Saturday, November 26, 2011

Challenge Week 32

Happy Thanksgiving!  This month, well this year has gone so fast, I can't believe that we're just a week away from December and a month away from Christmas.

For my challenge this week I used a wire that has a design in it and made a cuff bracelet.  It was a custom design for a co-worker Beth and I like it so much that I am going to make more.  The design in the wire is difficult to see because I forgot to take the picture at home before I delivered the bracelet, so I used my mobile phone, and taking detailed pictures is not a good use for it.

The wire is about a half inch wide and has a pretty design in the center and on the edges of it.  I can make the bracelet to custom fit your wrist.  Beth has a 6 inch wrist and she can't find bracelets in the store that will fit the way she wanted it, close fitting so it won't move around a lot.  You can see that it fits her well.

I hope you had a great holiday weekend.  If you need gifts you can find them in my store at www.jewelrybydm.com

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Challenge Week 31

Hi, welcome back.  Many of my winter clothes are red, I guess because it's such a warm color. With the cold weather coming I was inspired to use some warm red beads - I really love of the color red.

The beads that I used for these earrings are red, but when you look at them they look like they have black highlights. The headpins that I used are tipped with red; I think it look better that just the silver tips on other head pins.  Silver bead caps finish off the earrings, giving them a little sparkle.  You can wear these as little Christmas ear ornaments during the holiday season or just to give you a splash of color after the holidays.

Have a great week and I'll see you back here for week 32.

Denise

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Challenge Week 30

Halloween has passed and the commercials are in full swing with gift ideas for the holidays.  I received an email today that I thought was a great idea, this is unusual for me because usually I cannot stand getting the forwards and just delete them. However, this email said that we should all buy American for the holidays. This means giving gift certificates for local services like car washes or oil changes or beauty services like hair cuts or manicures. It also suggested buying from local artisans. If I can help you with this in any way let me know, and not just my jewelry, I know people that make all kinds of hand made items from guitars to paintings, photography, t-shirts and sweatshirts, cards, scarves, toys and more. Let's get our economy back on it's feet by buying American and buying local.

Now I will get off of my soap box and get back to the topic at hand, week 30 of the 52 week challenge.  This pair of earrings is a little different from my usual conservative look.  I like the animal print look but rarely wear it because I'm a bit shy when it comes to bold prints.  These earrings bring the animal print in without being too bold. For those of you that aren't afraid of the bold prints I salute you and for those of us that shy away, lets just try something new.  I think that if you wear these with a black  or white sweater and a nice silver chain it could be a very classy look.

The earrings are the size of a quarter, so they aren't too big and they have a nice finish to them.  Each pair will have a little bit different pattern on them so don't expect the exact look of the earrings shown above.  The pattern is quite close though.  I bought these beads in New York on one of my lunch hour walks, it was a short string of beads, so there will be limited quantities.

You can find these and other earrings on my McLachlan Design Studio website.