New Baubles and Holiday Bead Challenge

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These are my latest earrings, I needed a darker blue pair of earrings, and came up with these lovely baubles, they have a nice vintage look about them. Made with blue Czech faceted round glass beads, Bali flat spacer, corrugated Sterling Silver round beads on a lever back ear wire. The blue beads were some left overs from an earlier project, so I have a matching bracelet already!

Holiday Bead Challenge

One of the local bead shops, BeadL Jewlz is having a holiday Bead Challenge. Create a bracelet using all the green beads, some of the seed beads and bugle beads in the bag. I can add my own sterling silver, gold-filled or copper beads and of course a clasp to the bracelet. A couple of ideas are floating around in my head, but I'm still in the pondering stages. It will be interesting to see how many different styles of bracelets will be displayed in the store. I will keep you posted on my progress.

Parent Meeting

My homeschool group Teaching Our Own Legacy (TOOL) had the privilege of having Rick Boyer at our parent meeting last night. Mr. Boyer is one of the early trailblazers of the home-education movement. He and his wife, Marilyn, have taught their 14 children at home, kindergarten through high school, since 1980. Rick has spoken at homeschooling conventions across the U.S. as well as overseas, and has authored several books on Christian parenthood and home education. He and Marilyn operate The Learning Parent, a ministry to home-teaching families.

Rick’s talk for our parent meeting was titled Starting Right- Staying Right. He gave us some practical wisdom about educating our children at home that was very encouraging, not to mention entertaining!

I purchased two books - it is extremely hard for me to resist a book, and I thought I did very well keeping it to just two! One book is actually a Bible Study for the kids on how to apply the fruit of the Spirit to our lives, it is recommended for middle school students, but I'm sure it can be tweaked for Nicole.

Birthday Bracelets

Here is the bracelet I made for my sister-in-law Marcia. It features Carnelian gemstone beads, Swarovski Crystal Beads in green and brown bicones, and Sterling Silver flat spacer beads. This will go great with brown, green, and blue. Does this say happy Fall or what!

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This bracelet is for my friend Tracey, who shares the same birthday as Nicole. Her bracelet features oval Snake Skin Jasper gemstones, a Sterling Silver "Inspire" message bead and Sterling Silver round beads. When I saw the message bead I thought of Tracey, I love that the message bead mimics the gemstone, the colors are warm and earthy.

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Happy birthday ladies! I hope you both love and will enjoy your gifts!

Necklace Set and Lanyard

My friend Carla commissioned me to make some jewelry for an upcoming auction at her church, she wanted a necklace and earring set and a lanyard. I wanted to give her an option so I made two necklace for her to pick from, she ended up selecting both!



Here is the lanyard, I wanted something neutral so that the lanyard can go with everything, very classic black and white.

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Va Va Va Voom

This is a very chic necklace made with Mother-of-Pearl big chunky nuggets and Quartz big chunky nuggets and a brushed Sterling Silver heart shaped toggle. Can you picture a black turtleneck with this or any solid color shirt or dress. Stunning. I told Carla that my hubby really liked this one and even said I need to make one for myself!

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The matching earrings on a lever back ear wire.

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Pretty Pearls

The second necklace is a delicate Freshwater pearl necklace with cream, bronze and berry pearls, Sterling Silver round beads, a S-hook clasp and a dangle with all three color pearls. I enjoy pearls because you can dress them up or down, this will look great with a nice dress and just a pretty with jeans and a tee, and it will go with just about everything.

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The matching earrings for this necklace on French ear wire.

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These should be a hit at the auction. Thanks Carla!

New Lanyards

Here are a few lanyards that I recently made. This one is just a rainbow of colors, I always think of Skittles candies when I see this one. It has a rainbow of seed beads and clear Czech beads.

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The classic black and white lanyard

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and the pretty as can be pink lanyard

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Wedding Crashers and Other Stuff

Last Saturday the family and I headed down to Yorktown for a wedding, my in-laws received their invitation, but somehow ours and niece Lindsay's didn't come in the mail, an oversight we just know, so we crashed the wedding. We do know the bride, and Eric told her that this was one wedding he was not going to miss, invitation or not - you see the bride is 49, and this is her first marriage. The wedding was beautiful. The soloist sounded like a professional singer, I didn't see her at first and thought it was music from a CD. The ring bearer and flower girl were adorable, the flower girl was a bit reluctant to walk down the isle, and was defiantly not tossing any flowers that day. The bride was radiant, congratulations Mabel and Keith!

Here is a picture of the wedding program. Just goes to show you that anything can be turned into a lapbook!

Field Trip

Yesterday the kids and I went on a field trip to the USMC Museum with our homeschool group. We had a guided tour which is always the best way, our guide, a retired Marine was suburb! I had been to the museum just back in July, but saw many new things this time, and learned so much more with the guide. I had my camera but didn't take the first picture, so here is one from my first visit.

The Other Stuff

I finally got around to switching out the summer clothes for the winter clothes for the kids this week, and quickly realized that Gene was in dire need for winter clothes, just about everything he had was too short. So today, we headed for the store, our first stop was Target and they had Hanes boys sweat pants and shirts for $3.33. I went to the regular Target not the Super Target, but they may have the same deal.

Nicole's birthday is tomorrow, we went to Mary's Cakery & Candy Kitchen for her birthday cake. While we waited, they gave us yummy fudge samples, and they lady who helped me gave Nicole some free candies for her birthday, how sweet is that. They make a German Chocolate cake, (which is my all time favorite cake) that is almost as good as my mom's.

The cake is so pretty, can you guess her favorite color is purple!

Fruit of the Spirit Bracelet

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

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Love - Gold

Joy - Purple

Peace - Blue

Patience - Pink

Kindness - White

Goodness - Light Pink

Faithfulness - Dark Green

Gentleness - Light Green

Self-control - Yellow

My friend Michelle commissioned me to make this bracelet for her, we are currently doing Beth Moore's Living Beyond Yourself, Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit Bible study. What a great visual reminder of the verse.

The bracelet features 6mm Swarovski crystals cubes with Sterling Silver beads, and a Sterling Silver heart toggle clasp. Very, very pretty.

FAN-tastic Earrings

I finished the brown coin shaped Mother-of-Pearl earrings last night and wanted to let you see them. They look fantastic!

The earrings feature a chocolate coin shaped Mother-of-Pearl bead, a Bali fan bead, along with Sterling Silver round and flat beads.

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You really have to see these to get the full effect of their beauty!

Craft Packs

At the September mom's meeting of my homeschool group we had the opportunity to hear and see the wares of the creator of Kids Craft Fun, themed-based craft projects for kids, all packaged together and ready to use, all you need are scissors and the kid. This is one of those
"Why didn't I think of that!"

The craft packs have 10 crafts all bagged and ready for use, with instructions, facts and other activities the child can do, everything is included, glue, paint, the actual craft materials - everything. Did you get that, no running around to the store armed with a list of things you can't find or have never heard of! It is all in the bag! I love this concept. The price for the packs are $25, that works out to $2.50 per craft - love it!

I purchased the Medieval History and Colonial American craft packs to go along with our Tapestry of Grace studies, and the kids will either work on the projects together or we will divide them up.

Here is the Medieval History Pack... no storage issues here.



Each craft is in its own baggy...



Here is the list of projects you get in the Medieval History Pack:

1. Jousting Knight


2. Knights' Shield


3. Golden Goblet


4. Illuminated Nameplate


5. Jester's Hat


6. Medieval Hand Harp


7. Lavender Sachet


8. Medieval Pouch


9. "Stained Glass" Window Handing


10. Medieval Castle Mobile

The projects for the Colonial American History Pack:

1. Wooden Colonial Fort
2. Colonial Pineapple Ornament
3. Tri corn Hat
4. Quill and Scroll
5. Colonial Hornbook
6. Quilt Square
7. Beeswax Candle and Candleholder
8. Weaving Project
9. Punched Metal Lantern
10. Tooled Metal Liberty Bell
    

These are BIG time (and mind) savers for moms who are not crafty or who are crafty but struggle to provide those hands on activities for the kids. Looking forward to showing you the completed crafts!


Note for those bloggers who are real savoy:
Why did my second list of numbered bullets turn out single spaced, but the first list are doubled spaced? I've wasted about 15 minutes trying to get them doubled spaced and finally threw my hands up and will just post them as is. Can someone help me with this? Would love to hear from you!

Black and White Lanyard

This lanyard was made for one of Eric's co-workers, it features black and white bumpy lampwork beads, black faceted Czech glass beads and seed beads. Very stylish and the bumpy beads gives it lots of texture.

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All Wrapped Up!

Here is my latest creation, a wire wrapped necklace. The necklace is made with Rhyolite ovals and brown coin shaped Mother-of-Pearl beads with a Sterling Silver flower connector and S-hook clasp. If you want to get a closer look, just click on the picture to enlarge.

I have wanted to make this type of necklace for ages, but was a little nervous because of all the wire wrapping involved, but I just jumped in and am VERY pleased with the results. Not bad for my first try - I just may have to get a new outfit to wear with this one!

Here is what the necklace looks on. Yes, I'm modeling the necklace, and managed to take the picture all by myself. I stood in front of the mirror, so that I can see when I had the picture in focus - clever huh! Thank you, thank you very much! Please hold the applause!!

I am considering attaching dangles made out of the brown Mother-of-Pearls and/or perhaps brown crystals, not quite sure. What do you think?

The matching earrings... I made them rather plain, because the Rhyolite gemstone has a lot going on. I love the splotches of color.

To punch up the Mother-of-Pearl coin bead, I am adding a Bali fan and Sterling Silver 2mm round bead and spacer. Here is the layout - fancy and cute!

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think of the necklace and earrings. I would really appreciate it and would love to hear from you!

Pearl Bracelet

Here is a bracelet that I have had on my beading board for some time, it was all strung and ready to go, just needed the clasp. I sat down to attach the clasp Monday, and some how managed to drop the entire thing, of course BEFORE the clasp was on - beads flew all over the place! I managed to find most of them, but some are still missing, I'm sure they will turn up sooner or later, or will be vacuumed up!

This bracelet is made with Swarovski Maroon and Cream Pearls, Sterling Silver beads. So pretty.

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I also made the earrings to match...

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Pink Cat's Eye Earrings

I made my niece Lindsay a pair of earrings for her birthday, they are made with 6mm and 4mm round pink Cat's Eye beads with Sterling Silver beads on a Sterling Silver French Wire ear wire. They are very cute and dainty. Happy Birthday Lindsay!

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Downtown Adventure

Yesterday the kids had there second Public Speaking class at the library downtown, which is going really well. There are six kids in the class and all seem to be enjoying the class. I brought my camera because there is a beautiful fountain in the front of the building that I just love and wanted to get a pictures of it. Here it is...

I was taking and almost missed the horse and buggy, I had to run down the sidewalk to get these shots, I'm sure I looked rather odd - but it was not the first time, and I'm sure it will not be the last time!

Bronzite and Turquoise Earrings

My friend Natalie commissioned me to make her a pair of long earrings. These feature teardrop shaped Bronzite gemstone and round Turquoise gemstone with Sterling Silver beads and Sterling Silver lever back ear wire.

The picture does not do these beauties justice, they are gorgeous! And they look FAB-U-LOUS on Natalie. I had my camera yesterday, but didn't think to take a picture of her wearing them! I love the shimmer these have, the brown is so rich - she will get many, many compliments on these earrings!

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