May the Blessings of Easter be yours.

~Blessings to you and yours this lovely Easter Day.~

Spring Blessings

"The beauty of spring" was Artbeads theme for February and March. As part of their blogging program I was asked to design a piece of jewelry with my interpretation of Spring. I was able to choose from any of the products on their website. This was not easy for me as they have such a vast array of wonderful products. I finally settled on a variety of pressed Czech glass beads in an array of luscious colors, of all glass beads Czech glass are my absolute favorites.

Spring Blessings Long Necklace

This long lariat style necklace is a collection of colorful wire wrapped czech glass beads. These beads are so rich in color and most are faceted so they catch the light nicely. Copper chain and copper spacers are also used to accent these stunning beads. The lariat style makes this piece versatile.I added one of my handmade bird resin pieces as a dangle. Necklace measures 32" with additional 7" from brass ring to the end of the cross.
You can find this piece in my Flap Your Wings Etsy shop.

Spring Fling Earrings

Some folks like to have matching earrings so I made these dangles to go with the necklace. Bright yellow turquoise beads are accented with Czech glass roundelles. Such a great combination and so alive with color. These can be found in my Etsy shop.

Disclosure: All above mentioned beads from Artbead.com were kindly provided free-of-charge by Artbeads.com, within the frames of Artbeads.com blogging program. The author of this blog has not received any payment from above-mentioned company. The post above represents only personal opinion of the blog author.

Delicate Balance

While I was out shopping with my friend Eileen we spotted some really nice necklaces, although they were nice in design the materials were not good quality. One of the pieces I liked was a necklace with a lovely combination of Turquoise and pearls. Since I just had stocked up on some great turquoise I knew just what I wanted to create. It has been about a week since I have worked in my studio so I was very happy to relax and play with all of my new stuff. I really love the end result and would never have thought to combine these great organic materials. "Delicate Balance" is a substantial piece with chunky turquoise and three kinds of fresh water pearls. AD Adornment findings really finished this piece off. Necklace is 33" in length and has a 4" pendant drop.

Girlfriends & Horses

The last 5 days have been super busy with my friend Eileen visiting. We always have such a wonderful time together as we love all the same things. We love beads, antiquing , eating, dancing and horses. Today we visited the Wild Horse & Burro Center in Cross Plains Tennessee. The center is about 15 minutes from my house and I like to visit whenever I can. Today much to our surprise " squeal, squeal ", there were three little foals! I just love foals and it was so hard not to be in the pen with them. As you will see in the next photos, one little foal was very interested in us, his Mama was watching out for him.

Saturday night we hit Broadway for some Country Music...a must in Nashville and you are never disappointed! Legends is always a fun place!

...can't go out without my boots!

Thanks Ei...come back soon!

Beads, beads and more beads!

It is that time of the month again, the third weekend of each month is the Nashville Flea Market. I promised I would share a picture of Mary "my" bead lady. Here she is in all her glory amongst her beads. She is one colorful lady and she just loves to talk. It is really fun visiting with Mary and her husband Larry. The flea market runs Friday to Sunday. I usually go on Friday mornings as the crowds are less and it is so much easier to shop. Yesterday after I picked up my girlfriend Eileen at the airport we had a nice lunch at the Yellow Porch in Nashville and then I surprised Eileen by taking her to see Mary. I knew Mary sets up on Thursday and she had mentioned to me about customers seeing her then so I thought we would pop in and see her. We spent 3 hours pouring over beads with no one bothering us, it was so nice of Mary & Larry to let us shop early.

Eileen and Mary

Here is my bead stash....lots and lots of great turquoise! The turquoise briolettes were a must have, they are faceted and I can't wait to make myself a pair of earrings with them.

So today, guess what we did? Got up and went back to the Flea market. Went to see Mary again and then shopped around. I found a few great treasures that will make it to my antiques booth. We also stopped at an Estate sale where I was able to get 2 vintage typewriters. All in all a great day spent with my wonderful friend!

Fly....

I hate to bore you with all my resin pieces but they were so much fun to make! Here is one of the last pieces for now. I especially like this one with the bird from Patina Queen. The color is so perfect with the turquoise beads and really makes the pendant pop! A chunky red carnelian bead is added to the bone and wood beads. You can find "Fly" on my website.

Oh, Honey thank-you!

What more could a girl want? My darling was going to Lowe's and asked if I needed anything, I said no. This is what he came home with for me, a new torch.
I had recently purchased a similar torch and had used it for the first time last night, apparently I did something wrong as a part near the nozzle melted. He told me I could not use it anymore until I had a fire extinguisher ( the ever smart man!)

Look what else he bought at Lowe's.... I am one lucky girl! He is so practical and I suppose he does not want me to burn down the house. He said we are having a fire drill later.


New earrings on my website. I am still playing around with the copper tubing and these were so much fun to do. A little hammering for some texture, heat treatment for some cool colors and some nicely stacked turquoise disks. These swing, sway and swivel so nicely.