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I'm a member of Craftstylish. I check in almost everyday to find pieces and projects to inspire me. It's a great site for craftsters, members share new ideas to the gallery everyday!They also issue out Challenges every so often. This time they have a Flower Power Challenge which encourages members to make pieces with the Flower Power theme incorporated in the design. Participants are required to submit their entries following the rules for a particular challenge.I wasn't really set to enter this challenge. I was quite happy simply being inspired by the site. My sudden organization of my jewelry shelf plus my possession of a sketchbook are exercises which I credit to their contributors.It is because of the sketchbook that I found myself making a flower bracelet one day. I told myself I'd try and make the sketches I made at least once to see if they were workable and if they looked as good made as they did as ideas. I sketched in flowers the way I like them - a bit like the 70's flower: a lovely round center, five rounded petals, simple lines. I thought they might look good as chain links.
And so I made these pieces. Then decided to wound blue jewelry wire around the petal wires to give it texture and to secure the center in place. I connected the flower links with simple bead links and found myself with a bracelet full of flowers.Not bad, actually. I feel that I need to tweak it a bit more to satisfy myself that it was done - but as it is, not bad at all.I then remembered the challenge I recently read about in Craftstylish and thought... what the heck, I'll post this as an entry. And so here we are. Flower Power Bracelet: The Blues came to be.If you're a crafter, I suggest you join us in Craftstylish. I love the inspiration the galleries provide its members. And the challenges they use to nudge our creative selves into making something aren't bad either.
I saw a post on sketching ideas and thought it was a great idea. Though I sometimes use my organizer to draw in some ideas, the sketches would sometimes get lost or drown in my other notes about other things which were not directly related to my jewelry-making.I started using a pad of tiny post-its I had hanging around. I brought it with me everywhere. Came up with 10 sketches. Drew everything which have been floating in my head for some time and a couple which I used to practice "sketching." (Yes, I practiced to sketch. Weird but true.)When I had about 10, I scavenged around the house and found a notebook with unlined pages and thought to use it. Just to experiment and see if it was truly helpful to me. I found out it was extremely helpful.I posted my pink post-its on the first few pages. This would be my idea bank. Everytime I thought of trying one of the sketches, I simply peeled them off the bank and re-posted them into a blank page. I measured and counted beads to use, and noted them down on the sketch. I prepared the components and went and made a few pieces from my sketches. Most turned out to need more tweaking - with the notes on my sketches, I recorded where the mistakes were, too. This would help me make better pieces later - with the exact measurements I needed to make my pieces. This is a fantastic idea! I suggest crafters to try this for a few days. It's definitely a great exercise in creativity. Plus, it made my crafting more scientific, more organized. I simply love this idea!Kudos to Kathy Cano-Murillo from Craftstylish who shared her "Why You Should Have a Sketchbook" post with everyone. Thanks for the nudge in the right direction!
This dreamcatcher uses pearls, silver and blue jewelry wire. Together they promote healing, calm and harmony. Pearls give purity and promote faith, charity, and integrity, truth and loyalty. Silver is mystically considered to improve speech, bring eloquence. A balance of the color blue brings intuition, inspiration, sincerity, peace, joy, tranquility, faith in oneself and trust in others.
Stephen King has been playing a major role in my mind nowadays. I've been reading his books and watching a few of his movies. I must say his newest one, Duma Key, is quite impressive. The book swallowed me whole and ate up one whole day this past week. My infatuation for his work re-kindled (I've been into him since I watched and read Firestarter when I was 6.) and had to watch Dreamcatcher.
And when I wasn't going through my King files and books and movies, I was wondering what to do with the glass beads I bought. Came up with nil on the beads but Dreamcatcher stirred my imagination and got my fingers itching. I was looking forlornly at my newest purchases and wondering if the glass beads needed elastic thread instead of the wires I'm so used to working with when my eyes were caught by the colorful jewelry wires I bought with the glass. Hmmm.
Dreamcatcher for Spirituality
I researched on how to make Dreamcatchers and then started making some of my own. Who wouldn't want extra protection against nightmares of the daily variety? I ended making these yesterday afternoon.
This dreamcatcher uses peridot, jade, aventurine, silver and green jewelry wire. Together they promote wellness in affairs of the heart. Peridot enhances the healing and harmony of relationships of all kinds, but particularly marriage. Jade is a stone of fidelity and generosity, it can also attract all kinds of love. Aventurine helps one to see alternatives and potentials in all situations, giving a positive outlook, courage and inner strength. Silver is mystically considered to improve speech, bring eloquence. Green stimulates healing resulting in greater self-love, and thus, love for others.
Dreamcatchers are very interesting things, I think. The legend states that the web catches the good and the bad goes through the hole. I think that's a good thing to have around one's person. We all need something extra to protect us from our daily nightmares.
Apparently, the Tree of Life has more impact than I thought it did. I was just asked by a school to make a few pendants as award gifts for their English competitions. The school wants to encourage their students to be more pro-active in caring for the environment and wants this message sent in most of their activities - whether or not it is directly connected to environmental awareness. Ofcourse, I gladly agreed to work with them and gave them discounted prices for the pendants.I used stones and minerals which encourage mental health:Aventurine is said to benefit one in all areas of creativity, and imagination, as well as intellect and mental clarity.Fluorite promotes spiritual and psychic wholeness and development, truth, protection, and brings peace.Copper is said to be the metal of the God Hermes, who facilitates that mental agility, and quick wit.Silver is mystically considered to improve speech, bring eloquence.I think of it as giving a percent away to my favorite charities (education and the environment).
Bought a book last weekend which is truly inspirational for jewelry handcrafters. It's the 1,000 Jewelry Inspirations (Beads, Baubles, Dangles, and Chains) by Sandra Salamony. Quite a good book to browse through when looking for motivation to make a new piece or re-work old ideas. I really like the way it showcased simple pieces and elaborate ones, too. Lovely to read on a breezy balcony or when facing your worktable and wondering what to make of the beads and wires at hand.One thing I do not like about it, however, is that it's a bit misleading. The book might have 1,000 entries but there are multiple entries for some pieces - some of which are not even crop highlighted but simply resized to fit in a page. To illustrate my point, the following item number pairs feature only one piece with two entries:0026 & 09750027 & 08710051 & 09320250 & 09370287 & 09720391 & 03920424 & 08170512 & 0513Now, don't get me wrong. I still think it's a good buy - I just don't like it when readers/buyers get all misled.Kudos to all those who have their pieces featured in the book. Each one is truly inspirational. And cheers to Sandra Salamony as well for getting all these pieces in her book. I just wish she didn't re-instate the misleading info by mentioning 1,000 pieces of jewelry in her acknowledgment.
