Painted bead necklaces

Well it's been a while hey? It's been a busy few months of holidaying, adjusting to getting back to work, dealing with some illness and, of course, crafting.

I had a few ideas running around in my head about painted bead necklaces while I was on holidays (one inspired by this fantastic nail polish), so I ordered myself a batch and started experimenting.

I painted all my test beads with some cheap acrylic paint and covered with a spray on clear gloss. 

The blue and grey on the left was totally painted by hand, though I had the good sense to use masking tape on the half painted beads on the right. There are a lot of beaded necklaces around at the moment but most seem to just be strung on a chain or string so I decided to be a little different and make them into drop pendants. Of course eye and head pins are hard to come by at the length I needed so I had to make my own. I had a coil of jewellers wire but my poor little snips just didn't want to cut it! I improvised by making the eye pins out of some gardening wire stripped of the rubber coating.

The glitter was my own creation - a mixture of some superfine glitters - mostly blue with some green, silver, grey, gold and purple. I wanted it to have a bit of a celestial look and I'm really happy with the colour. So I now have two new pendants that I quite like but I'm still undecided on what I should hang them from. Any ideas?

Triangle Necklaces

I love triangles! For my first attempt at some wooden jewellery I thought I'd play it safe and stick to the basics and triangles are about as basic as it gets when it comes to shapes. Circles are near impossible. Squares have to be too perfect. Triangles, however - take any three sided shape and it will still look awesome (according to me anyway).

I made two different styles, the first was a three triangle dual colour double sided piece. The two colours are reversed in layout on the back.

The next was a bigger solitary triangle and some more experimentation. The border of this is coated with flocking powder, so it has a textured suede like finish. It really added something extra, though in hindsight white was not the best colour to team with tiny clingy black fibres. Lesson learned!

Starting simple means you can really go crazy with colour/size/texture combinations, and I had so much fun making these that I will probably end up with one to match everything I own!

Crafty Sunday

Jewelry hanger + Stamped tote

I love Spring! Sunshine, colour everywhere, cool (not cold) mornings and beautiful warm days. After taking my dog for a walk to make the most of the morning sun I hopped on the net for some quick inspiration and came up with these two colourful and handy items. I was so motivated to get stuck into making I was at the shops for supplies before they had even opened. 

This jewelry hanger I've had in my head for a while but have been waiting for the right time to put together. I seem to have lengths of balsa wood in every corner of my house - every time I think I've used the last, another turns up. Today my absolute last piece was turned into a bright necklace/jewelry hanger. The shapes are hand cut Fimo clay shapes glued to some flat head nails.

The inspiration for the tote came via JustB - so many great DIY fabric prints! I purchased a bunch of plain totes online forever ago and had this last one stashed away among my piles of handbags. I love triangles and chevron patterns so tried for something based around that idea in primary colours. I'm pretty happy with the outcome and am already thinking of the possibilities for more stamped fabric printing.