Art Deco Inspired Wedding Jewellery Featuring Long Bugle Beads

If you follow me on Facebook , you will have had a little sneak peek of the jewellery components I'm using for my daughter's upcoming wedding. I'll be sharing these pieces with you after the wedding but in the meantime, here are some pieces I designed for another very special bride, a friend who lives half way across the world in Chicago. She has chosen emerald for her bridesmaid's dresses. The Maid of Honour's dress is strapless and features a pleated panel that fans out like a sunray at the waist whilst the sunray is featured at the neckline of the Bridesmaid's dresses. Her brief was to incorporate the sunray into the jewellery. Here's how I interpreted her vision. Firstly, for the Maid of Honour, I created a multi layered pendant featuring extra long gold bugle beads arranged in a semi circle, edged with Swarovksi bicones in Aurum and Emerald. The central focal consists of two layers of gold german filigrees which are encrusted with Swarovski crys......

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Mould Making Do's and Don'ts

Putting your craft skills to work is a great way to add one-of-a-kind personal touches to any special occasion. In our household, we're busy preparing for a wedding and being a crafty pair, my daughter and I decided to incorporate some handmade details to add that extra pizazz to her special day. One of the projects we're tackling is the bonbonnieres. Hers will feature a handmade polymer clay tag with a sentiment on it. It's a big undertaking to make 100 so to speed things up, we made a mould from silicone rubber. But before we get into making the mould, we created a master tag by following Marie Segal's tutorial from Art from my Heart. Marie suggests looking in the Mexican aisle for the alphabet noodles she uses to create her sentiments. In Australia, I found them in the Italian aisle. But no matter where you are in the world, look for something like San Remo's Soup Pasta . Begin by conditioning the clay and then place it between the wooden stir sticks an......

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Take a Virtual Tour Through Mill Lane Studio

Are you like me, always looking for new or better ways to store your craft supplies? Isn't it interesting to peek into the studios of other creatives to see how they organise their supplies? It's fun to see how they decorate their space and see what storage systems work for them - after all, organising is a neverending task. Don't you love it when you glean a little storage or organisation tip that might help in your own crafting area? The BEST Craft Organizer system is excellent for storing beads Today, I invite you into my studio so you can learn some of the little tips that keep all my supplies organised. Cut Out + Keep take you on a virtual tour of my workspace whilst I talk about the trick that makes my studio look clutter free and how I store my supplies to keep them under control. I can tell you it doesn't always look so tidy but it does function well as both a studio and a classroom. I hope you'll find some helpful tips for keeping things in order in......

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