work in progress

Here are 2 necklaces I made today, only half done as I'm planning to glue mini flower cabochons onto the filigrees. My shipment of supplies will be arriving some time this week, have bought quite a few of smaller sized flowers (hint: adorable!), can't wait!

I really like this design, looks a bit Christmassy don't you think?

Which is the irony of it, because these will only be up for sale in January, hmm...

I'm absolutely bad at keeping up with trends, I never follow them and my pieces seem to be way off the season (I like the non-conformity of it) ;)

but I'm extremely delighted to have found out the Pantone 2011 Colour of the Year is

honeysuckle!

woohoo... one of my favourites, such a sweet fine blend of pink and red.

now with this I hope it will keep me trendy & in style, whatever you call it ;)

christmas!

time flies and the annual year end rush is here again.

christmas in malaysia = extremely crowded malls + massive traffic jam everywhere.

(yes, we asians simply love spending hours at malls!)

My house is in the midst of a cluster of hugely popular malls, to the extent that shoppers park their cars behind my house . Getting out of the house this holiday season means heading straight to all day long traffic congestion :)

Anyway, this isn't the point of this blog post (though I seem to have written quite a bit, i'm easily distracted!), here are such awesome gift wrapping ideas, the best I have seen this year!

source

If I were to receive something wrapped like this, nevermind the content, most likely I wouldn't open it, too pretty!

Merry Christmas! ♥ 

ask and ye shall be given

I have a knack for stories, I like reading the lives and experiences of ordinary people, which leads me to books like Chicken Soup. My mum bought me the teenage ones & another called 'tough stuff' when I was younger. The other day I re-read Cup of Comfort: for Christians (mum bought this 4 years ago when I wasn't a Christian yet but I enjoyed reading it anyway) and I casually mentioned I would like to buy Chicken Soup for Christians, while lamenting how expensive it was (books are generally expensive here in Malaysia!)

published in 1997

No, I didn't get it in the end, I don't feel rich yet ;)

Couple days later mum was dusting the shelves and out of the corner of my eye I saw Chicken Soup for the Unsinkable Soul. I have totally forgotten about this, it was given to me by dad's colleague during a tough time in life. Didn't matter that it wasn't what I specifically wanted, I felt like a little prayer of mine is answered, hallelujah! (I didn't even pray actually, I always feel things like these are too small matters for prayers. I certainly have got more to learn, the fact that He knows when a strand of hair falls from my head, nothing is too insignificant then)

Like mum said 'see? ask and it shall be given!'

Like I said, I did not ask, but He knows better ;)

friday

Had a belated birthday buffet lunch with my friends today. I stuffed myself so much that I was too full for dinner (sin of gluttony?). I seldom go for buffets as I'm a small eater, buffets are simply a waste of money for me :) which is good in a way, less guilty pleasures!

I told my friends not to get me presents this year as most of the time I have no need/use for them, save the $$. I did receive some mini candy canes though, how cute! Oh, and a huge handmade card too with sweet messages written all over, that meant much more to me than a store bought plushie or teddy bear :)

am glad I don't have a sweet tooth, this would have sent me straight to the dentist if I were to finish all!

After the heavy lunch, I made this customized bracelet for a local customer. I'm not too fond of silver actually, preferring the rustic old charm of antique brass but it was a refreshing change to work with different materials once in a while :)

 

I really like the teeny weeny heart charms that dangle from the chain, how I wish I have them in antique brass too, that would be so cool!

Off to source.... Have a nice weekend!

november round up

November's been great, on the local front I had a big order that had me working harder than usual, coupled with a few etsy purchases in time for christmas, that was the icing on the cake! =)

13 new pieces and now my store has page 4, i take every step as an achievement.

Thank you for an amazing month, I am grateful!
 

soar

I like looking at hand stamped jewellery, but if you were to offer me one I would have no idea what to 'stamp' on it. I'm not one who likes to wear my name on my neck, not fond of family names either, probably a favourite Scripture (that would be hard too as I have too many favourites), but then again Scriptures are way too long to fit into a tiny little pendant.

Finally, I found one I really like, here it is:

Necklace found here  @ The Rusted Chain

The word 'soar' has a special place in my heart, "soaring on wings like eagles", so goes Isaiah :)

I was loaned a book on eagles by a friend in church, it talks about how majestic eagles are, and how they soar above the storm (literally). 

Admittedly I didn't finish the book before returning so that is basically all I can remember, doesn't matter, eagles are still cool.

(I like owls as well, guess I caught the etsy bug too!)

Back to the necklace, I will get it one fine day when I feel rich ;)

having way too much!

I was working on a necklace the other day and couldn't find the filigree I wanted. I searched through boxes and boxes for a whole 10 minutes before finding it in my toggle & chain box.... I have always prided myself on being able to remember where I kept every single item, to the smallest beads! Daddy said this to me many times 'You must have really good memory to remember all this!', to which I would smile proudly at him.

the filigrees I was looking for, hidden snugly at the bottom of the box!

necklace made, can be seen HERE

Guess this time my 'pride bubble' has burst! ;)

and an indication that I should probably control my bead hoarding business, haha

but isn't that what all beaders do? we accumulate & heap up all the time!

Speaking of that, I have gotten some new toggles to add to my stockpile!

my favourite of the lot are the ones on the bottom left.

=)

oh gosh, just remembered I have a parcel at post office yet to be collected...

more hoarding, I never seem to learn, yikes!

diy clock

I'll be moving to a new home sometime next year, renovation work has just started so I still have plenty of time to plan out my room's furniture & designs. The only thing I have decided as of now is the wall colour - a light shade of peach!

I have got to figure out the layout of my crafting area too (of utmost importance!), it has to have a huge workspace for all my beading & sewing needs. 

Here's one that I like, white furniture sure looks good but with the amount of dust here in malaysia, I would have to wipe them very often, not very practical IMO.

from oh, hello friend

Big matters aside, little things like a diy clock is up on my list too.

tutorial here

I'm so glad to have found this, saves all my time & effort in looking for a clock that matches as I can customize it entirely on my own.

The tutorial looks simple enough, but I dare not say it would turn up successful, we shall see when the house is ready next year ;)

wallpaper

Got a new wallpaper, yay, a pretty desktop makes me happy :)

Found this over at oh, hello friend.

She provides 4 sizes catered to different screen resolutions.

Direct link HERE.

october round up

Hello november, october sure has passed us by fast!

Cloud vector credits: http://all-silhouettes.com

  Here are the jewellery made in october, a total of 12 pieces. My target has always been 3 pieces a week so having 12 last month was just nice. (of course I wouldn't resent if I made more!)

My other more lofty target was to have my etsy store reaching 4 pages of items, failed...

I have completed the local bulk order (will be posting the photos here soon) so right now I'm free to concentrate on creating more pieces, first piece for november:

up in store tonight!

Feel free to share with me whether october has been kind to you :)

box of goodies

Psst... seriously yummy stuff inside!

 It came in an old torn yogurt box (can't see here), but as long as it was taped and arrived safely it didn't matter how bad it looked.

Of course, the delicious loads of stuff more than made up for the bad packaging!

This pic was taken under yellow lighting so it came up blurry & yellowish, the only area that uses white light in my house is the table lamp on my work bench, hmm... my home is definitely not suitable for photos!

Let's move on to the next photo, since this doesn't do my beads any justice ;)

 Not that this does either, lol, sometimes I have no idea what I'm talking about!

Anyway, this was taken in the midst of unpacking & sorting the beads into its compartments, took me quite a while as there were 100++ tiny bags. At least they were the resealable type so I can reuse for other findings.

 Got some flower cabochons as well, these are the ones I'm using for a customized local bulk order I'm currently working on.

(pics will be posted here once they are completed, almost there!)

I absolutely can't wait to dig my hands into my latest loot once the orders on hand are done :P

comic strip

Came across this while reading the local papers the other day.

I knew there was a bible verse about this, but I couldn't pin point where was it exactly. Then when I was having my quiet time reading my bible that night, Psalm 37:11 just popped up :)

But the meek shall inherit the earth,
         And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. 

Calvin & Hobbes is the other column I look forward to reading everyday, can't decide which one I like more, they both make me laugh!

I shouldn't be blogging now really, I have got a local bulk order to complete by end of this week, which means I most likely won't be updating my etsy store with anything new anymore this October.

Got to run, bye!

sewing pattern

I have not touched my sewing machine for a whole 2 months now, yikes!

I found a pattern I like over at Burda, see if you can guess what it is ;)

If this turns out successful I'll definitely post it here, but seeing that my sewing skills are amateur-ish, I'm actually in doubt. Good thing I have my mum to help me :)

 The pattern photo I have taken was so boring that I had to add some photoshop effects to it, so if you are wondering where I got the polaroid photo frame, hop over HERE. Awesome site with lots of cool textures, vectors & brushes.

(those sticky tapes are from there too!)

they have got zippers also:

I love these! No idea why I would need them though!


Here's another site with yummy freebies: PuglyPixel. Note the deco tapes :)
Click on this link if you would like some flower cabochon clip arts. 

Have fun!

alphabets

I have been busy working on these alphabets, a custom order from a local buyer of mine. She's having a high school reunion party with her girls end of this month and asked if I could make something with each girls' initials on it, of course I jumped at the idea! I love doing customizations as it forces you to move beyond your comfort zone and thinking hard to incorporate all the ideas into a piece of jewelry.

Some ideas can be pretty bizarre but they are all part & parcel of why customizations are so fun, I have been doing customizations for my local buyers for close to 2 years now and with each order, it simply gets easier. I still remember my first request and was really nervous with all sorts of possible scenarios playing in mind, but thank God everything went smoothly and ever since then, I'm hooked!

bead storage

I'm always facing a shortage of storage space for my beads (what a mouthful, try reading that line fast!), with my never-ending hunt for new supplies every other month. I have got 9 containers stashed out across the bead table (all filled with beads, with some compartments having mixes of beads!) and plenty more in plastics bags. It's a nice problem though, I like seeing these beads and new ones never fail to inspire me :)

I'm expecting some new supplies to arrive sometime end of this week so I cleared up 1 of my containers. These are beads my sister bought for me while holidaying, mainly lucite ones that I rarely use anymore. So instead of them taking up 'prime spot' on the table, I decided to pack them into plastic bags and have them kept at another corner. These mini bags are recycled from beads that came loose in packs instead of strands, I have got a stack of them after accumulating for few years, put to good use here, yay!

Misson accomplished!

All beads stacked neatly, ready to be stored away. (this means I would be using them even less when they are out of sight, definitely need a proper destashing plan to prevent myself from too much hoarding!).

I did find some 'gems' though while clearing up the box, made a bracelet from 9 lucite hearts, will be listing it in store sometime this week.

Anyway, as you can see, the empty container is now all ready to welcome the new arrivals, I can't wait!

New store banner

I have been meaning to design a new store banner for some time already, been procrastinating as graphics is not exactly my area of interest.

But I'm a happy girl today as not only is the store banner done, I'm changing the blog banner too, yay!

 Let's have a recap of my past banners:

  

My very first banner! I made this in 5 minutes, was too eager to have my shop set up that I was lazy to incorporate the jewellery pics into the background.

Someone commented the pics were a bit blurry which prompted me to change it.

 I was quite satisfied with this until my sister mentioned it didn't fit well with my store and the pink made my store look childish :(

(She told me about it long ago but I kept finding excuses to justify that it was okay, not until I spent some time looking at my store that I felt it was time for a change)

 and finally, here's the new one!

 Clean & simple, this goes well with the store (at least that's what I like to think!)

Just 2 pictures of my bracelets and it was really easy to do too, all I did was resize, rotate, added in store name plus a thin black border.

Time to gather some opinions!

Atlantis

I was at a craft shop last weekend to pick up some alphabet beads for a local buyer's bracelets (more on that later when everything has finalised), and these gorgeous mix of teal, purple & blue bead strands hung together caught my eye. Reminds me of the sea! Made a mental note and quickly worked on this bracelet as soon as I found time. (I hate it when I have everything envisioned in my mind only to lose it later just as I was getting my pliers ready, ughh!)

I have taken only 1 photo of this, will be listing as soon as the photos are done! (I work pretty slow, do bear with me!)

Added in a teal chrysanthemum in the center as the focal piece, cabochons are my favourite materials to work with :)

As a side note, I read in a magazine today that the pairing up of purple & black is the most sophisticated colour combo, it was referring to a dress but I have something in mind already, am going to make something out of this regal hue ;)

Treasury: Naturale

I have a weird affinity towards adding an 'E' after the word 'natural', I have no idea why either, but I think it makes it more 'chic'

Click HERE to see all 16 of these awesome 'naturale' finds ;)

Most adorable bookends ever!

I was just browsing the etsy treasury and stumbled upon this:

Cutest bookends my eyes have ever seen.
I love this owl, even my sister said 'this is so you!'

available in other designs too

but of course, nothing beats this: the bookshelf!

imagine having the whole collection with this shelf, I don't think I will put any books on it, they look too good as it is ;)

Here's the store: graphicspaceswood

check it out!

Sequins

I bought these sequins some time ago, chose them particularly for the shape that resembles a bead cap.

Instead of using antique brass bead caps all the time, now I have the option of decorating the beads with the colours I want!


Note the faux pearls! Covered with Lilac Flower Sequins ;)
Decided not to use the light green ones in the end as this bracelet would be too green then.

Will be listing it in store soon!

Snowflakes

Here's one of my latest purchases: Shell Coins with Snowflakes printed on them


I decided to make a Christmas theme bracelet with these, it's never too early to prepare for the holiday season :)

Available here
=)