My version of adding a lobster clasp to a ball chain

Hello all :)

So today I received my package of 50 pretty and petite coloured ball chains from the fabulous shop: Annie Howes on Etsy, woohoo !!

Now because I have never used such tiny ball chains, it took me awhile to attach some of the loose ball chain ends to their chain clasps but I did it. Then I was thinking that maybe not everyone will be able to attach the tiny end, so I decided to improvise and see if I could attach a lobster clasp using what I had in my jewelry chain accessories box.
There was a wee bag of those silvertone suede closures, the kind where you dab glue on the ends of the suede cording and then, with pliers, squish the closures around the cording, wait to dry and then add the junp rings. So I took two of the closures, removed the original ball chain clasp and proceeded to squish the closures around the ball chain ends ( I laid the closure on the table & placed the chain end inside, then carefully grabbed the closure with my pliers and squeezed ). Now I did squeeze a bit more than had I been using the regular sized ball chain, so the closures aren't perfect looking BUT with the addition of jump rings and a silver plated lobster clasp, I think it looks okay :)

I just need to tweak the closures a bit so they look a little less squashed-looking. It's a good start.

Here's the bag 'o ball chains, in colours of pink, copper, silver & blue, all 24" long. Looking forward to adding these to my pendants.



Show & Tell: Another brooch on the way, & one already done...

Took this past weekend off and the family and I played lazy. Oh it was so nice to just sit around being all blobby, playing computer games, drinking tea & eating popcorn. Sometimes it's nice to not feel the need to do something !
A part of me is kinda hoping that when our son and I visit my birth father and his family ( in Ottawa early August )...we'll be able to play lazy & just hang out there too :)

Now for today's show & tell. I've always liked paintings of houses, especially ones that are 'happy', full of sunshine, open spaces, etc...So I decided to make my own 'painting' of a happy house --a handsewn felt brooch I'm calling
'The Happy House on Candy Hill'

Why 'Candy Hill' ? Isn't it obvious ? This is no ordinary house ! The owners of this house are distant relatives of Willy Wonka. They too adore candy and have found a way to grow it on their property. Even the tree sprouts colorful sweets 7 months of the year.
Oh, wait, of course it's not obvious to you just yet, the brooch isn't even finished ha ! Give me a few more hours.......

Planning it out...

Lots of handsewing...
It's coming together nicely...

And here is the brooch I finished a couple of days ago. I've named it

'The Colors of My Heart'.

Each color represents the 4 main emotions we feel: black for anger/dark moments, blues for gentle sadness to depression, pinks for all types of love and yellows for joy :) The large golden beads are for those unforgettable joyful moments. I've added smaller beads including an edging of bugles.

Like the rest of my brooches, this one is also on the large side because they are meant to be seen.

In my Etsy shop :)

I'll be back tomorrow to show off the Happy House brooch :)

Finally Listed These 2 New Brooches :)

These felt brooches have been a hoot to make ! The first one is called Popeye the Pink Bunny, a whimsical and shabby wee pink felt bunny dude. His eyes and nose are vintage, glitter on his mouth and he sports a tiny red heart brad ( which can easily be removed if you want ). I named him Popeye because of the way I attached his eyes. Instead of poking the floss through to the back of the brooch, I decided to attach them in a shabby fashion, wrapping the thread around the base a couple of times so the eyes would stand (pop) out.

The 2nd. brooch, called Bliss, is a crazy mix of colors and beads and all started when I noticed the Bliss sticker in a package of K&Company stickers I'd purchased from Michaels.
To attach the sticker to the felt, I just stuck it on and then hand sewed the edging with beads and sequins. A vintage earring ( bottom right ) was glued to the corner and attached with more handsewn beads, including a vintage shimmery pink swarovski rivoli. There are other vintage attachments, edging was painted with Lumiere and the entire piece was handsewn onto the vintage cardboard backing from a frame ( you can even hang it up by the metal triangel. Just have to gently pry it away from backing ). Oh yes, there's a bit of polyfill stuffing to give it more depth and pull away from the sharp frame corners.

I really enjoyed creating these brooches but I think I'll stick to making the shabby whimsical animal ones for now. The Bliss brooch and Magnificent Marilyn brooch are enough for now. I tend to go overboard at times instead of sticking with my first idea. Here it was to create small brooches and I end up with Bliss and Marilyn. That doesn't mean I won't make these kinds ever again, I just want to stick to things that are whimsical and small.

My next felt brooch...not yet sure, but it will be silly :)

Forgot to point out, the Bliss sticker was varnished twice and then covered with Triple Thick gloss gel to make the sticker 'bendy'. Of course, the brooch is not meant for wet weather because everything else is not sealed ( it could have been done but would have made the piece look plastic ).

Thanks for all your wonderfully 'charming' comments :)

Wasn't the International Charm Day FUN ?! And thank-you all for such wonderful comments, they really keep me inspired ( and you know we all need to keep that inspiration up there ! )

I'll be posting Carols charm prize later this week. I was hoping to get it out today but yesterday I made the mistake of drinking 2 cups of my husbands coffee early morning. Throughout the day I just was not feeling 'right', it felt like my insides were having a revolt to me drinking coffee ( I'm a huge tea drinker ) and there were several boxing matches going on in my stomach and bones. By the evening I was one boneless headachey and very tired person. Weird ! I just got dressed today around 2 p.m. but feel like taking a nap. Thank goodness the boxing match has ended but now I feel all creaky. Looks like I need to take in even more water and flush all the crap out.

Okay, so there's my health for you today :)

Once I'm back to bouncing around I will be listing more Charmblies in my shop ( using some of the charms you saw yesterday ) AND I've been thinking about listing photo art cards too.

I enjoy taking photos and creating collages and have seen many wonderful art cards on Etsy. I first need to figure the costs of printing my own, where to find good quality card stock ( maybe Michaels ? But I'm sure I could find similar somewhere else for less ) and envelopes. They will be blank, I don't want to get too complicated with these. How does a 5 pack of cards sound ? $10 a pack ?
No harm in trying right ? I've been changing my Etsy shop, getting rid of the large complicated items, you know the ones.....they take weeks to make and either never sell ( because your price isn't what the buyer wants to pay ) or they sell much less than what you'd like, or they only sell when they go on sale ! Too much stress thank-you very much. So I'm sticking with small items, things that have similar shipping costs, etc....and so far they've been so much fun !

Well I have to stop writing, going to take a nap ( not a nap taker ).

Oh, the photo above is an altered one of a beautiful path my family and I found just a short distance from our area. I call it 'Solitude'

Showing off some charms today --a long post !

It's INTERNATIONAL CHARM DAY TODAY ! A big THANK-YOU to Amber Dawn of Inventive Soul for starting this fun event ( you can click on her link in the links list, or click on the Charm Day image upper right ). Hopefully it will become a yearly event too :)

So okay, I'm off to a slow start. It's 10:33 a.m. as I write this, been feeling just a wee bit under the weather but nothing that a good hot cup of tea won't cure.

Let's first start off with the charm I'm offering as a prize, woohoo ! I posted it yesterday too, and all you have to do is leave a comment either on the post below or on this one. When our son comes home from school today ( around 2:40 ), I will get him to pick a name ( names will be on paper and placed in a bowl ). The winner will be announced here in a new blog post, so check back by 3 p.m. ( pacific time ) to see if you're the lucky recipient of this fun charm !

These are Scrabble charms using actual vintage Scrabble tiles I found at a flea market several years ago. Last year I was all 'gung-ho' about starting my own style of Scrabble tile charms on Etsy, but it didn't last long because I just got bored. Yup, bored. As much as I love working in small format, these proved to be a bit too small for my liking. So I pulled them out of my shop and have decided to use them in other ways.

On these tiles I used a variety of items, from stars, to lace to vintage 1950's Popular Science magazines. The bales are handmade from sterling silver wire and then glued ( E6000 ) to back. Some tiles have a layer of Triple Thick gel gloss, others were sealed with a ployurethane varnish.

This goofy fun charm was a test. I had this acrylic chandelier pendant just hanging around and wanted to see how well it would accept an ink jet copy of part of one of my vintage valentines. But before I glued on the image ( using Crafter's Pick The Ultimate Glue ), I first glued on individual letters from a vintage dictionary, spelling out 'That's a spicy meatball'. Then I glued on the image and waited. Well, for some unknown reason the image peeled off after 2 days of drying ! The letters stayed firm. I decided to reglue the image ( same glue ) and waited about 4 days. This time it stayed stuck and I then dabbed some orange and pink glitter around the edges, painted back of crystal with Halo Gold Lumiere paint and sealed the back, really well, with polyurethane varnish. It's now been a couple of months and so far nothing has come loose, phew !

The other 'charms' you see were my attempt at Sculpey mini-foods. I've made several cupcakes using various beads, glitter, etc...a couple of donuts and my most fav. piece: a chocolate covered cherry ! The heart was just something random, mixing glitter into the clay and sprinkling on top before baking. And to let you know, I first tried pushing in hardware hooks but soon switched to homemade hooks. The hardware ones would split the clay, you can just make out a split on the donut.

Here is another test charm, using a vintage Buss Fuses container ( about 2" long and 1.5" wide ). I found it in my dear dads pile of woodshop junk and fell in love with its possibilities. There were a couple of fuses left so I took one, along with glitter and stars, layered it inside the clear plastic fuse case and covered all with a big dose of Triple Thick Gloss gel. The handmade copper bale was attached via two small drilled holes and glued with E6000.

Well, unfortunately I'm not super fond of this charm. I was hoping the glitter would be much glitterier and the fuse a bit more obvious. Plus, the coloring on the plastic stars began to come off and seep into the gel. Sigh. Oh well, it was a test piece and I can always remove the Buss Fuses box and use somewhere else. For now I may still wear as a charm but add some other funky charms along with it.

This is one of my favorite charms ! I should have taken a before shot of this pendant, darn :P
It started off as a plain clear glass 'intaglio' ( I believe that is what the cameo is, carved into the glass from the back ), the surrounding was a dull silver colored filigree metal. The cameo was quite easy to remove simply by rasing the prongs. My dear friend gave me some purple silk which I had to use on this cameo ! But first I glued some golden stars around the cameo edge, along with glitter of course, and then glued the fabric over the back. Once fully dry I sealed the back with several layers of varnish to 'tighten up' the fabric. The silver colored filigree surround was painted with Lumiere paint ( a rich gold purple ) and then I hand sewed a variety of beads and plastic stars, sealing with more varnish and finishing with a lovely rich purple metal rose. I just LOVE this charm !! If I could find more I would be in heaven :) I'm not a sewer, but sitting there, sewing on those beads, etc...was so very relaxing, and seeing it come together so prettily WHILE I was sewing, what a thrill !
I am contemplating whether or not to sell one of my Charmblies with this charm ( a Charmbly is a whimsical paper dolly that comes with it's own charm, in my Etsy shop ). If I come across more 'sewable' pendants like this, then I'll go for it. For now it's mine :)


These fun charms will soon grace my Charmblies in my Etsy shop.
--'Be the author of your own love story' was made with Scrabble tiles and using faux gems, pink bugle beads, a wee bit of pink glitter, paper, heart charm and words from some vintage book ( don't remember which one ).
--'I am' was created on the backside of a plastic eyeglass lens, using vintage 'magic numbers' paper ( it came from my 1970's Magic Hat toy ), the eye came from a vintage advert. about hypnosis, the word 'am' also vintage paper and the red 'burst effect' from a bag of super fun paper cutouts I found at Michaels ( sometimes they do have fun stuff ! ). Edged with black paint and sealed on the back. Not yet complete, I may add other smaller charms to it.
--'Marilyn' was one of those 'let's see how fast I can make a charm' challenges ( just a personal thing I like to do ). I think Marilyn was created in an hour. Her image was slightly altered to give her pink hair ( a light wash of watered down paint ) and then faux pink gems attached. I glued her to some recycled cereal box, added pink glitter and handsewed some thick pink thread around the edges. A pink anodized jump ring hangs from the thread and below dangles a plastic 'lucite style' heart on which I used a pink Zig marker on one side only ( really makes the pink POp ! ). Marker was covered with a coating of Triple Thick. Charm was finished with a rather wonky looking large pink eyelet ( I do okay with small ones but these large ones never work out properly for me, they always get that raised edge. Is that normal ? ) and handmade wire 'jump ring'. Oh, forgot to mention the cereal box back was covered with pink plum blossom paper. FuN !

Finally, these are shrinky dink charms I made from a computer collage using some of my own photos and collected images. You can see my original shrink plastic collage pendant ( with these images ) in my Etsy shop, it's called 'getting to the other side'. These two future charms ended up being too small for my liking ( wasgoing to use individually ) so I may create soome kind of fun dangly thing with both of them.

Hopefull you can click to enlarge these pictures. If they are clickable but look the same size, sometimes you can make them larger by clicking the zoom button on your monitor. Look for a small magnifying glass image on the bottom right, it will say 100% next to it. Click on it and you can enlarge the picture 125% or 150%. And as always, photos don't do any justice, these creations look much more awesome when in 3d :)

Wow ! There you go ! I'm tempted to post more charm pics., maybe when I post the winner of the playing card charm later this afternoon.

I hope you enjoyed going through my wee stash 'o charms and their descriptions, maybe they inspired you to make more of your own charms or start your first one.....? Would love to see a pic. if you do feel like creating :)

So HAPPY CHARM DAY EVERYONE !!!!!

---now go and leave a comment so I can put your name in to win my playing card charm :)

~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~

Chocolate, Cherries, Raspberries and Lilac OH mY !

I don't know what it is but lately I've been buying lots of candy smelling goodies for the body and bath and Etsy has been my sweet treat target :) So here I proudly show off two of the latest delights from Etsy.....

Bubbles Up By Bethie B.

---Oh my !! This is one of my new favorite shops. I could not resist buying her Chocolate Covered Cherry soap and WOW am I impressed ! It reminds me so much of the sweet filling from a Lowneys Cherry Blossom candy and I came so very close to tasting it lol !

The soap lathers very quickly and has a soft feeling. When washing, the smell is mild on the body but the soap retains that wonderful scent.
Here is a small snippet of what Bethie has on her welcome page:

fun, fragrant, and good for your skin - they have no artificial lathering agents like SLS or SLES, and no propylene glycol. Just yummy ingredients like real yogurt, brown sugar, fruit and vegetable seeds and oils, molasses, fruit purees and raw honey.

So please go and check out her shop. If the description doesn't get you then her images definately will, all so YUMMY ! I will be back :)

Country Heart Gifts

--this has been a favored shop for quite sometime. I often purchase the wax tarts ( LOVE them, the smells are deelish and scent a wide space for several hours ) but this time decided to go for one of Pam's lotion bars. Well, what a treat I was in for :) I got her Raspberry Lilac scent and am delighted ! The scent reminds me so much of something from my childhood...I think it might be the bubble gum or jelly bean scent from Lip Smackers back in the 70's. But don't take my word for it because everyone's olfactory sensory neurons can be quite different.
I like to rub the bar on my wrists and then rub my wrists on my neck. Every couple of minutes I'm smelling my wrists, can't stop !
Thanks Pam for creating these lovely treats :)

Prices for these items are happily quite reasonable. The 3.75 oz. soap was on sale at the time but it's originally $4.25 and $1.75 to ship to U.S. and Canada. The 3/4 oz. lotion bar is $4.00 and $1.00 to U.S. and Canada ( and bar is a great size for your purse ).

When I'm delighted by something then I like to show it off. So stay tuned for more sweet Etsy purchases :)

My favorite things and a recent Etsy purchase...

Now that the weather over here is finally getting warm and suuny, I felt that my blog posts needed to be a bit more interesting. So far all I've been posting is stuff about my weightloss and my Etsy creations. So every few days I am going to make an effort to post about my favorite things around our home.

If you like to do the same on your blog then leave a comment and I'll pop over to have a lookey-loo.

Okay, I'm posting 2 pics. of my fav. things: the first is my well used tart warmer. Now I will admit it is not something I love, it's actually kinda gaudy and too 'thick' for my liking BUT I do love bees, it was on sale and warms my tarts beautifully ! LOL ! It's a Partylite melter and I think I bought it for $15 a couple years back, pretty good considering their prices. I use it 3-5 times a week.

Next is a pic. showing one of my 'smelly' drawers :) I have two drawers in a bureau in my living room dedicated strictly to candles, incense and tarts. My melter really came into play when I discovered Ficklefaerie on Etsy last year. She makes FANTASTIC TARTS !!! The smells are wonderful !!! My most recent fav. tars have been the Artisan Tea Tarts. Please go and check out her goodies if you're into soy wax tarts and body lotions:

http://ficklefaerie.etsy.com

You may also see some of the incense I have, on the right, my most fav. is Violet by the Sandesh Agarbathi Co. And you may have also made out some Partylite boxes in the back ? I do like to light several candles every now and again, especially during dinner or when we're watching a show. But lately I've gone off of Partylite because they can be rather expensive and I've found a wonderful store nearby who sells similar candles for a bit less ( Colonial Candle of Cape Cod ) and I'm saving on shipping costs too.

While I'm gabbing about fav. things, I've found another Etsy seller to buy from. Her shop name is Savor and she makes such lovely soaps, and from the one I've purchased I'm guessing all her scents are delightful.

The soap is called Rosie and I bought it for my mom who loves a good rose scent. I was hesitant at first to purchase because I've bought a couple of smelly things online and the scent was barely there. She assured me hers was strong and she was right ! The rose scent is wonderful !! And if you're wondering what the blob beside the soap is..LOL !..it is actually a sample of another of her soaps. It's a chunk of choc. cookie dough and when I let my husband look at it, he tried nibbling it before I told him what it was lol ! Even our son was stumped at first but after several sniffs he concluded it was most definately soap. Hmmm, I wonder what would have happened if I'd put it in my husbands lunch box...now that would have been funny ! ( evil grin )

As much as I would love to use the rose soap I have to wait until I give it to my mom, she'll be thrilled :) So please do go and check out this lovely soap shop, you won't be disappointed:

http://savor.etsy.com

Come back soon to see what other favorite item I'll talk about :)

Out with the weight and in with the sneakies !

Good day all :)

Just a quicky. I'm down another 1.8 lbs. woohoo ! Now at 185.2 from last weeks 187. It's a slow process and it's happening. If I do just a little more exercise this week then maybe I'll be down 2 lbs ? My progress can be seen in my Flickr photos which are shown on the right of my blog.

And another sneak peek of upcoming Etsy goodies ! There's the start of another brooch and a lovely shabby chunky Scrabble tile bracelet. Plus I'm making some custom earrings for the buyer who bought my Japanese Flowers from Arizona Scrabble pendant. Fun !

Steampunk Sneak peek !

STEAMPUNK !

You'll get to see them in their entirety when I've completed two more brooch-pendants. Yes, they're going into my Etsy shop sometime in the next week. They're my new Steampunk Chic treasures, created on childrens wooden game pieces.

I'm on a Steampunk kick ! Steampunk was influenced by, and often adopts the style of the scientific romances of the 19th century, by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Mark Twain, and Mary Shelley. Imagine cogs and rivets, watch bits, hardware, brass, the future, the past, cyberpunk and more.

The train from Back to the Future 3 is a wonderful piece of Steampunk:

I'm really hoping this is something I want to stick with for a long time. Finding my creative niche has been difficult lately. I want to create so many things but find it gets quite mentally tiring, always thinking thinking thinking of having to make everything I create completely individual. That's why I had to walk away from my altered art and focussed on Scrabble tile pendants, thinking that's what I wanted to do. But it didn't take long for them to get boring, they were just too easy to make ! I began perusing the Etsy treasures and discovered Steampunk. Wonderful items with plenty of things I love to use. So I'm giving it a try !

How many of you have played around with various art ideas ? Have you found your niche yet and how did you know it was where you wanted to be ? I would really love to hear from you.

Sneak peek at upcoming pendants for Etsy

Ooh I'm quite excited ! I've been working on a line of Scrabble tile pendants and am very happy with the way they're turning out :) They won't be listed until after my sale, sometime by the middle of next week I'm hoping.

So here's a 'sneak peek' at what I've been doing:




You'll just have to check out my ETSY shop to see them as they really are ;)---but not until next week as mentioned.

They're great fun to alter and I really enjoy working with smaller items.

I'll also be listing more Destash goodies too woohoo ! Keep your eyes open for some little brown glass bottles, rusty bedsprings, paper doll house pieces, etc...

Birth of my business card:

An image of my 'business card'. I thought and thought about it, should it have a minimalistic look, maybe subtly Asian...?? My conclusion: make it to represent my love of colors, whimsy, fantasy and fun. The banner was hand created with various papers and own printing. The crow/raven was copied and slightly altered from an original small art piece, to which I attached a computer altered lantern. I then scanned the collage and finished altering it on the computer. The 'chains' around the words were a wonderful surprise, something I hadn't even been going for. They are computer stamps that, when downsized, gave the look of chains ---which I use a lot of in my art. The stars and swirls represent fantasy and joy ( including the lantern ). Ravens and crows are my fav. birds ( can be quite whimsical and stay mates for life ). I'm quite pleased with how it all came together and look forward to sharing these cards with others.

I fell for it....

Hi all ! Well I don't know what I'm doing. It's very late, and I really need to be in bed, and being on another blog site is the last thing I need ! But after reading and enjoying so many other altered artist's blogspot blogs ( and the lovely templates too ), I figured, why not also join up. So here I am but who knows how often I'll be here. My main blog, for the time being, is on Yahoo360 :

http://ca.360.yahoo.com/glitteredtreasures

I also love to create altered art which ranges from romantic to whimsical to 'really out there'. It is then proudly listed on Etsy, a terrific, great, awesome place for handmade goodies. Please pop by my shop ( ravensmagiclantern ) and, if you like it, go ahead and heart me and tell all your friends about my treasures and treats ! ( hey, any way to promote right ? ). I always try to list something each week, depending on what it is I'm creating:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5079731

Oh, how could I forget, gasp ! ~~VariaZioNE~~ ( or ZNE for short ) is something you really should check out, if you're into altered art and other fun stuff. I'm one of their many members and love the plethora of everything there. Have fun ;)

So there you go for now. My plate is pretty full with family, friends, creating, listing, promoting, blogging on one blog and now another. I will try to get here as often as possible.

Take care all :)