SSI Retreat Workshops

I've been invited to guest tutor at the upcoming Southside Stampers Inc retreat so I've been a very busy girl over the past few weeks designing projects for the campers. I've been working on something a little different for the workshops as we have much more time to complete the projects than in a regular class. So if you're coming along to camp and DON'T want to see what we'll be working on, then look away now! For those of you who couldn't resist, here's a sneak peek of the 2 projects we'll be working on. Of course, this is just a tease and the whole project will be unveiled on the weekend of the retreat! This is the inside view of the first project. I found these great little vials that were just begging to be repurposed - they once contained coloured art sand but they were perfect for this project. No peeking at the outside though - it's under wraps but this is where we'll get creative with tyvek. And this is just a little peek at the sec...

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How to make jump rings

After posting the step-by-steps for the bee garden bracelet, France asked for a bigger pic of the jump ring mandrel. So here it is: This jump ring maker is from Beadalon . It makes (from left) 8mm, 7mm, 6mm and 4mm. It's also available in 16mm, 14mm, 12mm and 10mm and there is an oval jump ring maker available too. I thought I'd add a tutorial on how to make your own jump rings too. It's not a difficult thing to do but sometimes it's helpful to have pictures. The advantage of making your own is being able to choose the gauge of the wire as well as the diameter of the rings and of course, you can choose a colour to match your project! First, gather what you need: wire, flush cutters and the jump ring maker. For making jump rings, you must use flush cutters rather than wire cutters so that you get a flat cut across the wire and not a pointed cut. Choose the mandrel according to the size jump ring you need for your project and screw it into the base. Begin by ins...

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Bees in the Flower Garden bracelet

It's been a couple of months since I last posted any jewellery so today I want to share a bracelet I made on Sunday. I came across Bead Worx at Harbour Town (on the Gold Coast) last week where I found these neat yellow, brown and white glass beads. Don't they remind you of bees?! So I scouted through all the hundreds of jars of beads lined up on the shelves until I found some flower beads that I thought would work with them. I also added a few cats eye beads in lemon yellow and some miracle beads in a rich shade of brown. I liked this combination of colours and shapes but neither gold nor silver worked with it (except for those tiny little gold bead caps which add a nice flash of contrast!). Antique copper was a much better choice but as I didn't have any pre made chain in that colour, I made a simple chain from jump rings as the base to attach the flowers and beads to. The second row of jump rings has made the bracelet really strong and it was quick to make because the pat...

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Tape on a Chain

Here's a neat idea I saw in one of my classes today. You've heard of "soap on a rope", well one of the ladies in my class came up with her own version: " tape on a chain ". She'd been having trouble keeping track of all her rolls of tape so she bundled them all together on a length of ball chain and now finds it really easy to locate her tape. I thought this was such a neat idea as you can open the connector and add another roll or remove a finished one and then close it back up to keep it all together. I love this idea - finally, a solution for my own desk where rolls of tape just seem to disappear under the mounds of paper and ephemera. Credit goes to Margaret Jobbings for sharing this great idea - thanks Margaret! P.S. I found these at my local newsagency - Rexel 10 pack of Neck Chains!...

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Paperific

Look what Kristine the Krafty Lady found on the Paperific website! That's me demoing on her stand at the Trade Event at Paperific last year. I travelled down to Melbourne especially for the event (and it was a blast). Excuse the tired and weary face though - I caught the red-eye from Brisbane early that morning and only arrived in Melbourne in time to do the set up. I'd brought along many of the samples I'd made for Krafty Lady over the past year for display around the booth and my good buddy France in WA had sent across a lot of her samples too. I've admired her work from afar so it was great to see so many of her pieces in real life. Between us we had almost completely covered the walls of the booth (except for that one wall at the back of the photo!) and it looked pretty fab. There were also many samples that were displayed on the table I was working on. See that tiny little patch of space in front of me - well, that's about all I have to work with in my studio ...

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Bead storage idea

Organising my studio got off to a great start earlier this year when I put together some Ikea storage units which now house much of the clutter I had lying around on my studio floor. At the moment I'm working on some storage ideas to house all the bits and pieces that clutter my desk and this will be an on going challenge. Given that I'm not a tidy person and the 30cm of clear space on my workspace seems to be shrinking as the clutter threatens to completely engulf it, I thought I'd start working on some of the things that need containment. I have a growing collection of beads and jewellery findings in a variety of colours and metals and I keep these in round plastic containers which screw into each other to create stacks. I have rows of these cannisters (just plain and undecorated) and they fit nicely when laid side by side in my Effektiv drawer units and it's easy to identify the contents because they're clear. But they are rather boring to look at, so I decorated...

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