HUGE giveaway at Pretty Things...

Lori Anderson has to be the most generous blogger I can think of!  Not only does she do the Bead Soup Blog Party but now she is doing a giveaway of 5 awesome prizes.  You can head over to Pretty Things to get in on the action.

Good Luck to everyone.  A great big thank you to Lori for all she does for the beading world!

Painting with Fire...thank you ladies

Today's post is a huge thank you to Barbara Lewis of Painting with Fire and the other ladies on her Painting with Fire ning for all their inspiration!  I finished my first torch fired enamel piece this week.  I have quite a few pieces that have been enameled but they are still waiting to be made into something great.  I might post some pics of those later this week.

                                               Here she is, my vibrant orange flower bangle!

I hand hammered and formed the copper disc for the flower, pickled, polished and then torch fired the vibant enamels on this piece.  I added enameled copper headpins as accent leaves and te flower center which wires the flower to the bangle.

The bangle itself is hand hammered and formed 10g copper wire that was soldered to hold the bangle closed.  I wear tested the bangle for 2 days, one of which included swimming and boating and it held up wonderfully.  It's amazing how strong glass enamel is, I am pretty tough on jewelry, especially a bangle.

Thanks again ladies for all your inspiration and support!

A little late to the Party...

The Bead Soup Blog Hop Party that is.  I can't even remember now where I saw the link that got me started hopping through the March party, but it was AMAZING to see all the things people put together.  Lori Anderson at Pretty Things sets the whoe thing up.  Here's the link to check it out http://www.prettythingsblog.com/ .

I'm too late to get in on the summer party, but I will be on the lookout for the next one.  Besides the amazing works that people put together I also found a lot of really great bloggers who I will be following now.

Another beautiful day in Western NY, blue skies and breezes!  Got some more work done on the "yard reclamation" project.  Apparently I suffered some laziness out there for quite some time, so now it is time to reclaim some of the spaces that 3 foot tall weeds took over.

Get out and enjoy the weather! - Ali

A weekend in Connecticut

We spent Memorial Day weekend in CT with my brothers family.  Hiking, canoeing, fishing, eating and visiting.  Had a fantastic time, John and Nancy were great hosts as always!  Some pics below of our hiking adventures at Minehill.

Kids in the old iron ore furnace at Minehill.  This is where they processed the ore to separate it from the quartz.  Being a rock lover from way back it was neat to find all the discarded quartz still laying outside the furnace.

Old donkey trail that leads up the hills to the mines.  Donkey used to bring the ore carts up and down this trail from the mines to the furnace.   Quartz still lines the trail.

"Natural AC"  close to the top of the hill is one of the openings to the old mines.  The mist is the cool air coming from deep inside the mine, a very welcome treat on this sunny humid day! (Note how Jenna looks as if she is melting)  We hung out in front of it long enough to stop dripping before the hike back down the hill.

While we were there we also took Northwoods Creative Studio to The Elephant Trunk Flea Market in New Milford.  If you are in the area and have never been there it's a must for flea market junkies, you can see their schedule here www.etflea.com .  While we were there several crews were running around (literally) filming for HGTV.  If I recall correctly the show they were shooting for is called Flea Market Flips.  They appeared to be scavenging the antique dealers looking for things to repurpose.  I felt bad for one of the camera girls, she apparently forgot her sunblock and was lobster red by the end of the day :(.

We had lots of interest in new pieces we have been working on but only moved a few of them.  I think we would have fared much better if we had brought more inventory.  20x20 is a large space even if you park your vehicle in part of the booth.  Given my past show experience from other jobs I should have known better.  Our display looked underwhelming, lesson learned!
  
Lots of the lookers picked up our card so I have to promise myself to start getting at least one listing a day up on Etsy so they can find them there.  A look at part of the displays...

 See what I mean?  Looks a tad skimpy, eh?  Like I said lesson learned.  Next time, way more inventory to fill the space!  Plus we will set up here at home for a dry run to see how it all comes together.  

 Work is now being done to develop a much, much better display plan for next time!

Happy Creating! -Ali

Our Etsy Shop is OPEN

Happy almost spring everyone!  Our Etsy shop is now open, we would love to have you visit us at http://www.northwoodscreative.etsy.com/ .  Hoping to post new items daily.  We have been busy creating many new jewelry items in a variety of techniques. Now we are waiting for another sunny day to take some more pictures. Here's a sampling of some of the items we have been working on:

Jenna's working in wire now.  Wire is a little quicker than beadweaving, the options are limitless, plus bashing all that wirework with a hammer works out your frustrations.

I have been working with more wire projects too.

Right angle weave and tubular right angle weave.  Fun stuff, however, tubular right angle weave with seed beads is a tad bit time consuming.

 Since the last pics I posted I got a new camera.  Soooo much better than using my not so smart phone for pictures.  Huge difference in quality.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing everyone a very happy Thanksgiving a lil bit early.  I don't imagine that I will be on tomorrow what with all the cooking and prep.

I've been creating new pieces this week and will try to post pics on Friday.  I don't plan to take much part in the Black Friday frenzy.  It makes me feel grinchy.  I will go out at 9 or 10 when the madness is mostly over and hope that what I am looking for is still available.  Since I'm not in the market for electronics or the hot toy trends I think I should do alright.

Finally some pictures...

Cold and clear here today in western NY.  We had some gentle snowfall last night but no big accumulations yet!  Still it has kind of put me in the holiday spirit and winter days make me want to sit down and create.  Maybe the need to create in cold weather is partly to keep me from wanting to curl up in bed and hibernate like a bear.

Jenna and I have been very inspired by great beading magazines passed along to us by my sister Syd.  Most of the projects here are inspired by Bead and Button and Beadstyle magazine projects.  I must say though that we have found a ton of help via tutorials on You Tube.  Thank you to all the ladies and a gentleman who have posted video tutotials that we have found so helpful.

I apologize for the picture quality as they were taken with my not smart phone.  I recently got a new camera but keep forgetting to pick up a memory card for it.

Ok now for the pictures... 

These are a collection of St Petersburg weave bracelets made by Jenna.  They have been done primarily with 8/0 seed beads and various embellishments.  She has been so inspired that she is now trying different patterns and seeking shows to sell her wares. 

Two bracelets in full persian chainmaille weave with beaded embellishment.  Chainmaille is a new passion for me, there is something really cool about bringing theses historical weaves to the present in beautiful jewelry rather than the armor they were originally developed for.

Full persian weave necklace, bracelet and mathcing earrings.  I wish I could figure out how to rotate this picture!

Chainmaille flowers bracelet.  I love this bracelet but am disappointed in the jumprings I used, they have some sharp pointies at the opening.  Lesson learned, when it comes to rings, you get what you pay for, however it was good practice with inexpensive materials.

More St. Petersburg and full persian maille.

This is a set I made for Jenna for her upcoming Winter Ball.  It matches her dress.  The necklace took more hrs than I would like to remember.

European 4-1 chainmaille ring.  Tiny rings = difficult to open and close.  Fun piece when it's finished though.

Current jewelry work in progress.  This is done in herringbone weave with 11/0 seed beads.  It takes 32 of the loops on the left woven together as shown on the right.  The loops take some time to make so this one could be in progress for quite awhile.

 We are still new to beading and maille so I will continue to post pictures as we improve.  My advice to anyone getting started in either is to buy the best materials you can afford.  I mentioned in one of the pics above how the cheaper jump rings are a little scratchy.  Beads are the same story, we soon learned that the czech glass seed beads are well worth the money as the color and size are far more consistant than their less expensive counterparts.

Here are some needlearts works in progess.  This makes me wonder, could jewelry be considered needlearts?  After all many of the pieces you see above are sewn with needle and "thread".  In our case most of the pieces are stitched with 6lb Fireline, so it's technically fishing line and not thread.

Yo Yo border for Jenna's future quilt.  Thank you to Syd for cutting all those circles and then passing them along.  So far it's around 3ft long.  Yo yos are a great take along project though!

Irish blessing sampler in progress.  So far it's all sheep and no blessing, but it's coming along.  Once it's complete I have some linen pieces I want to get working on.