Monday, June 29, 2009

VACATION


I am going to N.Y tomorrow. Happy 4th of July to everyone. My necklace for the party on the 4th.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Allen Designs Goody Giveaway


Goody Giveaway - win ART

Goodygiveaway_sum09 

Allen Designs Goody Giveaway

Enter to Win some of our Favorite Designs:

Party Animal Cat Box, Sunshine Smile Print or 2 sets of (3) Art Blox.

4 Chances to WIN(we'll draw a different winner for each item)


Here's 3 ways to Enter:

  • 1. Leave a comment on this post telling me one special thing you're doing this summer. If you're at a loss for summer ideas check out Meg's list. 
  • 2. Sign up for our Newsletter on the top right hand side of this blog. Not to worry, we don't send many and the ones we do send include some amazing close-outs and giveaways.
  • 3. Promote our giveaway on your blog and get 3 entriesFeel free to pull this image to use on your blog. And don't forget to leave me a comment so I know you did.

contest will end friday, july 3rd

Thank you for playing!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

LOVE THIS BRACELET


I LOVE DOUBLE HELIX PANDORA. This bracelet has 11 lampwork beads and brass rings that look like they are floating around the braided waxed linen cord. This bracelet fits tight around the wrist.
7.5 inches

Monday, June 22, 2009

Da-427.2 STRIKING GLASS


 Don't look at the beads just the color. The round one I like not bad colors, the tube had the best colors going in the kiln and coming out. The lentil with black base with silver and silvered ivory was the prettiest going in the kiln but what happen? The last lentil was on opal yellow it was so pink and green going in. I was up early to see my beautiful beads OH what a disappointment.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

DA-427.2 STRIKING GLASS


HELP This is the first time working with this glass. I got pretty colors but I think there should be more blues and greens not the brown tones. The beads are made with two rods the same color the last two beads on the right looking at the computer screen are black base with DA-427.2 on top. Has anyone worked with this glass I would love to hear from you.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

CHAIN ME


This bracelet is made with 6 of my lampwork beads Double Helix Gaia.  Chain and seed beads with acute locket and a handmade clasp.
7 inches Small wrist

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

HYDRANGEA


Isn't this the prettiest hydrangea you have ever seen? I know I should plant in the yard but I don't know if it will make it thru a winter. We get snow.  I enjoy looking at it on my deck. 

Friday, June 12, 2009

CHARMED


I just love this bracelet. Wire wrapped lampwork bead on a hot pink chain, Double Helix Pandora small lentils with matte seed beads,  sterling silver clasp.
7.5 inches

Thursday, June 11, 2009

CONTEST


silverparrotdesigns. blogspot.com
Sample of beads 

CONTEST

A CONTEST!!!

Last week, two random thoughts collided in my brain. After popping some E.S Tylenol to deal with the resultant headache, I realized that the thought collision had produced An Idea.

More about that later.

Somewhere in my cyberspace travels (i.e. wasting time on e-mail, random bead and jewelry blog perusals and miscellaneous Googling) last week, I came across some advice from an established jewelry artist about periodically cleaning out one’s bead stash in order to keep things fresh, streamline the design process and not get overwhelmed with options, etc. Of course, my immediate reaction was “Get rid of BEADS? THE HORROR!” But then I started to think “Yanno, she might be on to something here.”

I mean, let’s face it. If we look in our clothing closets, don’t we all have that pair of jeans we’re keeping “just in case” we ever manage to fit in to them again? And then there’s that dress we bought to wear to that thing that one time that we’ve never worn again. Not because there’s anything wrong with it, we just tend to forget it’s in there. Oh and the sweater that still has the tags on it because OMG – WHAT were we thinking when we bought it and it was possibly a PMS-influenced purchase and…well, you get the idea.

Isn’t a bead stash kinda like that, too?

There’s gotta be beads in the stash that just aren’t ever going to get used. You know you look at them every time you open up your drawers and boxes, but you just don’t ever seem to pull them out. Maybe your design aesthetic has changed since you bought them or maybe you used part of a strand and are never going to use the rest or you bought 27 strands of one thing and you really only needed 26 and…well, again, you get the idea.

So, I’m thinking about this stuff all last week and sometime during that period, I was also talking (complaining) to a friend (long-suffering and patient with my whining) about how my blog has 12 followers (and YAY for my 12) but another blog has 44 and how come I don’t have 44 yet (um, it’s possible I have unresolved lack-of-popularity issues leftover from high school, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog probably requiring therapy and wine) and yanno, the kind of things you aren’t REALLY upset about but complain to your friends about anyway just because you know they’ll listen you. And in a blinding flash of insight (and possibly desperate attempt to get me to shut up) she says “you should have a blog contest.”

Hmmmm.

So I walk away thinking “contest” and “get rid of unneeded beads” and somehow in the swirling universe that is my brain (I sorta picture it like the orbit around Earth’s atmosphere where we have all that space junk that’s constantly smashing into each other and mostly then it just disintegrates or burns up during re-entry) those two thoughts crashed into each other and I came up with the idea to have a “Give Away My Unused Beads” contest.

All you need to do to be entered is to leave a comment and a link to your blog showing this give away. I will draw a random name onJune 12th and that person will win a huge box of beads and beading supplies!

And when I say huge, I mean HUGE. Over the weekend, I started the great clean out. I’m only about halfway through and I already don’t have a box big enough for all the stuff. 

It’s possible my hobby may be a bit more about bead buying than it is about jewelry-making. Shhh…don’t tell anyone I said that out loud.

Anyway, I’ll be honest and say you’re probably not going to find a strand of “A” grade amethysts in there, but there will be plenty of great stuff including stones, glass, lots of findings, charms and surprises. I’m even picturing that this could be a continuing kind of thing where the winner takes what she wants from the box, then adds her own cast-offs and runs her own contest and sends it on to the next person and so on and so on, etc.

Maybe I’ll post some pictures of some of the items between now and June 12th, but not too many. I think most of the fun of this for the winner will be to receive the box and get to dig through all the “treasure” and not know what they will find.

So, ready, set, GO!

KJ

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

SHE"S SO PRETTY


4 light blue etched lampwork beads
Silver spacers
Amazonite 
Sterling silver clasp

RUSTIC CHARM


9 Lampwork beads
4 copper spacers
4 wood nuggets
seed beads
handmade clasp
7.5 inches

Monday, June 8, 2009

BEAD SWAP


The benefits of a bead swap...

...are that you get entirely new products/things to play with. For example, I told you that Pam Ferrari sent me a wonderful stash of beads, in which she included a couple wonderful handmade dichroic glass cabochons. I just started doing beadweaving a couple of weeks ago, and decided to use the cabochon as the centerpiece for a hair clip that my sister has been wanting for a while. Well, here's the clip, and you can see Pam's cabochon in the center. I hope you like it and thanks again Pam.
P.S. Here are some other goodies that I've done recently:

TIFFANY

Sunday, June 7, 2009

RAKU OBSESSION


Two of my lampwork beads mixed with wood nuggets and seed beads in green and purple
7.5 inches

Saturday, June 6, 2009

SAPPHIRE EYES


Wood and etched dark blue lampwork beads wire wrapped with brass chain and handmade clasp.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

THE GARDEN



The garden is growing. I have a few cherry tomatoes on one plant. My friend wanted corn so I put two rows of corn will see how that goes. It's been alot of fun. 

Monday, June 1, 2009

AQUA SLIDER


A fun colorful bracelet with my large hole slider beads and a hollow lampwork bead,  handmade silver clasp
7.5 inches