Focus on Life - 5/52

This week's Focus on Life prompt from Sally Russick is Capture Our Hearts.  Sally's email included the following:

"Have you ever taken a moment to notice all the hearts that come into your life everyday? From candy hearts, patterns on clothes, a paper heart you make yourself or heart shaped spirals made from the ornate rod iron fencing that you may or may not have ever noticed on your walk around the neighborhood, hearts are hiding everywhere." 

I was excited to receive this prompt - I actually carried my camera with me when I was out running errands ( I never do that)!  I looked everywhere - including my wrought iron fence, as I was positive the scrolls on my gate would form a heart SOMEWHERE!  Nope!  I refused to take a picture of a bag of candy at CVS, or the numerous hearts in the Hallmark Card aisle.  This made me a little sad!

 

So, the only place I found hearts were in my jewelry...again (I have got to expand my horizons and come up with another venue to express myself other than jewelry)!

 

Before I show you the pictures - which I did have fun editing in PicMonkey - I want to thank all of the artist for their inspiring posts, especially last week's (Create Art).  I was in awe - truly!  Oh - and Sally - I am so happy to report that I was contacted by someone to design a necklace - I actually did a sketch of the design and sent it to her - I was so proud of myself!  I would never have sent her that sketch if I had not gone through these past few weeks of blog posts - you are helping me to attain FEARLESS!  Thank you!

 

Okay..here are my hearts...

 

Sweet little lampwork hearts by Unicorne

I bought the Unicorne Heart Beads months after I bought the marble rounds and was pleased that they matched so well!

A single Unicorne Heart bead surrounded by gorgeous boro beads by JavaBead.

Thank you for stopping by today - and please be sure to visit Sally's blog here to follow along with all of the other participants who have Captured Their Heart this week!  Enjoy your weekend!

Focus on Life - 4/52

This week's prompt from Sally Russick's "Focus on Life Challenge" is to Create Art.  While I do consider my self somewhat creative, the mediums in which I dabble are limited.  I do not draw - I do sketch jewelry designs occasionally, but they tend to fall in to the category of doodles.  I do not own paints - though many years ago, I painted bisque ceramics (this art form came from my mother).  I do not own a journal - correction - I own several journals filled with completely blank pages.  I have not picked up a crochet hook in MONTHS ... and I miss it.  But at this point in my life, my jewelry is my way expressing my art.

 

I did not want to bore you with tons of pics, so here is a collage of just a portion of what I have created this week.  

In addition to my newest love - Jasper - there are lots of artbeads above, including lampwork from Kerry Bogert, Outwest, Unicorne, JavaBead, and SueBeads.  Have I mentioned I love lampwork beads???

I am still very much involved in Kerry Bogert's Aspire to Wire e-class - a new wire project every day for 30 days.  I open my emails at 5:30 am and BAM - a new project that I cannot wait to try!

Head on over to The Studio Sublime to follow the links of this week's Challenge participants.

Thanks so much for stopping by - I love to read your comments!

New Jewelry with Unicorne Beads!

My last post went on and on about the recently acquired lamp work beads from several artisans.  It's Christmastime and the days are FULL of activity.  However, I was able to work with one set of beads from Unicorne (http://www.unicornebeads.com/).  This has to be one of my favorite color combinations - deep blue with a touch of green. I had the most beautiful set of blue/green crystals in my stash that match PERFECTLY to the lamp work beads.  In the photographs, the blue of the crystals turns a tad purple, but it's blue!

I could have just kept these lamp work beads on my table and stared at them all day for the rest of my life - they are so pretty!  In my next life, I'd like to make beads, but until then, I will just play with them!  My favorite metal to work with is sterling silver.  I hand forged a clasp from sterling silver for the necklace, and used hand made sterling ear wires for the earrings.  But I love the look of the antique silver plated clasp on the bracelet.

I hope to have time this weekend to play with some more beads!  Thank you for stopping by!

The 25% off Grand Opening Sale continues in my etsy shop!