Chandelier Jewelry Designs

After this week's shout out for jewelry made with chandelier pieces or prisms, our friend Sheryl of the Babbling Beader blog responded by sharing the attached photos. How COOL!

What a fun way to design using these glamorous pieces! She runs a little bead/jewelry shop inside an antique mall so she said that has given her plenty of opportunities to work with vintage items in her work.

Nice!!

According to Sheryl, the peach and blue pieces are currently for sale in a local art gallery, but the pink one is available on her etsy site.

As always Sheryl, thanks for sharing!! :)

Chandelier Parts in Jewelry

After receiving a comment from Lacey on yesterday's post, I just had to share it today. I asked if anyone had used swarovski prisms in their jewelry pieces.

She wrote, "I've never used them, but I often plot on "stealing" the chandelier at the Chinese restaurant here in town!! All those pretty shiny sparkly crystals....I'd be in heaven!!! Taking it apart would also feed my destructive streak!!"

Thanks Lacey! I got the biggest kick out of that and began to wonder about using chandelier pieces and parts in jewelry.

I did a google search on "chandelier parts" and found a number of cool sites. This one was very intriguing, www.chandelierparts.com. This link in particular.

I haven't been to a tag sale or flea market for quite a while, but I would bet you can find some cool parts there too.

As always, please share any stories you might have about using chandelier parts in jewelry or if you know of a great place to get them!

Swarovski Prisms

Have you ever used prisms in your jewelry pieces?

I used the sunburst prism in a necklace once and it was so over the top, I loved it!! I wore it to the grocery store on a couple of big outings and then decided it really deserved to be loved by an owner who would do it justice and really take it places!

I was just looking through the swarovski catalog and found these very cool looking prism drops!! I would LOVE to have a few of these to play with.

If you have ever used beads like this, please let me know. I'd love to share your experiences and/or designs here!

Sparkles in the Mail!

Guess whose beads came today...!

Ooh, these are sort of mouth watering if you know what I mean!!

Things like this make me want to surround myself in Swarovski Crystals or at the very least have a giant bowl of them that I can run my fingers through.

Of course, I would need to have a flourescent light fixture overhead too! Do people live in bead stores? That would be EXCELLENT!

I don't think I would be there alone either! How about a Swarovski retirement ranch?

It's possible that I'm getting carried away with the sparkle again!

I love this little container these top drilled bicones came in from Artbeads.com! I just wish I had time right now to get started on this project!

Working with top drilled beads is a lot of fun and sometimes is as simple as just stringing them up together. They form a very magnificent looking 3-dimensional piece quickly!

I'm thinking of using these in a necklace at this point even though I usually go for bracelets. We'll see...

I hope your new week and new YEAR is off to a great start!! :)

Dreaming & Doing

Today's beads are swarovski air-blue opals...ahhhh! When I look at these beads, the words that come to mind are heavenly or dreamy! And again, I have to make this sound..ahhhh!  I just can't help myself! 

I have used these beads in the past to make a dreamy pendant and ring.

I chose these beads for today's post because I just learned of another great social gathering place that I wanted to share. It is very possible that you all know about this already, but if you don't, it is worth mentioning!!

Martha Stewart's website has a community section called "Dreamers into Doers". The best part of this site is that it provides a place for creative people to share their stories of how they turned their dream into a business!!

AND, it comes as no surprise that these successful crafty people are always so giving and willing to encourage others to follow in their footsteps!! I LOVE that about the creative community! It must just be part of the genetic makeup of crafty types!!

From what I have seen so far, it looks like a nice place to make connections and find inspiration!

Peace, Love & Bead Bloggers!

We are heading back to reality tomorrow! I wish you all the VERY BEST as we put our best foot forward for 2011!

Before heading down that path, I am going to take one more self-indulgent pass through the links below to see what our fellow bead-bloggers have been up to during the holiday week.

Catch you tomorrow!! :)

Cindy Gimbrone, The Lampwork Diva
Cindy re-reads her KISS post before planning for 2011.

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles
Melanie reviews a wonderful book about making chain.

The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton
Two publications from Interweave Press have hit the stands and Andrew suggests you check them out!

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done!
Jean gives a shout out for a fab class she took at Beaducation online, which as you will see, will revv up your urge to bead and have FUN!--Happy New Year!

Art Bead Scene
Art Bead Scene reviews the different options for accepting payment.

Beads & Books
Michelle shares the 10 most memorable blog posts she read in 2010.

Beading Arts
Cyndi has finished her last Bead Journal Project piece for the year. Yay!!

Happy New Day!

Affirmations are great and I am affirming that it is a Happy New Day and Exciting New Year! I just know many new and exciting things are in store for all of us this year!

Since affirmations are positive statements describing a desired situation that are repeated many times in order to impress the subconscious mind and trigger it into positive action, I am well on my way to bringing it on!

I hope everyone has made the time to be creative this holiday season. I was surprised by an invitation by my Aunt to come over and teach her how to make earrings, so we made bunches of them in the process earlier this week!

I wish I had remembered to bring my camera! It's a lot of fun to share the process for making jewelry with others, especially earrings since so many women wear them and they become empowered when designing their own!!

This is a pair I've been wearing for the past couple months. I put them in my pocket yesterday so I could put them on when we got to our family get together and one of the ear wires broke before I could put them on. Luckily, I know how to fix them!!