Introducing New Bracelets

I've been thinking a while how I could create a beautiful bracelet using mostly paper. There are many decoupage or paper bead tutorials available out there but it didn't really fit what I was looking for. I've tried making paper beads and it takes a much more talented and patient person than I am so I gave up there. I didn't want to use blank wooden bangles because people have varying wrist sizes and I felt that I would have to have tons of blank bangle stock to fulfill orders for people with all those varying wrist sizes so I kind of used those tutorials and made it my own. The base of the bracelets are 2 layers of chipboard and then once the bracelets are glued and varnished, the final product is quite sturdy yet malleable at the same time.

I'm loving it and have been rocking mines on the weekends.

New Idea for Earrings

I've been rocking on with my paper earrings and pumping out designs, but I've been thinking about using transparency plastic in making some of my earrings. So I'm not sure if you can see it in this picture, but I used a gradient for the paper part of the earring and printed a swirly design on the transparency portion and overlayed it on the paper gradient portion. I really like the result. I think the overlay makes the swirls stand out more than if I had just printed them onto the gradient.

We'll see how they do, but I love them, going to be rockin' a pair to the market today.

Crafting Bender

Last night or should I say this morning, I went on a bender...a crafting bender. Made earrings from midnight to about 7 am. Sometimes, when that creative feeling hits you, you just have to ride it out. It was awesome, when I did finally fall asleep at about 7:30 this morning, got up at about 11:30 but felt refreshed and awesome. Love it.

When Inspiration Hits You!

I always wonder where people get inspiration for creating their items. I never really thought about it before because things would kind of just come to me or I would just put things together that I like or would wear. I was kind of in a creative slump so to say. I felt all creative juices had dried up. I emailed one of my friends and said HELP!!! I need some inspiration. Tell me what you like or kind of jewelry that appeals to you, yadda yadda. She responded with an answer that sounds like it could have been me answering. On a side note, no wonder she's my friend, we like the same things. lol.

Then I was watching animal planet...or the bf was watching animal planet on some special about the Amazon and BAM! It hit me. They were showing scenes of some beautiful colorful macaws in the branches of the Amazonian trees. I was thinking wow, that's beautiful! And all of a sudden I felt inspired. It was like a huge creative spurt that caused me to make like 25 earrings in 1 1/2 hours. I was in the zone. I had tunnel vision. And it must have been so because the bf asked me a question and I didn't even respond and he had to repeat himself and roll his eyes. Lol. He said I was obsessed...and so what? Maybe I was, but as the saying goes, "Strike while the iron is hot!"