Resin and Glitter Don't Always Make for a Good Combination

Have you ever had that uneasy feeling when you realise you've taken on more projects than you can comfortably juggle? I have so many projects on the go in the studio at the moment that my workspace is overflowing with works in progress. And some of these projects just shouldn't be worked on at the same time. I mean, glitter and resin are normally a great combination but when you are making man cave resin coasters, hot pink glitter is not the choice material to have floating around the studio! Of course, it isn't helping that I'm flitting backwards and forwards between the girly project in one corner of my studio and the mancave project in the other. But I'm on a very tight time frame to meet a commission deadline and have to squeeze it all in so I am painstakingly removing these pesky specks one by one. What was I thinking working on these two projects at the same time? The good news is that apart from the stray glitter, the man cave project is going really w...

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A French Affaire - Pearls for the Girls!

Over the next month I'll be working with glass pearls a lot. You see, my youngest sister will soon be celebrating a milestone birthday and I'm so excited to be organising her party. She dreams of one day travelling to Paris but as that's not on the cards just at the moment, we will be bringing France to her! To help make it an affair to remember, there will be a handmade pearl bracelet for every female who is attending, made by moi! So here's the first one, classic black and white: Ideally, I'd be using 1mm stretch elastic to string the glass pearls for this bracelet but because there is only a single hole on the back of the rose and I'm stringing a double stranded bracelet, I'm using 0.5mm. Finished size: Internal diameter 65mm (2 5/8") approximately So here's what you'll need: Six 4mm, four 6mm and thirtyeight 8mm white glass pearls Four 2-hole silver and diamonte rhinestone spacer bars Black resin rose (mine is approximately 3...

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Resin Floral Bracelet - a Simple but Timeless Design

I've been playing around with dried flowers and resin in the studio lately and one of the pieces I made is the pretty floral focal in the bracelet below. You can learn how to make pieces like this in the Resin Jewellery Workshop (held monthly in my studio). The flower-on-flower look is rather sweet and it only needs a simple stringing design to highlight how pretty it is. I chose watermelon pink glass pearls and just a hint of green to play up the floral nature of the bead. Whilst you most likely don't have a similar resin component on hand, don't let that stop you from recreating this simple design - just choose a focal bead with WOW! factor and beads that complement it. Here's what you'll need: a knockout focal bead of your choice 6 coordinating 8mm beads (I used 4 rounds and 2 bicones from Cousin Corp)  14 #8 seed beads 68 4mm glass pearls  2 3mm metal spacer beads.  You'll also need: 7 eye pins 2 #2 crimp tubes 2 crimp covers 2 wire guar...

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