RAW update!

http://www.rawartists.org/wingsnscales

Hi Everybody, 

I have been hand-selected by RAW:natural born artists to show my work at their next artist showcase in Sacramento called COMMUNIQUE, but I need your help!

The event will be held at Ace of Spades, 1417 R St on Thursday, August 14th at 7:30pm. The event is 21+ and the dress code is cocktail attire. 

I'm writing to you to ask for your support to be a part of this amazing event! Not only can this event help me network with other great local artists and expose me to 700+ attendees, it can help me expand nationally as well. Here's how: 

RAW is providing me with a video interview and b-roll footage of the event, as well as head shots and photos of my display to help me to further promote myself independently. 

I'll be eligible to win the RAW artist of the year award locally, and have an opportunity to compete against other city winners for the national title to [perform/showcase] at the RAWards award show & ceremony in LA. 

AND I will have an opportunity to showcase again OUT-OF-STATE at any other RAW location of my choice!

All I have to do is sell 20 tickets to help promote the event. Your support would be greatly appreciated. The tickets are only $15 and need to be sold by Thursday, August 7th in order for me to participate. If you buy them from me you also save $5 because they go up to $20 at the door. 

You can purchase tickets right from my RAW artist profile: 

http://www.rawartists.org/wingsnscales

If you are not available to attend that night, you can still purchase a ticket to support me and my work. This will open up a guest list spot for me to invite someone who can attend [clients, record label owner, gallery owner, etc.]

I am currently running a special just for those who purchase tickets on my behalf.  You will receive a 50% discount code plus a special surprise for my Etsy and Handmade Artist shops. If you live locally, and would rather get the discount on an event I am participating in, please let me know.

Thank you so much for your support, I couldn't do this without you! 

Christina Miles XOXO

Flight of the Dragonfly Challenge

I love dragonflies, they are so amazing to watch and a little scary when they buzz by your head if you are not expecting it.  I decided to join in on the Dragonfly challenge presented by KraftyMax on the Bead Soup Cafe Facebook group I belong to.  Not one design is the same in this challenge.  I decided to paint up my dragonfly.  I have 2 paintings, one I actually was able to finish before the cut off date. So here are the examples of my creation..This is a Blog/No Blog Hop, so those who have a blog to share I have listed them below my images..

I found these awesome beads at Beads On Main, its one of our local bead stores and she has some amazing stuff there...I also got the square link/connector which is beautiful!

I started to make the bead-work on the sides and didn't like how it was turning out, maybe 3 times I had to tear up the pieces I started to make.  I ended up using the glass cylinder beads and just love how it finally fit into place.

Before I put the bead work on and tightened it all up to fit both sides nice and snug, I glued a nice peace of leather on the back side.

And finally the sari silk was the last thing I added.  I made the J hook clasp and beaded up a little band around the wire which is wrapped around the silk that is looped around the end of the hook. Phew...that was a mouthful!  Hehe

This is a better view of the pendent.  You can see now where the word DRAGON is written and FLY, and the heart.  Now, see if you can find my signature...LOL

Here is a close up of the clasp, simple and does a nice job!  Its quite comfortable too.  Its made with blackened steel wire and I sealed it with some really good spray..sorry, too lazy to go find the brand name...LOL  I will get it later.  :-)

Finally another cabochon I painted for this challenge but didnt have enough time to get it finished.  I think this one turned out quite lovely.  It is painted with watercolors and sealed with resin.  It is still in the works and hope to finish it soon.  I struggled a lot with this pendent.  I am not all that experience at beadwork, I consider myself a beginner/intermediate beader.  I wound up being a tad too loose once I got to beading the upper half, but I found a way to tighten it, and I am quite pleased with the finished work..

I am very happy to announce that I am FINISHED with the second dragonfly.  I need to start naming my pieces.  I think it would be great if I had the wits to come up with some fun names...but no..I just am not all that good at it...Hmmm...I think I need to call my BFF in NY.

Wow...are you feeling the love???  This dragonfly looks grumpy though, but when I had a nice close up picture, that is really what their faces look like...those frowns...  Its hard to see in this picture, but the yellow beads I bought to match the body of the dragonfly.  The yellow and black beads were mixed on the strand and I just knew they would match quite well.  And those huge lavender beads...wow..to see them in person they are beautiful and add some magic to the dragonfly.

I went shopping the other day at Michaels, and found these great dragonfly pendents.  I thought...hmmm..I might use this sometime, and they were on sale..which is always a benefit! I didnt know I was actually going to use the pendent in my design, but when I finished the beadwork, it looked a little naked still..so yea, the dragonfly looks really nice.  I added some patina to kind of match the dragonfly painting.

I struggled some with the clasp...wasnt really wanting to make the J hook, but I did.  I refused to go to the bead store one more time...cuz you know you cant just buy one thing there...  So after I wrapped the wire around the fabric and leather...it still needed something to tie into the design...it was just too plain for me.  Then, the flower spoke to me...and I put it all together and it was done.. Ahhhhh...   The fabric, just so you know, came all the way from Ireland.  When hubby and I went there several years ago, I saw this fabric in one of their side shops..  I love how it shimmers, and being that at the time I was making lots of mermaid dolls, I thought this would be a great piece to bring home.  Funny thing is, I never used it to make any of my dolls yet..and that was probably...hmm...10 years ago now...maybe 8.  It is a purple fabric with a blue shimmer, perfect match!

You can visit my flickr page to see all the photos I have taken of my designs

Flickr

Thank you very much for stopping by and please take a peek at some of the other participants...

http://www.jewelschoolfriends.com/2014/06/the-411-on-cool-community-events-design.html

http://www.paisleylizard.com/blog.html

http://www.peru-medesigns.com/

http://bytameraleah.com/

http://skyescreativechaos.blogspot.com/

http://www.lamplightcrafts.blogspot.com/

8th Bead Soup Reveal - UPDATED

Wow...another soup has been created and ready to show off.

Lori Anderson has done it again with an amazing blog hop with some very talented jewelry designers.

I am so very thankful for my partner Christine for all the amazing beads she sent me.  Christine has 4 young men and really enjoys spending time with them.  She told me she now sells her jewelry in 5 local shops where she lives.  I am sure that keeps her quite busy... She loves vintage and creates many of her pieces with that old antique look and feel. I love the stuff, but really have not ventured into this area with jewelry making.  So this was a bit of a challenge for me at first.  I did some drawings, some I liked and some I didn't..  If you want to take a peek at the soup she gave me before I created the designs out of them, you can find them here.

So, here is my first creation...  I think I am going to redo this piece.  I am not totally happy with it.  I love LOVE the pendent and the leaf below it..which was made by Jeannie K Dukic of JKD Studio. I drilled two more holes in it so I could put the leaf below it.  I know I can do better with this pendent, but for some reason, I didn't have the vision.  You know how it goes when you don't have the visual idea in your head...  It will get there eventually...the AH HA moment...

As you see, the pendent is beautiful and the leaf is perfect for the pendent.

I really do like how this part of the necklace turned out.

I decided to use the wooden beads, but it makes the necklace really light in weight. I used wire, perhaps that is why I am not totally in love with the necklace.  I thought the wire would be a good mix, but I think that may be the problem...  I do like the sari silk and that I added the seed beads to it to spice it up some...

UPDATED NECKLACE

Ok, So I did something a little different...I thought I would try using these fun backgrounds I got from GraphicsStock.  Let me know what you think of the updated necklace. I took off the wire and used some nice heavy CLon thread and strung on the beads.  I made some bead caps with the really pretty drop beads.  I wanted to use them and just couldn't figure out what I was going to make with them.  So finally the light came on with this necklace.  I think its much better, fits nicer and has a little more pizzazz. I made a beaded bead using the same drop beads and put it in between the beads on the left side.  I also added more of the sari silk knots and beaded those up too.  I am now happy with the results.

This may not look a whole lot different, but believe me, its much nicer...

Close up of beaded  bead...this was not an easy to make bead...it looks nice, but what a challenge...I used right angle weave to make a cube, then beaded the drop beads in between each side. 

These fun bead caps were very easy to make...I just made a simple ring with seed beads then went back around and added to drop beads. I considered making them for both ends of the beads but then they didn't hang right on the coin beads.

For the second piece, it took me some time to figure this one out, but when the idea hit...it hit in full speed!

I just took this picture today. Natural lighting is always better to show off the true colors...I think it shows off the necklace a lot better.  You can really see the two different chains I used and all the beautiful beads... Christine has a good eye for bead soups...  :-)

Love this necklace.... I used two types of leaf chains, one which Christine gave me and one I have had for a long time and I guess I was waiting for the right time to use it.

I wire wrapped the beads onto the chain.  Used the large green magnetite bead for the end bead.  This gives it the nice balance in weight.

I found this ribbon at Sams Club which was on clearance from Easter...I love clearance stuff...who doesn't?  SO, I cut it up and made a kumihimo braid out of it for the back half of the necklace... Glued the ends and added the caps and wire...  The kumihimo braid is a bit thick but I think it fits this piece rather well.  If it was thinner, I think it would not have felt right when its worn..

Look at this awesome clasp!  I love it...  At first I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, I don't usually use large clasps... then as I was browsing through some magazines...that...OH YEA...now I know what I am going to do...I wanted to make a lariat.  I have never made one before and it was time I did!  I laid out the beads and chain and got to work.  First though I had to attach the clasp.  It weighs down the necklace enough that it fits nicely.  The large bead fit perfectly through the hole of the clasp so I knew this was going to work for what I had in my head...  :-)

See how pretty this looks...

The colors were a perfect match for me.  You know how you can have that mental block on certain colors...well, I get that with certain colors of beads...guess I need to get past that some day...LOL

I know I know...the colors of the bead look slightly different..Well, I had to use my older camera to take the pic...so it didn't quite make the lime green pop...they are beautiful beads...

YUM!

Ok, I think you are really going to love this next piece... I am not sure if its my favorite or if the necklace is my favorite...but its quite yummy..

Now this is probably the toughest design I came up with.  Not that it was hard to make, it was more like...what the heck do I do with those amazing antique buttons!!!  I wanted so bad to put them in the right place in the design and to have them pop out somehow.  This was my biggest challenge I think.  It was the last piece I made.  First I made the bracelet...I love it...I love how it fits but...it was a tad loose.  So, I had to do some brain storming and finally I decided to use the sari silk.  Well... I didn't want it to be attached to the bracelet so I then remembered in the back of my head how one of the FB members made these great leather clasps with snaps. (Jean Campbell???)..well, mine are not as pretty, but I think the set turned out ok after 2 attempts...I used heavy gauge wire for the connection parts...the j hook and the end it hooks on.  I need to take a better picture so you can see what I mean...  :-)

See the beautiful pendent...its a vintage button glued onto a filigree backing...LOVE..

I used a flower chain I had received from ZnetShows which I took apart and re-attached. I wire wrapped the vintage diamond buttons into the center of the larger metal flower, then attached the smaller flower to the bottom of the larger flower.

I attached the small leaf beads to a ring and then put it in-between the beads.

Here is another view of the other side.

See how pretty this turned out...  

Here is the close up of the clasp I made.  I worked out fairly well through trial and error.  I used a regular ole tiny hole punch to put holes in the leather.  I didn't even need to glue anything down.  I am not a heavy fan of using glue in jewelry, but I do if it is necessary.

UPDATED

I wanted to share another bracelet I made with my soup mix...  I really like how this one turned out even though it is quite simple.  Sometimes simple is the best way to go... 

This is the same necklace I put on a background graphic I got from GraphicsStock.  I used the beautiful green beads from my soup and some really pretty agate rocks from our local rock store...I really like the greens, blues and purples mixed in.  I made the claps from heavy gauge copper.  

Thanks once again Lori Anderson for this awesome Bead Soup Blog Party...  Please check out her blog to see the list of all the FANTASTIC jewelry designers... You dont want to miss out!

Here is a link to my  page that has the entire list

Cabochons

Well, I think I got the right mix of things now with my newest creations, Cabs!  Cabochons have been very interesting to me these days and I have seen sooo many beautiful ways to make them.  I decided I would put my own touch into making these little creations.  I have had several rejects which I will share with you here...  But now that I think I have it going good, I went ahead and listed them on my etsy which I will give you the links below

This is my first piece. It looks great, but is too thin...but its still a nice piece.

This is really pretty but when I put the resin on top, I did it wrong and the resin ended up being really thick and has a lip on it that I need to remove.

Basically I still have these 3 pieces.  The orange starfish I made into a pendent and its going to be on a beautiful necklace which you will get to see soon..  I promise, it will be well worth the wait!

In the first batch, I lost 2 pieces due to the resin leaking past the tape.  I learned later from an awesome group of ladies on a facebook group I belong to, how to do the resin the correct way.  Phew!  So glad to have beading buddies!

What I do, is hand draw on the piece with pencil, shade it in with pencil, add the water colors, then spruce it up some with white acrylic paint and a hint of ink pens.  Heat set them and put a layer of resin on top to add that extra shine and it also helps with the durability of the cab.  I tried 3 different brands of clay.  One, which I have to order is the Kato clay...love it!  Second is the Craft Clay which is the Michaels brand...HATE IT! and Sculpy 3 which works really well but is not quite strong, but I do like how easy it is to work with.  I have used Sculpy clay for a long time with just other stuff, but not as a cabochon.  I think since I dont have to order the clay and its easily found at Michaels, I will just continue to use this.  I will do a clay comparison later..

So, now for the final fun creations... Now available on my Etsy shop...

Pink Starfish

Sunrise Whale

Sunset Whale