Christmas Projects

I'm starting a new project. I have some vintage glass Christmas tree chains handed down to me years ago that I treasured but didn't know what to do with because they were badly damaged from years of use. Many of the glass beads were broken and the chains needed to at least be taken apart and restrung. I hesitated to do that because of the fragility of the beads so they have been stored in a box with other treasures for many years. Recently I've seen many examples of beautiful beaded icicle ornaments made from many kinds of beads including vintage glass beads. As soon as I saw these I knew that's what I needed to do with these beads. This is the first of many ornaments I expect to make with my heirloom beads:

September Bracelet Projects

September was a busier craft month for me. I continued to work on jewelry but I also got back to work on a few other projects. This month I finally got some beading wire and crimp tubes and pliers and made some simple bracelets.

And I made a copper and pyrite wire wrapped bracelet for a guy.

Paint and Collage Play

It's been awhile since I've done any paint or collage work. There are a lot of reasons for that but they  really don't matter because I put my craft space back in order and I have been at it again. I don't really know what to call these little art pieces. I was inspired by the many examples of Art Journal works and pages and books so popular now. Art Journaling, as it's called, was a good jumping off point to trying some things with paints, collage, stamps, texture, mixed media, etc. My problem is that once I finish the 'background' for an art journal page I don't want to mess it up with words, or or images or whatever else people put on their art journal pages. I'm totally uninspired to do any of that.  I like the "Art" half of art journaling and would rather leave my journaling in the many written and electronic journals I keep daily. My right brain and left brain are both getting the exercise they need just not in the same place. Here are a few warm up pieces I've done this month.