This weekend have been mostly...

...making jewellery. Before cross stitch or Knitting came into my life, I made jewellery. As a teenager, I made very 80s earrings and bracelets and its the first crafty thing that I remember buying the supplies for myself.

Over the years, its come in handy for presents and to make something that's just right for a special occasion. A lot of the pieces I make tend to go to my mum and sister. On Friday, I went with my mum and aunt to the local craft and stitching show and my mum saw some red and crystal beads that she thought would go perfectly with an outfit that she has made for herself for a special occasion that she is going to. So I offered to make a choker, bracelet and earring set from them.







Whilst I was on a jewellery making roll, I thought I would use the left over beads plus some others from my bead stash to make a few more things plus a long overdue beaded watch that I had promised my sister and also one for her MIL.


















The weather has been pretty miserable here so it has been a mostly indoor weekend except for visits to the supermarket and the gym. This week I'm really looking forward to the second part of a class that I'm taking at a local craft shop. The class is about learning to use resin in jewellery for making pendants and other items. Last week we learnt how to make up the resin, how to pour it into moulds and how to imbed items in the resin. This week we are learning finishing techniques.

Finishing and fimo

I seem to have quite a lot of unfinished things and ideas for various other crafty things at present but time isn't as plentiful as I need it to be. I spent a fair part of Thursday cutting up paper and card for my sister's wedding invitations and I'm happy to say I'm at about the halfway point of getting them done.
Having spent quite a bit of time on them, I then didn't feel any guilt on spending the rest of Thursday working on things for me. First off, I dug out some fimo which has been hanging about my flat for a while. I love stitched pieces with buttons so I thought I would try out making some myself. I found some tiny cutters in my local craft shop and this is the result.



The bigger shapes are, I think, destined to be needle magnets. The little flower bouquets are something that I just wanted to try.

I also got two things framed up using some bargain wood frames from Ikea and some leftover paint. The blue one is the colour of my bathroom lol. I would have more framed stuff to show but the place I order frames and mounts from, phoned me on Friday to say that my frames had arrived but one was damaged so they would need to get another.





And finally, there is this little ornament. Shamefully I stitched it in July 2002 but I had no clue at the time how to make it into a round ornament. Recently I used some metal finishing forms for the first time and voila I realised I could get it finished into an ornament. Around the edges, I've used some rats tail cord to trim it and make a hanger.


My to be finished off pile is starting to reduce in size lately. I still have a couple of stocking to make up and about another 12 or so things to do non framed finishing with. I think I might be spending a lot of time reading Focus on finishing that Karen and Anne have set up. It looks like a brilliant resource.