Welcome to Faery Blog Hop

I had a lot of fun coming up with my design ideas for this blog hop.  My friend, Betony Maiden is our hostess and she challenged us with the theme, "Welcome to Faery."  So my imagination ran to fairy tales, forests with wonderful creatures and colors of the rainbow.  I narrowed it down to an actual fairy ceramic necklace and an enchanted forest pottery bowl.  First the necklace:

I have an 11 month old Granddaughter named Summer who loves to hang out in my studio.  I have a black velvet mannequin where I display my newer favorite necklace designs.  I had a necklace with a roman coin theme for a blogging back in time challenge.  I loved it!  Well Summer decided to pull my mannequin over and there went my necklace into about 4 sections on my tile floor.  Needless to say, my studio is much more baby proofed!  So I gathered up what I could and put it in a dish for another time.  Well, I got out the dish and redesigned a new necklace with my handmade ceramic fairy pendant.  I love it, too!

 Here is a close up of the pendant I designed for the challenge:

I used 3 ply waxed linen to string my design.  I made a tassel under the pendant and incorporated roman glass, gold findings, more ceramic beads, manufactured sea glass and dyed agate gemstones.


I have been making a lot of functional pottery dishes over the last few months.  I live in Florida so I often have a sea life or tropical theme.  So for this challenge, I came up with an enchanted forest design.  I hand drew a curvy line across the bowl and cut out leaves and flowers to form a vine growing on the forest floor.  I used oxides to color the flowers and leaves and dipped the bowl in cream and green multi tone shiny glazes.  The bowl is food safe, but I think I will keep some treasures safely tucked away instead.

Please visit the blogs of the other participating designers:

. Betony Maiden
2. Tammy Adams  http://www.paisleylizard.com/
3. Michelle Ann McCarthy  http://www.fireflydesignstudio.blogspot.com/
4. Kelly Hosford Patterson   http://travelingsideshow.blogspot.com/
5. Robin Kae Reed
6. Kari Asbur

Beading Back in Time - 60's Baby!

For this chapter of the Beading Back in Time Design Challenge, we could choose any time period in history that inspired us.  I really had to think about this one.  My favorite time would be the 80's....the music, the hair, my teenage years, college, fashion, etc.   But as far as designing a piece of jewelry, nothing stood out for me.  One of my favorite sayings is Peace, Love and Happiness.  That takes me right to the 60's!  I was born in 1968 and I like peace signs...so that's how I decided on my theme!

I used mid fire buff ceramic clay to make a peace sign bead in lime green, a heart bead in pink and a smiley face in yellow.  I accented the color with a neutral oxide stain.  So that's my Peace, Love and Happiness brought to life!  I love to work with waxed linen, so I choose a beige color to blend with my clay beads.  I used an oversize black lobster claw clasp with a black piece of chain to adjust the length that features a fun pink accent at the end.  I followed the bracelet pattern designer Lorelei Eurto shared in Bead Style last year.....it's a perfect design to highlight my theme beads!

I used lime green glass disc beads along with black and pink seed beads on 4 pieces of waxed linen.  I think the colors represent Peace, Love and Happiness and that is what the world needs today!  Please visit the blogs of the other designers that can be found at www.phantasmcreation.blogspot.com 

Superstition Blog Hop Reveal

Happy Friday the 13th!  I am not a superstitious person normally.  So today I am going to wear my fun black cat necklace and walk under a ladder.  Just kidding....why risk it!  Lol

I was one of the lucky winners of our hostess, Tammy Adams of Paisley Lizard, focal black cat polymer clay pendant....so thank you for that!!!!  We could tell Tammy what direction we wanted the pendant hole or no hole at all.  I am really into tassels, so I chose a vertical hole.  She made the gray, black and silvery white backgrounds different as well.

Sorry I am not good at identifying gemstones, but I have all my beads stored by color.  So I reached into my black and gray drawers and found some great stuff!  The black gemstone barrel shaped beads were the perfect size and I loved these black and gray speckled gemstone chips.  I love to string with waxed linen.  It is strong and tying knots is easier than crimping, at least in my book!  I am a ceramic bead artist, so I always include some of my beads.  The 2 gun metal 10mm discs on the top and bottom of the cat pendant are my beads.  The tassel is made from rubber tubing cut into various lengths with the gemstone chips at the ends.  The tubes reminded me of the cats tail!  I used a large black lobster clay clasp to finish my necklace.  I hope you like it!

Please hop around to all the other designers blog posts to see what they designed with their black cat pendant!  And if you'd like to see more of my beads, please visit www.fireflydesignstudio.etsy.com

ammy Adams (Hostess) http://www.paisleylizard.com/blog/ Renee Hong  http://www.fineanddandyjewelry.blogspot.com Betony Maiden  http://beadwenches.blogspot.com/ Coral Law  http://abcoraldesign.blogspot.com/ Lee Koopman  http://stregajewellry.wordpress.com Jeanette Belmont  http://www.onecanvasatatime.com Shai Williams  http://www.ShaihasRamblings.com Beth McCord  http://ebbeadandmetalworks.blogspot.com/ Robin Lynne Showstack  http://heartsdesiresjewelryforyou.blogspot.com/ Lori Blanchard  https://alainnjewelry.wordpress.com/ Deb Fortin  http://www.mhotistudio.blogspot.ca Michelle McCarthy  http://www.fireflydesignstudio.blogspot.com Maria Rosa Sharrow  http://willowstreetshops.blogspot.com Kim Dworak  http://cianciblue.blogspot.com/ Divya N  http://www.jewelsofsayuri.com
	http://heartsdesiresjewelryforyou.blogspot.com/
Karin Grosset Grange  http://ginkgoetcoquelicot.blogspot.fr Mowse Doyle  http://mowsemadethis.blogspot.com/ Rebecca White  http://morganafeycreations.121hub.com/#sec-blog Shawneen Fagnani  http://blondespotpinkshoe.blogspot.com/ Catherine King  http://Catherines-musings.blogspot.com Brook Bock  http://artisticendeavor101.blogspot.com/ Kari Asbury  http://hippiechickjewelrydesign.com/blog Nan Smith  http://wirednan.blogspot.ca Carolyn Lawson  http://carolynscreationswa.blogspot.com Linda Anderson  http://fromTheBeadBoard.blogspot.com Ann Schroeder  http://www.beadlove.wordpress.com Melissa Trudinger  https://beadrecipes.wordpress.com/	http://www.jewelsofsayuri.com