Shadows Earrings Kit Giveaway - And the Winner is........

Happy Monday readers! I hope you've all downloaded the complimentary project from my latest book, Fabulous Jewelry from Findings . It's made entirely from the cute little daisy-shaped jewellery findings. If you haven't downloaded the printable pdf yet, it's still available from my website . And now, it's time to announce the three lucky winners from last week's giveaway who will each receive a kit to make the Shadows Earrings. Random.Org provided the random winners who are: Jenny Caesar Janet Green and Lauren Michelle Taylor Congratulations ladies! Please message me with your postal details via Facebook and I'll have a Shadows Earrings Kit on its way to you soon. Keep an eye out for another giveaway in the coming weeks. And of course, keep up to date with the "Wedding Collection" projects from the Creative Bride as they go live each week. 'Til next time..... Want to learn how to make awesome jewellery like this...

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The Wedding Collection - DIY Table Seating Plan

Today we continue the Wedding Collection - a collection of crafts put together by the Creative Bride in our household. For the table seating plan, the wedding stylist had offered us the use of a very sleek modern mirror on an ornate stand to post the table seating arrangements. It was very pretty but really not in keeping with the theme or style of the wedding at all. So Michaela set off to the thrift stores in search of something more vintage-looking. What she had in mind was a picture with an ornate frame. Her search didn't yield the fancy frame she had hoped for but she did find a large, old print with a wooden frame that was in pretty good condition and at $5, it was a steal! Armed with a can of metallic gold spray paint, she removed the print and the backing from the frame and spray painted it to tie it into the burgundy and gold theme. All that was left to do was create a document with the seating arrangement on it, size it to fit the frame and have it printed at ...

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A Giveaway, a Free Project and a Book Trailer - Fabulous Jewelry from Findings

When my second book, Fabulous Jewelry from Findings was released, Amazon didn't offer the "Look Inside" feature for the book so I've created a short book trailer that takes a peek at some of the beautiful projects inside to give you an idea of what this book is all about. I'd love you to take a moment to watch it. To mark the release of Fabulous Jewelry from Findings, I have a complimentary project from the book for you, called "Shadows Earrings". Made with daisy spacers of graduated sizes, the combination of antiqued silver and bright silver spacers makes the earrings both playful and sophisticated. Click here for the printable pdf instructions for the project. But that's not all! Three lucky readers will also win a kit with all the supplies you need to make up the design. Here's how you can enter: Leave a comment on this post (along with your email address so I can contact you if you win),  Like the competition post on m...

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Wedding Reception Table Numbers with Pizazz

Today, we continue our creative bride's journey as she creates the handmade details that made her wedding a memorable affair. Table numbers are essential to help guests locate their seat at the reception. Once again, Michaela wanted something more unique than what was being offered by the wedding stylist. With their  official engagement photos only recently taken, she and her fiancé decided to create memorable table number using these photos. Her plan was to have the table number on the front and choose a selection of their engagement photos to go on the back. But she didn't want them just glued on; she wanted them to be transferred on. So here's how she went about it. We forgot to take photos of this process but there are many tutorials online which show you how to do it. Here's one from DIY Cozy Home that she liked. Here's how Michaela described the process: Preparing the Timber I bought a long plank of pine and cut it to size. We ended up with aroun...

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Straightening and Organising Head Pins and Eye Pins

There's nothing more annoying than running out of  head pins or eye pins in the middle of a project. Sometimes I buy them in bulk to avoid that happening and whilst it can save a bundle of money, it can bring with it the extra effort of having to straighten them if they are mangled inside the package. And you can't always tell that from the outside of the pack. It's not until you open it that you might find they look more like the photo below. So my job today is to straighten out the kinks on the mangled ones hidden amongst them. Sometimes you can just run the pin through nylon jaw pliers but for ones with kinks like these or if your pins are made of a heavier gauge, you need to get rid of the kinks first. My method is to place the bent part into the jaws of my flat nose pliers and press down firmly. You can see how it has flattened that kink quite well. Once you've removed the major kinks, then you can run the pin through the nylon jaw pliers to straigh...

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Geometric Wedding Reception Place Card Holders

  Today we continue the "Wedding Collection" - a series of posts about the handmade details that made my daughter's wedding a very personalised affair. In this post we look at place cards for the reception. Our creative bride wanted something more than the standard tent-folded place cards being offered by the wedding stylist. She had a sophisticated, yet simple idea in mind - a triangular piece of wood which would emphasize the geometric chevron pattern on the table runners. A slit on top will hold the place cards. The project seemed straightforward enough: cut timber into triangles, cut the slit, paint the outside white and the ends with gold paint. I mean, how hard could it be? Well, as it turns out it wasn't hard at all..... but in our haste, we did manage to make hard work of it! It all started out well. Using this post from the Ruffled blog as a starting point, she found some timber moulding with a triangular profile at the hardware store - perfect! ...

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