Interchangeable bead necklace tutorial

Here’s just a quick post, borne out of needing to put something together for you to show you my purchases from Beadcrafty and not being able to find a chuffing eyepin this morning.

Anyway I put an order in for some pretties from Beadcrafty and they were very quick to arrive, with friendly customer services and reasonable postage costs. It’s a really pretty website with lots of shinies to ogle. The only thing I wasn’t too keen on was the amount of little plastic bags used- if I ordered 5 bezels for example, each one came in a separate bag, so I ended up throwing them out, though I’m sure most of you would have ways of reusing them. Anyway I digress…

Here are some of my cute purchases…

And I thought I would make a simple necklace this morning- it was still dark which is why the pics aren’t super awesome.  I like bright jewellery but I don’t like too much faff, just a pop of colour, which is why this is quick and simple. I don’t have a Pandora bracelet but I really love silver core glass beads and there were quite a few to choose from on the site, so I settled on this one. Equally if you want a more finished look and don’t want to be able to change your beads whenever you feel like it, you could use an eyepin instead of a safety pin. I would have done just that but I couldn’t find one this morning- my craftroom is being painted and EVERYTHING is in the middle of the room.

(picture taken in dark office on camera phone with no flash- soz)

So here’s what you need… (all beads, bead caps and jump rings from Beadcrafty.com) I used a medium sized safety pin measuring 35mm

Open your safety pin and string on a rhondell, a bead cap (facing outwards to cradle the rhondell), the silver core bead, another bead cap, another rhondell and then close the pin.

Open the middle link of your chain up (or cut with wire cutters).

Open a jump ring by pushing the joins away from each other (as shown). Put the ring through the last link in the chain and the hole in the safety pin. Close back up again. Repeat for the other end of the chain and safety pin.

You can change the beads any time you like- here’s some of my other beads (also from Beadcrafty) that could have worked instead of the rhondells.

I will have another mini-tutorial for you in my next post- this time making your own cabochon pendant using some more bits and bobs I got at the same time!

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Trufflepiglet necklace

I’ve been playing around with some Sculpey recently, and decided to make almost all my chocolates in miniature form and make a necklace for craft fairs. It’s not the most excellent polymer clay work you will have ever seen but I think it fits the bill 🙂

A little test

I’ve been testing a couple of new resins which will be available to the UK craft market soon but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to talk about it yet or not. Anyway I made this simple necklace with the crazy shapes mould on my website and I actually quite like it 🙂 These resins have inspired me to try dipping flowers and also I’m working on a new idea which will focus more on texture and shape than I have done previously. Hopefully I will have something to show you soon as I get motivated and my workload reduces.

I’ve ordered a couple of new papercrafty bits to add to my Folksy supplies shop too so hopefully that will get some attention soon and I will have a sort out over there as I have a few new buttons and things that I’ve not put on yet.

Faux seaglass

Using the new Resin Obsession resin, I have developed a technique for making fake seaglass. I have sent a tutorial off to Cindy over at RO for her blog, so you should see it there shortly.

I thought I’d share the results with you anyway- I’m going to take out the wire bits and jump ring them instead (I am truly crap at wire related stuff) and maybe add some nautical charms or shells to it to make more of a charm necklace.

W00t! A tute! Distressed Victorian Lace recycled jewellery pendant

It’s about time I shared a tutorial with you. I have a couple of other ones I hope to post relatively soon too…

You will need:
Clear Polyester Gelcoat
Plastic spoon (optional)
Plastic cup
Mixing stick
Mould release spray
Hot pink Pearl Ex powder
Lisa Pavelka “Romance” Texture stamp
Band Saw or Junior Hacksaw
Black pigment inkpad
Drill
Acrylic spray
9mm jump ring
Recycled jewellery chain
Recycled flower dangly earring

Suppliers:
Pearl Ex powder and Lisa Pavelka stamp from the Polymer Clay Pit: www.polymerclaypit.co.uk

1) Prep the texture stamp with mould release spray and leave to dry. Spoon about 4 level teaspoons of polyester gelcoat into a plastic cup and add catalyst as directed.

2) Stir well until it is a beige colour instead of pink and sprinkle in some pink pearl ex powder. Use the stick to mix this in thoroughly to give a pearlised effect.

3) Pour the gelcoat onto the rubber stamp and then level out with the spoon. Leave to set for about an hour- gelcoat sets much faster than normal resin!

4) Pull the rubber carefully away from the resin piece.

5) Cut a rectangle out of the resin sheet. I used a band saw, but you can also use a junior hacksaw if you don’t have one.

6) Apply the ink to the texture on the resin thoroughly and leave to dry for a few minutes before sealing with an acrylic spray.

7) Drill a hole through the top of the piece. Take some old chain from some retro costume jewellery and attach each end to the pendant through a 9mm jump ring. The chain should be long enough that it doesn’t need a clasp. Next, take the earwire off an old costume earring and hand the charm in front of the resin piece. Close the jump ring.

Enjoy!

Statement necklaces

I want to design some statement necklaces (and some wall art, but I reckon take things one step at a time) in line with the trends at the moment, and maybe some more multi-stranded chain ones for the same reason- my deadline being the 4 day fair I am doing in June. I’m not sure exactly *what* yet, but I am leaning towards a felt and acrylic base bib style with some of my roses and resin buttons for decoration. I’m wondering if I have time what with the chessboard I am seemingly lazy about. Here’s some of my inspiration anyway, so when I lose focus I can come back here and admire these I found over on Flickr…

Sod it, I’m inspired to start work on it now!

Failure never tasted so good….

I didn’t blog about this before because I was still in the audition stages, but I am now able to talk about it.

I went for an audition for a new BBC1 show called “New Brands” after my application form was accepted. It’s sort of an after-Dragons-Den style programme where you get to pitch to a high street store and make your business big and successful. I felt I was in quite an exclusive club at this point and excited because I thought it was quite an exclusive thing to get through to the interview stage. Apparently not. After a long and expensive trip to Manchester and booking a day off work, it turns out there would have been 50 people auditioning on the same day, plus other auditions going on before and after mine on other days. Suddenly it felt less exclusive.

I was cheered up though that I thought I gave some great answers to the questions, and I had a better product than the examples I had sent over, the process lends itself to batch manufacturer and the programme was to be hosted by Jo Malone, who started off in the handmade market herself, so would be sympathetic to my craft. Today I got an e-mail that had clearly been torn apart by my spam filter as it had 10,000 garbled characters before the line, “You have been unsuccessful”.

At this point you’d think I would be overwhelmingly disappointed, but I think I had believed I would fail all along. The odds were stacked against me and I realised this before I did my piece to camera. Most other people were demonstrating a food product, or were design students and I somehow didn’t fit in with my lack of formal training and general household items. And getting a mass e-mail that was a second away from falling into my spam abyss and being missed made me realise that they don’t really care about the applicants at all, which made me glad not to be working with them. I was expecting a courtesy phone call, but it appears we are not even worthy of that!

Oh well, I got four orders overnight and they’re flowing in this season at a ridiculous rate that I wouldn’t have had time for TV anyway whilst I am building my empire! Thanks to everyone who has supported me this year in purchases, advice and everything else. I promise that next year PennyDog will be going off with a bang- it’s only 54 weeks to my 25th birthday and I plan to be completely self-employed by then, without any TV shortcuts- it will be all my own work and only then I will feel truly proud of what I have achieved! And yes, I do have a plan in place!

Oh and since I haven’t done a Make for a while, here’s week 47 (yes, with the Christmas rush I am falling behind a little!), my ode to Mighty Boosh- the Future Sailor necklace. OH says I should send one to Noel Fielding… If you want one there’s the 20% discount code on the previous post!

Custom order part 4: now finished

I always seem to finish these stages at night when photo taking is rubbish as flash is pretty compulsory!

I made the little silver pieces on Monday night and fired them on Tuesday morning, then distressed them with liver of sulphur and a wire brush. Then the findings finally arrived so I could finish putting everything together…

This is a heart containing horse hair on an 18″ sterling silver chain with little name tag, and hair in a lozenge of resin on sterling silver chain made into a bracelet with small “K” tag. The only thing I would have liked is to have found a neater finding for the two ends of the lozenge- they’re quite big but the jumprings I had were too round to go through the hole at each side, and when I tried to form them for this purpose they were too weak for use in a bracelet.  The other clamps I had were too small so I didn’t have a lot of option 😦

I just hope the chain isn’t too thick as the lady they are for likes more delicate chains. It is 6mm round chain and the thinnest “bracelet” chain I could find!

This is a more casual jewellery set- a teardrop of resin with red glass bead and ashes embedded. It is on a 26″ grosgrain ribbon with (mostly) sterling silver findings. There’s a britannia silver name tag on that too and it also has a small red glass bead added alongside it. The bracelet to match is again ashes and glass bead, but is attached to a band made from cord. Quite pleased with this one as the findings were easier to source and worked well despite this being my first cord bracelet (maybe I’ll make more?). The also has a “K” tag and a glass bead dangle.

Custom order part 3 and your help needed please!

The horse hair and ashes custom order is nearly complete, I just need to swap some of the findings for sterling silver ones when they arrive (hopefully today) and make the silver name bits. I think I should be able to add the full name to the pendants, but a small initial might be better for the bracelets.

 

I cast a block of resin in bands and then cut it and sanded it with the bands going across the ring. However I now think it looks a bit plain and is lacking something. Any ideas? Do you think I should sell them in sets of 3? They won’t be very cheap because of all of the sawing and drilling and sanding involved, so hoping there’s a way of selling them individually still. Maybe I should just make them thicker?

Make 50: Week 35 and 36

Another Heart on Sleeve bracelet for you this time, and I’ve also had a play with some tiny bezels to make “charm” style necklaces.