New Necklace

For my sister's birthday, she asked me to make her a necklace. She told me she wanted a bib style necklace and I had to remind myself what those were. I had an idea in mind and after some short research, I found out that what I had in mind was exactly what she wanted. I didn't realize that bib necklaces were the popular thing nowadays. There are so many designs out there as well. I am particularly fond of the styles using chain and leather or suede. There's something about that combination that really appeals to me.

Shopstyle.com has a nice selection that I perused to get some ideas for my sister's necklace. They have necklaces from many different stores with a variety of styles.

Here is the necklace that I made for my sister:



I think I'll make one similar for my ETSY store soon. I only have one thing left to do with the commission so as soon as that is done, I can focus on items for my store!

That's all for now. Time to get ready to go work with the kids and then a night out on the town to go see Death Note: L, Change the World!

Cheers,
~Beka

Easy Beaded Barrette Base

Hello folks!

I've really missed you all and appreciate the occasional traffic through my blog and my ETSY store. I can't wait to get back into the full swing of things after all this house buying business is over!

For now, I have a little "How to" on making a simple beaded base for standard 3" metal barrettes in case anyone was interested. The bead pattern has a gunmetal trim with a red inner stripe. I greatly apologize for the bad pictures. My camera has decided to not work as well as it used to and I'm having a harder time getting clear pictures. My husband and I do plan on buying a new camera soon though. :)


Materials:
*3" silver metal barrette-you can find these in most craft stores or even for sale on ETSY.com
*26 gauge silver metal jewelry wire-I like this because even though it is a little bigger, it holds really well
*Wire cutters
*Needle Nose Pliers
*size 6/0 glass seed beads in one or two different colors
*Your hands!



*First, you will want to cut about 3 feet of 26 gauge silver metal jewelry wire. Next, you will want to fold it in half and thread one side through one of the ends of the barrette. Make sure that the wire is resting as far back as you can go. This will help eliminate unevenness.



*Then, you will need to thread on two seed beads on each end like in the picture. This will create a solid line band of that color.



*Now, take the right wire end and thread it through the beads on the left side. Do the same with the left wire. You should end up with each end sticking out the opposite side like in the picture.



*Pull the wire through all the way to secure the beads to the barrette. Congratulations! You have just made your first line!



*Next, you will want to take each wire and thread them through the under part of the barrette so the ends come out the opposite sides.



*For the next line, you will need to add a different color to get that middle stripe. You will need to thread one seed bead of the base color on each side and then one seed bead of a different color (in my case, red) on each side.



*Like before, thread the right wire end through the beads on the left side. Do the same with the left wire.



*Now, pull to secure.



*Thread the wires underneath the barrette again like before and repeat the last 2 steps until you have 14 rows with the color center stripe. The 15th row should be another solid stripe of the base color so instead of threading on one of each color, just thread on two of the same color on each wire. When finished, thread the ends through one or two of the criss-crossed wires underneath and tuck in with a pair of needle nose pliers. Now, these barrettes are ready to be embellished with larger bead flowers, feathers, ribbon, etc.

Any questions? Let me know! I'm happy to help.

Enjoy!

Cheers,
Beka

Free Time!

Good news everyone! My husband and I sold our home and we're about to make an offer on one we really love! This means that I have some free time to get back to my art desk! (yay!) It's been so long since we started this whole process and it's left little time for fun things unfortunately but now that part is over.

Currently, I'm working on finishing up the large commission I mentioned before. I will post up process pics very soon. One item from that lot will be featured and I'll work out a series of pics to explain it's process and how you could make one too!

I also have some jewelry pieces that are ready to be put together and a series of matchbook notebooks that are almost ready to be put up in my ETSY shop: enchantedbybeka.etsy.com. I'm very excited to get them finished and listed!

Just a short post for now but more will soon come!

Cheers,
~Beka

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

We're almost done with this whole staging process for the house and it will be up on the market this Friday. I feel like I can breathe again. *laughs* We've been going nonstop for a few weeks now, getting everything cleaned and packed. We had the Realtor come today to do a final walkthrough to make sure that everything looked good and it does. The photographer comes tomorrow to take pictures and then all we'll have to do is keep the house clean! Woo!

I was able to get back to my art desk for awhile to work on things for my ETSY shop again. It felt like ages since I was able to do any work and it was nice to work with my hands again. I took a picture of what part of my desk looks like at the moment. I have a butterfly bracelet made from antique materials up at the top that will go up on the ETSY shop soon. It's the light version and the dark version will come soon. I just started the base construction for a new necklace there which is why it's bare and doesn't have a space for a clasp yet. I wanted to get the overall style construction done first so I could start to visualize bead colors, shapes, sizes, etc. I think I'll go for some nice pastel colors with black glass pearls to offset the pastel shades and bring some edgy-ness to the necklace. Haven't decided what to name it yet. Have any ideas?

Cheers,
~Beka