What a beautiful time of year! The trees are turning green again and the sky is blue… unfortunately I can only see this through the window of my classrooms so far as I am stuck in school for another month (thank you 3 month, pointless, futile strike).
The weather makes me want to make new jewelry and, since its finally almost time to start wearing skirts and shorts everyday, I am starting to think about making some neat anklets for the summer. While I haven’t had much of a chance to actually put anything together, I have been perusing our store and trying to decide which beads to use. I have been wondering how large an anklet can be before it will look weird/be annoying and I think that will help me narrow my choices down at least a little bit.
There are a few of the choices I have been particularly leaning towards (not necessarily together):
I’ll post some pics of what I come up with once I have a bit more time to decide but I am pretty sure I want something comfortable, colourful, and bright. I am also planning to make something for my mom and sister (and possibly a few more relatives if I have the time) so I have an excuse to make a few pieces! I can’t wait until I have time to work on them…
I have been working on a piece of micromaille, probably a choker, lately in my scarce free time but I think I will put it on hold for now as it takes so long to do each row of 39 tiny little rings and is mildly frustrating as I need better bent nose pliers for micromaille, especially coloured rings as the scratch so easily if your grip slips. I have been checking out the options and am surprised by the price range – anything from $15 for a set of five pliers to $50+ for just the bent nose pliers; I will have to do more research – to the internet! Or rather, back to my essay for now.
Thanks for stopping by!
~Emily
Hello again! I have been keeping super busy with school lately but I’ve also been experimenting a bit more with chainmaille and have come up with a few pieces of which I am rather fond. Although, my favorite creation has not been a piece of jewelry but rather something to put jewelry on!
After browsing around some forums for awhile, I saw a number of fellow craftsters had made themselves these fantastic frames on which to hang jewelry, mostly earrings. Having recently made myself several pairs of chainmaille earrings, this seemed like the perfect rainy afternoon project so I quickly set to work.
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Thanks for participating! Hope you had fun!
Thanks again to everyone who took part! It was lots of fun to run a contest and I’m sure there will be more in the future. Read on for the list of winners and also links to sites and blogs which helped out by posting about the contest.
Winners:
- Grand Prize Winner: Congratulations to Lisa from Indialantic, Florida, who won the $250 gift card! (Lisa runs the Lucid Moon Studios Blog and Lucid Moon Studios Etsy Store.)
- Green and Black Necklace Winner: Congratulations to Erin from Massachusetts, who won the Green and Black Necklace! (Erin runs Every Heart Crafts Blog and Every Heart Crafts Etsy Store – and also posted about the contest, thanks Erin!)
- Blue and Black Bracelet Winner: Congratulations to Lindsey from Staten Island, New York, who won the Blue and Black Bracelet!
- Chain Maille Flower Choker Winner: Congratulations to Leigh from Highstown, New Jersey, who won the Chain Maille Flower Choker! (Leigh runs the Constant Cravings Blog.)
- Silver and Blue Chain Maille Bracelet Winner: Congratulations to Christine from Bensalem, Pennsylvania, who won the Silver and Blue Chain Maille Bracelet!
So congratulations again to all the winners! I was going to do a video of picking names out of a hat like Lisa did on her blog, but I realized that, having only collected emails I couldn’t really draw names without giving away peoples emails. There was also the secondary problem of having to track down a camera and get the hundreds of names printed and cut up. Next time we do a draw I’m sure we can do a video of Suzanne and I picking names though.
Thanks a ton to all the sites and blogs that posted about the contest! Here is a list of them in no particular order:
- Pearl over at The Beading Gem Journal kindly posted a nice write-up of the contest on the 4th of April.
- Lisa from A Bead a Day helped get the word out to her twitter and facebook contacts – she was very kind in giving me some pointers for getting onto twitter where I’ve found so many people, but haven’t tweeted nearly enough myself yet.
- Erin from Every Heart Crafts posted too as I mentioned above (since she was also one of the winners). It was her post that our Grand Prize winner Lisa found out about the contest from!
- Jennifer Ramos from the quite successful Made By Girl blog helped get the word out. Also have a small ad over on her blog that has been sending a fair bit of traffic our way too!
- Corra from De Cor’s Handmades posted before she disappeared for some time off – hopefully she had a good time. The burger in her latest post is making me hungry =D
- Tammy Powley from jewlerymaking.about.com and The Craftey Princess Diaries mentioned the contest on about.com.
- Sheila Morley from Art Talk with Sheila Morley did a nice post just before the contest was over – check out her glass work, such beautiful colours!
I tried to keep track of who I emailed and who posted or otherwise helped out – but I’ve been so busy with college and all the orders coming in that it has been tough. If I’ve missed anyone I’m so sorry! Let me know and I’ll add you to the list.
For all those that didn’t win, there are sure to be more contests in the future! Please come back again soon and theres always the FTLoB newsletter if you want to hear about new contests and other news!
Also I’d love to see some comments (or get some emails) as to what people found both good or bad, intuitive or frustrating about the contest so I can make the next contest even better.
I hope everyone enjoyed the egg hunt! I’m looking forward to the next time we do a contest. In retrospect we started on the Easter Egg Hunt a bit late and it was a bit of a rush to get it all working and ready. Still, quite happy with how it all turned out. Got a few hundred participants to draw from so it’ll be a fairly full hat of names (or more accurately, emails).
I’ll be sending out emails to winners over the next day, so keep an eye on your email inbox!
The official announcement of the winners will be on Thursday. I’ll also do a shout out to everyone I know of that helped out with spreading the contest too – for now I’d like to say thanks again to everyone involved!
Completed Flower Earings
Hi there, welcome to my first Beginner’s Do-It-Yourself tutorial! Today I am going to walk you through how to create these fun spring earrings as well as your own ear wires. Its pretty easy, I promise; let’s get started. You’ll need three kinds of pliers (chain nose, bent nose, and round nose) and a wire cutter to complete this project.
If you are using coloured rings like I am, be careful with your pliers as they can scratch the colour off if you are too rough.
The rest of the guide is after the jump! (Click “more…” below)
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Spring has just sprung here in Toronto and Easter is just around the corner. Easter in my family has always been marked with a big family dinner and of course, lots of chocolate. I have fond memories of searching every nook and cranny to uncover every last hidden treat. Decorating Easter eggs was also something I remember affectionately.
Suzanne and I have decided to celebrate the launch of the For The Love Of Beads Blog with a Virtual Easter Egg Hunt and Raffle!
The Grand Prize will be $250 gift card for For The Love Of Beads! Four other prizes will be given out, each a piece of jewelry I’ve made recently. Everyone who finds an egg will be entered into the raffle (slight change from what I thought we’d do when I posted the teaser). You will also receive a 15%, 25% or 50% discount when you find your first egg.
For the rest of the details click “more…” below!
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Hello everybody! Hi, Dr. Nick! (Hehe, I would feel a quote like that aged me if the show wasn’t still on tv.)
All that aside, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to our new blog layout! Cool isn’t it? I wish I could take credit but the techy stuff is not my strong suit. Thats the stuff Mike and Hayden are good at and boy are they a big help.
I am glad it matches the rest of the site and I have finally set up a blogroll (sort of, always room for more as there are MILLIONS of cool blogs out there still to find I bet).
With the new layout and our Easter Egg hunt on its way, I’d like to introduce another of our occasionally recurring topics which will be starting on Tuesday; beginner DIY (do-it-yourself) tutorials! These will be pretty simple patterns for some earrings and other jewelry that I have created while playing around with beads and jump rings as well as some larger projects and cool stuff for your home. Coming up on Tuesday I will show you how to create these fun, colourful chainmail earrings (and your own earring wires) just in time for Spring!
I hope you enjoy it!
~Emily
