Jewelry Creations

Once I put away my sewing mess from my last creative buzz, I decided to get out my jewelry making mess ;-)  Thanks to some ideas I found on Pinterest (click HERE to view my Jewelry Board to see my inspiration pieces) I've had a lot of fun creating.

These ones are so simple and the possibilities are endless since you can use any paper and colors you want.  I ordered my glass tiles and bails from Amazon and used Liquid Glass to put them together.

I think I am going to turn these ones into magnets instead of jewelry.

Here is a simple birthstone bracelet that I made for my mom.  It has all of my family's birthstones plus my brother's family.

Kaylee wanted to make a birthstone bracelet as well, but she wanted to include grandparents and great grandparents from both sides of the family too, so hers can be a double wrap bracelet OR a necklace.

I also had fun with the nest jewelry that I've seen all over - I had a good variety of wires in my stash, so it's been fun to mix and match.  My pictures are not good but you get the idea.

Brianna loved these and wanted to join in so here are the rings she started with:

Then she wanted to make a matching set which turned out super cute.

I remember wanting to do these Washer necklaces a couple of years ago when I first saw them but then I forgot about them until I saw them pop up on Pinterest.  So fun and simple, and like the tile necklaces, you can really customize with the papers and colors you want.

I made this one for a friend's birthday last month, so I decided to make a little gift box to put it in. I cut the box using my CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge.  I kept the box simple, just sanded the cardstock and tied with a ribbon - here it is closed...

...and open.

For the inside piece I cut another box, just 1/4" smaller and trimmed off the half circle edges. Then I punched holes with my Crop-a-dile and cut to the holes to hold the cording.  Here it is before I put each piece together to give you an idea. 

Another thing we've been playing with are Shrinky Dinks - but I will share those pics in another post.  I have been attempting to make rings from it but so far no luck, they cool too fast and break as I'm bending them :-(

Sigh...where does the time go?

It seems like I say this all the time, but seriously?  I have been a poor blogger lately, which was more than obvious when I logged in this morning and noticed the changes to blogger!  I have just been staying busy, but since I use this blog as an attempt at a journal, I feel really bad that I haven't been keeping up with it.  I am hoping to do better.  I have some catching up to do with March happenings, and since April is almost over, I will have those events to record as well.  For now I will start with some of the projects that I have been up to lately, and then I found some old projects that I forgot to share so hopefully I will get around to those, too ;-)

Sew Busy - part 3 (if you missed them before, check out part 1 and part 2).  I got all my sewing projects done a while ago and put my sewing machine and serger away (for now) but I am finally getting around to sharing the rest of my projects.

I was determined to make something for Easter this year.  My Mom made Kaylee and Brianna matching dresses a couple of times for Easter, and I have attempted to buy the rest, but it is really hard to find coordinating dresses for all three girls plus something to match for our little guy there at the end.  Luckily my girls are good sports and like to dress alike, so I'll take it as long as I can!  Anyway, after some searching I found this fun bright paisley print that had each girls' favorite color in it.  I didn't have a pattern or even know what I was going to make when I bought the fabric so I just got 5 yards so I would be sure to have enough.  I found t-shirts in each of their favorite colors as well and knew I was good to go.  Well, as it turned out, I had enough fabric to make each of the girls a skirt, plus one for me, and then I even had enough left to make their older cousin Meghan a matching skirt.  She is always passing her clothes down to the girls and they were excited to be able to give her something for a change.  I just made up the pattern as I went - it's just a simple straight skirt with a fun ruffle at the bottom, and a black wide band elastic for the waist.

I found a fun Chevron pattern that had some of the same colors in the material I used in the skirts - I used that to make Trysten's tie.  I wish I'd had more of that fun chevron because David wanted one, too!  You can see Trysten's tie better in the first picture in this post.  Here we are on Easter Sunday.

I already posted the big girls' skirts that I made from old jeans - here is the one I did for Brailee.  Gee, I wonder if you can tell what her favorite color is ;-)

Another new project that I have been up to is canning.  I had never done it before until a friend taught me how back in January.  This was my first attempt at applesauce, tomatoes, and carrots.  This month I have done 15 quarts of applesauce, and 10 quarts of tomatoe sauce.  It's been fun and feels good, I can't wait to try more!

Okay, that's it for now - hopefully I'll be back with more soon!