Challenge Week 10

On Tuesday morning I had an appointment in NY city, and after the appointment I decided to take a walk down to 6th avenue to search for a bead store that I found on the internet. This store had rave reviews, and many of the jewelry makers that I talk to say "You have to go to the city to buy beads, they have beautiful things there."  My little walk (22 blocks) took me to 3 bead stores. I thought I found something close to heaven.

As a result of my trip I found the materials for earrings for Jewelry Challenge Week 10.  These earrings are called Camelion Flowers. They are gold flowers that you can wear alone, or you can add the crystals that are hanging from a bar that goes through the center of the flower.

The crystals are by Swarovski, the colors are clear AB, Indicolite and capri blue, all 4 mm in size.

As a flower by itself the earrings hang 1 1/2 inches. With the crystals attached they are 2 inches long from the ear.

You can wear the crystals so they fall in front of the earring or in the back of the earrings.  They are very versatile and in future I may add extra bars with beads of other colors to make them even more camelion like.

Thanks for stopping by, please come back next week to see what comes off the workroom table. I would love to have your comments on these earrings if you would like to leave one.

Challenge Week 9

Wow, can you believe another week has gone by.  This week I wanted to use April-like stones to make a pair of earrings. I used a piece that I've never used before, the Swarovski crystal drop.

These earrings are the most delicate looking earrings that I've ever made. The drop is clear crystal and then I put a round turquoise and a round clear crystals above the drop, and they are separated by a silver flower spacer. The clear round crystal has an AB coating, so it reflects colors around it. When I was taking pictures of the earrings it was hard to get a picture where the clear crystal actually looked clear, it would look like it was light blue from the reflection of the bead below it.

These earrings are so delicate and spring like, I really want to keep them, but I'll put them in my shop so you can enjoy them.   
Thanks for stopping by, come back next week to see what comes off the work room table.

Challenge Week 8

Ok, I have to admit that it was a little tough this week to get inspired. The reason is, it's my birthday today and I'm a little distracted.  So I went searching through my jewelry supplies to get some inspiration and was getting a lot of ideas when I came across these turquoise beads that I bought at the bead show.  I recently made a necklace with them and thought earring to go with the necklace would be great.  So I made these Love 4 Turquoise earrings.

The beads have a little marbling in them, not too much and the length of the bead is about 3/4 inch. The caps are silver and delicate looking, just enough to finish the bead and give it a little feminine flair.

The overall length of the earring is 1 3/4  inches, a nice length - enough dangle but not too much.

As I mentioned, today is my birthday and in celebration I'm offering a 15% discount on all items in my shop, even this weeks earrings.  Check it out at McLachlan Design Studio

Have a great week and come back next week to see what comes off the work room table.

Challenge Week 7

The week ended on a great note, I went to the Marching Dragons Craft Fair at Brick High School. The morning was a little slow, I think the cold weather kept people away. In the afternoon it got crowded and I had lots of visitors to my booth. So I'm a day late in posting my weekly challenge.

This week for the 7th challenge I made another version of a ring. I'm trying to find a ring format that I like, so if you have a favorite of the ones that I've done so far please let me know. The ring I made (shown left) is a light amethyst Swarovski crystal in a four prong setting. The wire is 20 gauge square sterling silver, wrapped three times to give a nice base to the crystal.

I wanted to try to use the 4 prong setting to make a ring because I thought it would look very formal. I like the way it came out, but it's not my favorite.  I prefer the ring that I made with the 3 round crystals.  I'm going to keep experimenting though, I'll know when I find the right combination of stone, ring and wrap.

Please stay tuned to see what new items come off the work room table.

Challenge Week 6

This week's challenge entry is a little late, I had a very bad case of the flu and couldn't think about making jewelry. So, I'm finally starting to feel better and have made a variation on another piece that I've made before.

For the challenge this week I made a barrette covered in 4mm square flat back crystals. Previously the crystals that I used were round. The way this barrette sparkles reminds me of the old mirror balls used in the discos.

This barrette is great for bridal wear and also for a night on the town. It is 2 inches long and is a little more than a quarter inch wide. It's the perfect little hair jewelry for most occasions.

Check back on Saturday to see what comes off the work room table.

Challenge Week 5

Welcome to Week 5 of my 52 Week Jewelry Challenge. This week I made a beaded bracelet. As I have been trying to stretch my jewelry making style, I included some cube beads into this bracelet.  That's a little stretch because I feel more comfortable with round beads. The cubes are Swarovski crystal elements and the rounds are glass and have both blue and black colors in them.  I really like these beads and I think they blend well with the black cubes.

The cubes were in my beading supplies because I had seen them in a catalog and liked them, also bought some turquoise color cubes, which are still in the package. So this week when I was looking for materials to use I thought this would be a good bead to use to challenge myself.

You can find this bracelet on my website. I hope you like this week's bracelet and will come back next week to see what new item comes off of the work table.

Challenge Week4

This week I used the last of my favorite beads, they are a turquoise color Czech glass, oblong shaped bead. I paired them with white cats eye beads to make a very soothing combination of colors, in a princess length necklace (18 inch).  I have used this combination before in a floating bead necklace that was bought at a craft fair faster than I could put it on the table.  The clasp that I used is an antique finish square that I think compliments the shape of the Czech glass beads.

I have 2 of the Czech beads left and will make a pair of earrings to match the necklace.

Look for more pictures in my shop.