LOTS of earrings

I have been asked to make a few pairs of earrings for a local school fair, and all profits made will go to Shelterbox, a charity that provides tents and things to people involved in natural disasters. It's also a good chance for me to see what people think of my jewellery. So, in case your interested, here are some of the earrings i made.

These are made using some brightly coloured buttons i had, joined together with some jump rings.

These were made using a pearl for each earring, 2 crystals in the same colour as the pearl, and 2 clear crystals all put on indiviual headpins and joined together with a couple of jump rings.

These are just glass beads put on headpins cut to different lengths. I used the same colours as the button earrings, cause those colours are COOL! At least, i think so.

And these are fuchsia style earrings that were mentioned in a previous post.

I did make others (about 24, i think) but i forgot to take a photo before i packed them up. ANNOYING!
However, i mustn't get too hopeful. I may get to the fair, put all my earrings on the table, and people will rush over and shout 'What horrors do i see before me?! I cannot believe anyone would make such rubbish jewellery! It is so ugly i may be sick!' Then they will probably run away and not buy anything. And i will go home sad.

A good ol' rant

I have a feeling that this post may turn into a bit of a rant, but it is understandable.

My sister bought me a voucher for a bead website for my birthday. Yesterday i decided to spend it on lots and lots of lovely beads and things to make. Unfortunately, the bead website has decided to use a very stupid way to redeem your voucher. You have to log in using the email and password OF THE PERSON THAT BOUGHT YOU THE VOUCHER! I don't see why they would have a system like this because now, if they want to contact me about my order, they will instead be contacting my sister through her email. Now, this is ok for me because my sister can just give me any messages, but if this had been bought by someone that i don't see or speak to very often, it would have made it really difficult to claim back my voucher.

As well as all this, once my sister had told me her login details, i then picked out all the beads i would like and paid for them, only to discover that the login details had somehow changed back to mine and i ended up paying the full price, without the money off voucher.
I may be missing something here, or maybe just being a bit stupid (as usual), but surely this is a RUBBISH way for a website to organise vouchers?

The UPSIDE to all this, i suppose, is that i still have my voucher to spend on more beads. Which is a pretty good upside!

Anyway, sorry. Rant over. Now back to crafty stuff (i mean that as in arts and crafts, not crafty as in sneaky...)

I haven't really made much jewellery in the last couple of days, as i have been making crocheted flowers instead. Lots of them! I've never been very good at crocheted stuff, so being able to make something is, for me anyway, AMAZING! (I get bored really easily.)

I've also been doing LOTS of gardening as, for once, it is SUNNY IN SCOTLAND!!!!! And no, i'm not joking!! It's actually so hot outside just now that i've had to come back in to cool off a bit. Don't remember ever having to do that before.

 Anyway, i thought i would show you some pictures of all the plants i've been growing (not a terribly impressive list, but never mind). I've somehow ended up with about forty tomato plants. Trouble is, i hate tomatoes. I don't mind them when they're all mushed up with other stuff, but on their own, they're horrible. Weird thing is, this i the second year i've grown them. You'd think i'd learn.

They don't look like much yet, but i've just replanted them into bigger pots. Then i ran out of pots. So i stopped.

Here are some sunflowers. They're doing pretty well, considering they started off as bird seed.

I was going to show you more pictures of the carrots, onions, garlic and potatoes i'm growing, but i feel this post will end up getting pretty boring if i do. So i'm going to stop.

Crocheted Flower!!

It's official. My exams are FINISHED!! Actually, my last exam was a couple of days ago but since then i've been busy making things! To begin with, i made a necklace, using an idea from 'creative beads and jewellery' magazine. This actually matches the lilac pearl and crystal earrings that i mentioned in an earlier post.

 I'm actually giving this as a present to a family friend. I may make one for myself too. Mybe try it out in a different colour. You never know! I also made some small pearl earrings to match, as the other earrings are quite long.

Then, i raked out an old 'Mollie Makes' magazine (issue 12) that had a great pattern for a crochet flower brooch. I tried to make this about a month ago but i never seemed to be able to get it to work and kept getting knots in it and having to start again. VERY ANNOYING! So i had another go today and, second time around (first one got a knot in it), i finally MANAGED IT!

As you can probably tell, i am VERY PROUD of this! It's the first crocheted thing that i've actually managed to FINISH! (Only just realised how often i write in capitals. Should probably stop doing that.)

My INSPIRATIONAL to do list

Lately, i have had LOTS of new ideas for things to make but, because of RUBBISH exams, i don't have anytime to make them. So i thought, since i only had one exam left, that i would take a few minutes to share all my lovely ideas with you. So before i fall back into my revision pit full of lecture slides and paper cuts (2 so far), here is my to do list:

1. Make a long necklace using my new beads

2. This one has a bit of a story to it. Aaaaages ago, i bought a dress in primark. When i got it home, i tried it on (it was a bit of a squeeze) and walked throughout the house letting everyone admire my lovely, lovely dress. Then went back through to get changed. This is where the problems started. The dress, instead of having a zip down the side, was elasticated instead. Turns out the elastic wasn't quite stretchy enough. It was STUCK! No matter what i did, the dress refused to budge. So i had to do the 'walk of shame' back through the house, to explain what had happened and get some help. Once everyone had stopped LAUGHING (it took several minutes), i was eventually CUT out of it! My lovely, lovely dress now had a big split up the back. However, the dress was so lovely and had such a lovely pattern on it, i couldn't face throughing it away. So it went in the wardrobe, and has been there ever since. Until now!

I saw my lovely, lovely dress looking very sad and lonely and had an INSPIRATIONAL thought! I could cut it up and make a skirt! So, task 2. make a lovely, lovely skirt.

3. Similar to task two, without the getting stuck bit. I bought a dress out of asda and got it home and when i tried it on, it did not suit me at all. But, as the pattern is so pretty, i will attempt to make another skirt.

4. Make a flower corsage thing out of lovely blue felt.

5. Make LOTS of things out of my new book ('Lovely things to make for girls of slender means' by Eithne Farry) that my sister gave me for my birthday.

6. Make LOTS of things from my 'creatve beads and jewellery' magazine.

7. Finish off my Penny Quilt (see earlier post) and my butterfly quilt.

8. Attempt to make beads from resin or polymer clay (wanted to try this for ages but haven't had the time. If you have any good tips, leave a comment.)

Hopefully, by writing this in my blog, i will actually do some of them. If i don't, please leave comments telling me to HURRY UP AND FINISH (insert task number here).

Jewellery box

I thought i would show you all a picture of my lovely, lovely jewellery box filled with lovely, lovely jewellery.

It took me FOREVER to take a good picture with the lid open, cause i kept accidentally taking a picture of my foot in the mirror. I eventually just sat with some white paper on my legs so you couldn't see them. That's a normal thing to do, isn't it?

A new magazine and a daft cat.

Sorry it's taken me so long to write a new post. My computer decided to be RUBBISH and only download half my new photos. I also had a chemistry exam. What fun!

Anyway, the other day i spotted a beading magazine in a local shop and bought it to see if it would give me any new ideas. The magazine was called "Creative Beads and Jewellery" (to view the magazine's website, please click here) and was issue 22, if anyone fancies buying it and having a look.

 Anyway, I bought it as it has loads of great ideas on different beads to make, including felt, crochet and, the ones i tried to make, wire beads.

Mine did come out a bit wonky, but, for a first attempt, they weren't too bad. I spent ages on them at the beginning trying to get them perfect but, as it turns out, the less perfect they are, the better they look! My hands were ACHING by the end of it though, as they are a bit fiddly, especially at the beginning, and the only wire i had was slightly too thin (the magazine recommends 0.9mm and i used 0.8mm).

I then moved on to trying out a couple of earring designs from the magazine, which i thought were pretty good!

They were also pretty easy to make, although they look quite complicated. I think these are my FAVOURITE!

These are the other ones i made:

I made these a bit shorter than the magazine said, cause i don't like earrings that are too long. I also messed them up a bit cause i only had pink seed beads left, which don't really match. I'll eventually have a go at making the necklaces and bracelets to match, but i'll have to wait til my exams are FINALLY over.

Anyway, i'm about to get off the subject of jewellery ENTIRELY and go onto gardening. Sort of.

A couple of weekends ago i spent AGES digging the garden. Hours and hours. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration.  Anyhoo, i spent the day pulling all the weeds out the garden, and all the old plants that we were getting rid of. I then raked all the soil, and planted in all the new summer bulbs. Then my cat appeared. Instead of thinking 'there is a very comfortable garden bench round the back that i can sleep on all day and not be disturbed', she decided to sleep here:

Yes, that is my NEWLY DUG GARDEN! Daft cat.