet wintery bracelet.

Have a great night!

Mix of Stones

I wanted to share some of the other stones that I found at JoAnn's recently. I am still a little hooked on using these with glass pearls on memory wire. I was never drawn to these stones before because I thought they were too big and clunky. I am so glad I gave them a try!

I think in the next one I will combine gold pearls with the caramel stone in this photo. I still have some gold rondelles left that will be placed on either side of the focal stone and possibly a crystal in between each pearl.

I hope you are staying warm out there and wearing shoes with good traction!