The Universe in Your Heart

The amazing Lampwork Diva has truly outdone herself in this

clay heart. I could feel the love radiating from this piece when I read Cindy Gimbrone's description of it:

"...This heart design is an outgrowth of the Red Lotus Pods. Made with the same color clay and with the same shabby chic look, the heart too has a special meaning connected with it. I've named this the Heart Mandala based on a general meaning of the word "mandala:"

a mandala is geometric designs (usually circular) symbolizing the universe.

The heart represents metaphorically our emotions, our feelings. Pairing the symbol of the heart with a mandala means to me the universe is in each one of us, it is in our hearts.

So, I give you the universe in this heart.

Details:

The heart is hand carved from polymer clay by me. It measures 31mm by 32mm and is 9mm thick. It has been antiqued and had a final matte finish added to seal it. The loop is 20 gauge Vintaj wire."

Thank you Cindy! It's so amazing when you can feel the love an artist puts into their work. This is a great example of that!

Surprise Package!

Wow, I received the greatest surprise package today from the LAMPWORK DIVA!! Cindy Gimbrone is such a sweetheart!

I never expected to receive such a fabulous package of handmade treasures, THANK YOU Cindy!

After taking this all in, I was feeling SO in awe of Cindy's artwork that I couldn't come up with any words and felt my mouth hanging open! I was very taken by all the work involved, the personality of each piece, Cindy's generosity and even the sweet/earthy packaging with business card and ribbon adornments.

Once my head came back down to earth, I thought it would be fun to show you a glimpse of the treasures and share them with you a piece at a time which is my favorite thing to do! I love a treasure family, but remembering to share the unique qualities of each piece is important to me too!

So, wowee, wow wow (yes, I watched a lot of cartoons as a child)!.... This fabulous glass piece appears to be lit up from the inside! I promise there is not an LED light inside, it is just a happy piece of art glass!

I had to keep the piece that was intertwined in it in this photo because it just makes me SMILE!!

Thank you so much Cindy!

This Week's Project: EARRINGS!

This week's project ended up being 3 pairs of earrings!

I made one pair, the amber dangles, when I should have been in the car on the way to work, yikes!

For whatever reason, I had this feeling that I absolutely could not wear any pair of earrings I already had and needed some large and dangly sparkles to embellish myself!

Luckily, you can pretty much whip up earrings in a few minutes if you have your tools handy!

I made the blue pair last night using the Artbeads.com vintage flowers in preparation for a graduation party today since a close friend is the Mom. And, who are we kidding, these celebrations are mostly for the parents! :)

The third pair, made with the vintage birdies from Artbeads.com, are for a friend and co-worker I will see in a meeting tomorrow.

She has been hinting about needing earrings and while I think she would have preferred sparklies, I felt I HAD to make these for her! She is warm and earthy by nature. She respects the universe and creation more than anyone I know by expressing it in the way she lives her life.

Hopefully, the jewelry creator knows best. I'll let you know if I get one of those "thank you's" that you know are just to be polite :)

If so, I will learn from it and make her a sparkly pair tomorrow night!

Have a great new week everyone!! Thanks for stopping by, you really make my day so much better.

Peace, Love and Bead Blogger Saturday!

It's that fun time again, yay! Time to take a leisurely stroll through some beady blogs to see what our friends are up to!

This week you will find bead reviews, industrial chic, fun projects AND shrinky dinks!

Speaking of shrinky dinks, I posted this photo of my favorite shrinky dink bracelet because I just pulled it out of hibernation for the summer.

Snap out of it, Jean! There's beading to be done!
Jean "reviews" a few items from the fabulously lush and unique online bead store, ARTBEADS! See what she does with some of the materials which she purchased there!

Barbe Saint John - New Jewelry from Forgotten Artifacts
Barbe shows off The Queen and her Industrial Chic Crown

Cindy Gimbrone Beads
Cindy's put together a few of her favorites and come up with a sweet ring.

Resin Crafts!
Resin Crafts blog has a post introducing shrinky dink to resin.

Lorelei's Blog: Inside the Studio
Lorelei put together a nice collection of items that would be great for your Art Bead Scene challenge entry this month.

Beads & Books
Michelle shares two different summertime necklaces she made using components from Earthenwood Studio.

About.com Jewelry Making
Tammy has a new Twitter account and an updated Facebook page for her site. Please like & follow her!

Art Bead Scene
Come see what ABS has in store for this month's challenge!

Beading Arts
Copper tubing makes wonderful copper beads!

Carmi's Art/Life World
Carmi has featured her "Waiting for the bus" ring.

Featured Designer: Carmi Cimicata

Happy Friday everyone! Yay!

I'm going to get right to this week's featured designer...guess what Carmi Cimicata posted on her new Resin Crafts Blog...

SHRINKY DINKS!! ...I know, these are amazing!

Yes, I have a thing for shrinky dinks!! I love them and I think it has something to do with having made them when I was little. In today's world, creative people are taking them to a whole new level!

On her blog post, Carmi shares how she made these using an interesting and easy to use product!

Here's a little tidbit she wrote about this product, "These tiny tiles are the result of one layer of Envirotex Lite as a glaze. I always try and remind my readers that one coat of Envirotex Lite is like 50 coats of varnish. Why not let Envirotex Lite do all the work for you?"

Carmi, you have sold me, I am going to look for some of this!

Faux Stoneware from Polymer Clay!

I was checking in with some blogger pals tonight and was surprised by the post on the Polymer Clay Tutor's site. Cindy Lietz is such a pro, I am always so impressed by her work!

I have never seen something like this in polymer clay, so I wanted to share it right away! FAUX STONEWARE!

Here is what Cindy wrote about this:

"The beauty of polymer clay is that it is the great pretender. It will mimic all kinds of materials including metal, glass and stone. One thing it does really well, is copy the look of ceramic and stoneware.

Many polymer clay artists have their own way of getting the look of faux ceramic and stoneware, using a variety of different techniques. Most of them use liquid polymer clay. I find that although the liquid polymer does give wonderful look, it still lacks the shine of real ceramic or stoneware glaze. So a further finish is usually needed.

I have come up with a faux stoneware or ceramic technique that gets that glassy glazed look, in one easy step. I think you are really going to enjoy it."

Thanks so much to Cindy for always having something new and interesting to teach!

A Very Happy Necklace!

Oh wow, is this adorable or what? What a brilliant idea to use this ribbon to create a necklace!

Michelle Mach of Beads & Books created this fabulous necklace using one of the ice cream charms from Earthenwood Studio.

I mentioned Melanie's fabulous ice cream cones a couple months ago, but it is a completely different experience to see them used in a real project created by someone other than the bead maker.

If you have a minute to pop over to Michelle's blog, she wrote a great post about the creative process she went through to make this. I LOVE hearing what goes on in people's heads when they are creating!