She's Copying Me......

Holy jumping jelly beans!  It's been such a long time since my last post....I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.  August was a busy month preparing to do our annual inventory at the shop--can you imagine????--4 days of counting every last bag and bead.  Only with the crystals did we get antsy...we have about 600-700 containers of crystals that were counted since we sell our crystals by the piece.  Ok..maybe the jump rings were a pain too!

September saw us doing a lot of yard work--ripping out the vegetable garden and starting to cut back all of the flower beds.  The end of the month we started with the LEAVES...and we're still working on those.

This month has seen us working on making our own Pumpkins, Acorns and Candy Corns and Pumpkin Pie slices out of polymer clay.

Now on to the main feature.....  A few weeks ago Gaea had a post about copying projects.  She randomly picked 5 people to send out 3 of her lovely beads to "copy" a project she made.

This is her project which the five of us were to copy.  I have to say...that this is the 1st time that I've seen Gaea's beads in person...and photographs do not do her beads justice!  They're so luscious! 

Ok...here it is.  My version of Gaea's bracelet.  I made a necklace and wanted to make it long enough to wear with cowl-neck sweaters this winter.   I made the pendant using 24g sheet copper and ran it through the Cuddlebug.  The folder has an art nouveau swirl pattern.  I hammered out part of the design.  I then dabbed on white acrylic paint and then dabbed on alcohol inks and got the perfect color to match with Gaea's beads.  I then sanded off some of the ink to let the copper show through.  I stamped in the word "Dream" and then filled in a bit with Enamel Gel pens.  The neck strap is copper chain, Czech glass, bone beads and dyed red quartz rondelles.  These are all knotted onto an aqua cord on one side with a smattering of the red on the opposite side.  I love this triangle chain...it's light yet chunky.  The little drop on the bottom incorporates the little red rondelles and a dyed crackled quartz briolette.  All of the beads are from my personal stash while the chain is from the shop.

I loved doing this challenge since it's something that I try to teach my customers...use your imagination--you do not have to have the exact beads or components to make something that is in a magazine or a book...it is all about inspiration.

I hope that everyone had fun creating their pieces. 
Please visit Gaea's blog for the list of the other participants and their creations!

Bead Happy!
Michelle