Wire Mesh Ribbon and Bead Necklace

My daughter and I went to Sandown yesterday to the Stitch & Creative Crafts Show.   We had a great day, meeting up with some crafting friends, as well as catching up with some of our Demonstrator friends.

One of the things  on my list to buy was the kit to make the above necklace from RibbonBox.   I bought some of the elements last year, but decided I really needed a kit with instructions and the clasp findings to make my first one.   So had a play last night and this is the result.

I am not sure how well you can see it, but the large beads are encapsulated in the mesh ribbon, with the silver rondels being on the outside of the ribbon.  The most difficult bit is to hide the holes of the beads (they should be hidden by the silver spacers), and I still have to do a bit of tweaking to a couple that managed to move!

The mesh ribbon is a fantastic product, and you can do so much with it.  Make flower/butterfly embelishments for cards, ribbon brooches.   The secret is to have a play, and if you don't like it just pull it all back into shape!

We spent a fortune - well I did - but having said that I did buy about 4 family birthday presents whilst we were there, so I didn't spend THAT much on me!  I didn't spend too much on beading stuff, but I did treat myself to some of the new tonic punches - WOW - they are brill - absolutely love the two I bought that cut strips of "punched ribbon".  I also treated myself to some sizzix dies.  Shall hopefully create something with those to share with you in near future.

My daughter also bought the where-with-all to do some fusioning of material into toppers, pictures etc using a soldering iron - absolutely fascinating - can't wait to have a try at that when I next visit!  (Have already told IM-indoors I need a soldering iron!)

Mags

ps Yesterday I wore the long silver necklace I made earlier this week to Sandown, and I had so many compliments about it (even from some of the stall-holders); so that really made my day!

Long Silver Necklace

Watching Sarah Millsop on Create and Craft today, and seeing her long Chain Maille necklace, reminded me that I had an idea going around in my head since before christmas for a long necklace, so I set to to put my idea into reality.  It is actually longer in length than in the above picture.

For the jewellery enthusiasts amonst my followers - the chain was a length of flat chain.  the beads were round sparkly silver beads with smaller shiny round beads either side, alternated with little sparkly "cluster effect" beads, with a decorated flat silver bead either side, held in place to create a "floating effect" by silver crimp beads.  This is the first time I have tried to do something like this with crimp beads.  I am really pleased with the end result - it came out just as I wanted it to, even my husband commented on how striking it was - heck - praise indeed!



full length view

I have also added a few other views of it - as it was quite difficult in today's light to get a decent picture.

It is also difficult to see how pretty the different silver beads are - I have converted a couple of the pictures to black and white so that hopefully you can see the beads better:



same picture as one above but converted to black and white



I will try and take a photo when the weather improves in daylight, perhaps with me wearing the necklace, as I would really like you to see how sparkly it is.

Thanks for popping by.

Mags

simple necklace

Just another simple pendant on leather ribbon for a friend.  I gather it has been much admired.

MCS meets Joanna Sheen





Groovy!



 Well after all that sewing this week, I managed to play with some cardmaking bits today, and achieved something completely different!  I have used a backing colour, and two images from MCS Men-y Happy Returns, which have been edged with peel-offs to keep the thickness of the card thinner for posting.

I then added stamped images, which I coloured with promarkers and then embossed with UTEE, from Joanna Sheen "Groovy Baby" Stamp sheet.  Cardstock was leathereffect burgundy card.

I think my nephew might laugh at the old fashioned record player - but couldn't resist adding it.   He is a DJ, and is currently looking for a new scooter to replace his old one! (wonder if he will buy a red one?).

Thanks for dropping buy.

Mags

Baby's Cot Blanket

Cot blanket

I have been very busy this week finishing off this cot blanket for my son and daughter-in-law's new baby, which is due in February.  I confess that I didn't actually knit the squares for this one as I was so busy before Christmas trying to get the lounge stripped of wallpaper and redecorated.   Fortunately my daughter's MIL loves knitting and as she offered to do something for the new baby (She is known as Auntie Anne to my son's two daughters), and she kindly offered to knit the squares for this one, as she had always wanted to knit this pattern, but never had the opportunity.  However, she left me to neaten all 80 squares and to sew them together and do the crochet around the edge as she doesn't do crochet - so it was a joint effort.  Think it took me almost as long to neaten all the ends and sew up etc as it did Anne to knit it!

I was so grateful for her help, as I am not the world's greatest knitter - in fact I hate knitting - it takes so long to achieve (give me some material to make a dress in a couple of hours any day!), but my DIL wanted a blankie for the new baby.   We don't know what it is going to be so once again it was a neutral colour - the baby's sisters have pale green and pale gold ones.  (If they have another child think we shall have to know whether it is pink or blue before it is born as running out of neutral colours! LOL!) 

The pressure has been on to get it finished as my DIL has been warned that she is showing 4 weeks ahead of predicted date, so that means anytime soon!  (and there we were worrying that if it was late it might be a leap year baby).  Mind you they could be wrong yet!.

I did say it would probably be born on Valentine's Day as we already have two birthdays that date (one being my DIL!) but now that it looks as though it will be early with a whole lot of family birthdays at end and beginning of Feb, we are wondering what chances of another doubling up on dates!

Now that it is finished - hopefully I can start playing with some of my new craft bits.

Mags

choker necklace

Blue Choker necklace

Just found some photos on the camera of pressies I had made for Christmas, that I hadn't downloaded onto the computer (or should that be uploaded - I never know!)

Choker necklace finding was from Beader's companion, the bead holder I bought at Sandown - I can't remember the supplier - but they are sold on various bead sites.  The beautiful blue beads, were some from my stash that I bought at Farnborough last year.

I also made one with red beads for my DIL - but don't appear to have taken a photo of that.

Mags

A Bevy of Thank You Cards

It has been a bit busy since Christmas, as I had a houseful of visitors and family over New Year,  and I have only just got around to doing my Thankyou cards.   I had a hospital appointment yesterday to check out a dodgy eye (which turned out to be ok) and because it took some hours for the blurryness to wear off after the drops, I sat and coloured in the images that I had stamped the day before in order to sit quietly and keep myself occupied, whilst listening to the tv (as couldn't actually see it that well with the blurry eyes)   I must admit my first love will always be stamping, and I find colouring in so therapeutic.

The sheet of stamps was a free one with Cardmaking and Papercraft - and the only reason I bought the magazine when I saw it on the shelf was to do my Thankyou cards - it was just perfect for what I wanted. 

Images were coloured with promarkers (what else - just love blending with those) and then I tried out some distress inks that I bought at the Craft Barn sale where I went on NY Eve with my pal Sassie.  I have never tried distress inks before. (I know where have I been!)

The two cards with blue background were distressed with broken china, and the first one has a bit of bundled sage on it too, the other three were distressed with scattered straw.  I also ran the cardstock through my woodware cutter to give a wavy edge, and then ran the ink pad along the edge.  I was going to matt the image, but decided to just keep the cards "clean and simple" as didn't want a "matt" to distract from the distressed edge.

Am quite pleased with my first attempt at distressing.

Thanks for looking

Mags

1st Birthday

Bunny Snuffles 1st Birthday Card

Created with MCS Bunny Snuffles Big Birthday Bash cd.  Main image and flags decoupaged, and then a few embellishments from my stash added (little hedgehog, balloons and "with love" tag), and few highlights with Sakura Clear stardust.

Mags

I may have forgotten to take a photo .....

..... but I can share my draft layouts of two January birthday cards, that I menionted in my last post.  Both were made from JS "From the Heart of the Garden" cd.

I quite often plan my layouts either in Publisher or MCS and then print off the different elements.  In both cases the images were matted and layered with appropriate coloured card.  (I thik the teacup one was mounted on gold mirri, and the purple one on silver mirri.  (That's why I take a photo cos I can't remember!)  In the first one - I actually replaced the bottom little image with the flower spray on the final card.  You will have to imagine that the backing paper in both cases was mounted on an A5 cream card.   I actually imported the purple image into MCS in order to match the colouring of the sentiment to the image.

so although I forgot to take a photo before I rushed to get them in the post (and blame that on the fact that I also had visitors in the house - so brain cell was not functioning at full power - LOL!) - Hopefully you can get the gist of what the cards look liked. 

Mags

The last card of 2011

A card for a birthday on 31 December, for my son-in-law's mother.   She joined the family to see the New Year in as we had my pal Sassie and family staying - so the children were allowed to stay up to see the fireworks and play "gambling" card games!  - we taught them Newmarket and the pennies had their yearly airing!

I will have to make the photo of this card last as I also made two others for early January, and in my rush to get them in the post because of the Bank Holiday I forgot to post them.  Fortunately this one was still to hand!

The images and backing paper (as were the other ones) was from the JS "From the Heart of the Garden".  I did draft the other cards in Publisher so will try and recreate the idea and post them in next couple of days.

In the meantime - I would like to wish you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Mags