Focus on life - Wk 25 & 26

As normal I have fallen a bit behind, on Sally's photo challenge, I must admit I was a tad stumped when it came to the You Are... prompt. It was not a confidence thing I know I have lots of good/great points about me (try saying that and sounding modest) but how to translate that into a photo? Well here goes....

 I am MUM!

The most wonderful thing I am, that covers many other things, such as the very important (I have teenagers) food provider (home made buns and chips yummy), magic kiss giver (more for the baby's but you would be suprised), night time hug giver, bedtime book reader, lullaby singer and many, many more.

Week 26's prompt was any thing we wanted so....

Beads! These are my hoarded beads for Lori's Bead Hoarders Blog Hop, feel free to pop by on the 20th to see how many I manage to use!

Have a great day x

Better luck soldering

I had all but given up on soldering, the bother of getting it all set up, the flux bubbling up and knocking all my pieces all over the place, the imposable task of trying to cut the solder into tiny pieces with out losing them then getting the solder to stay where I wanted it, all an awful lot of hassle for about a 50% success rate!!!

I had wanted to give solder paste a try but at £30+ a tube, to give some thing a try, when lets face it I could be buying beads with that money, so beads I brought! But then my supplier decided to start selling smaller tubes for about £10 so I though now its worth a try, and success!

It is so much easier to use....

I finally found the courage to make this ring

The cab is so beautiful, it is by Becky Fairclough of Chameleon Designs

Now I am hopeing that I can come up with a few designs that are a bit more artistic/challenging (I think I may need to start practicing my cutting skills)!

Have a great day, and keep trying new things!

AJE Earring challenge wk 23 & 24

TIGER TIGER earrings, These Naos Glass beads have been in my stash for some time so it's nice to finally use them, I paired them with my latest obsession at the moment, glass head pins by Nadin Glass and made up a pair of fancy ear wires for them.

Fleur De Lis Studs, These kind of just happened, I was planing to make some textured headpins when the end of my wire balled up and fell off, so I hammed a texture on the little ball and soldered a piece of wire on the back, all made very easy with the use of solder paste, (new to me) which is sooooo much easier to use then flux and solder. I think I might have to make some more of these but with hoops on the bottom to attach beads to!

Thanks for popping by, have a great day!

Art Jewelry Boot Camp: Wire Work Out Blog Hop!

The Art Jewelry Boot Camp is all about wire this time round. I use a lot of wire in the jewellery I make but as it is supposed to be a challenge I thought I would try some thing new to me, a few Internet searches later and I come across Nichole Hanna and her beautiful wire wrapped jewellery, as soon as I saw her tutorial for a wire wrapped key pendent I fell in love with it and had to give it a try (click here to see my first attempt) I had to change the design up a little as I can't for the life of me follow instructions but here is my third try....

Sterling silver and lampwork (Beads by the Amazing Laura Sparling) and already I want to make a forth!

Next up I tried a little wire soldering to come up with this....

Sterling silver, blue gold stone and lampwork head pin (by Nadin Art Glass)

It's not quiet finished yet tho as I wanted to put in some chunky laborite nuggets but the holes were to teeny tiny for the wire, so I must get some more (Honestly I do NEED some more).

Then my last one is a bangle....

With copper tube, copper wire, a beautiful lamp work bead (by Libby Leu) and lamp work headpin (by Nadin Art Glass again).

Unfortunately, this one is not perfect as the dangle is slightly lopsided so I think I will have to keep it!

Have a great day x

Focus on life - Wk 24 - Green

 So.... green, well surprisingly it is my favourite colour, although you would not think it to see my home....

AS it is mostly black with a touch of green here and there ( I love any thing that will keep him still for 5 mins)!

Greener, my herb window box (I have no idea how these are still alive, I kill pretty much every plant I touch and I always forget to water them)!

Greenest, you don't get much greener then The Incredible Hulk (He is so cool that I wanted to be able to make things out of balloons)!

Have a great day!

AJE Earrings 20, 21 & 22

Finally I am up to date!

NIGHT GARDEN, Czech glass flowers, Moonstone and lovely glass headpins by Nadin Art Glass.

MOON ROCKS, Beautiful lampwork beads by Out west (hung on upside down fancy headpins) teamed with the loveliest charms by THEA Elements.

BIG OL' BLUE, Labrodorite with Lovely large ceramic beads by Elaine Ray and glass headpins by Havana Beads. And....

Now onto this weeks earrings! Have a great day!

Focus on life - Wk 23 - Typography

Sally's prompt... "The power of the written or typed word can be more powerful the you thought!"

How true! I love to look at peoples handwriting, as much as I love typing (whats not to love about spell checker?) I will always prefer hand written notes and letters, there so much more personal and beautiful. So imagine my surprise when I brought these beautiful really old looking frames from the local charity shop....

(I really did not like the photos, but I thought the frames had a lot of potential)

So I opened them up to clean the glass....

and noticed the postmark, they were in fact post cards....

This beauty even had a lovely stamp, was post dated 28th October 1903, (how cool is that 110 years old), and do you see the Royal Crest? "Art publishers to their majesties The King and Queen"!

and this was on the back of one of the frames....

Here is how it looks now....

Now they take pride of place next to my typewriter (this had to be relocated to the bed room as I was also lucky enough to find an old deeds box in the same charity shop that has replaced the typewriter on my desk and is now being used as a tool box)!

I completely love them, and will treasure them for a long time to come!

Have a great day X

Love at first sight

I was wondering the web when I came across a tutorial for this....

 by Nicole Hanna

And straight away I knew I had to give it a try, I love, love, love fancy/old looking keys and this was just screaming at me, and before I knew it, I had purchased the tutorial for this Crystal Key Pendent, never mind that I had completely ignored the fact that it says (very clearly) Level: Advanced and I have no experience with wire wrapping, I liked it that much I had to try!

Truth be told this tutorial is so very well written and has such lovely clear photos that my lack of experience did not matter one bit! Now I do feel I should tell you before I show you my attempt that anyone who has read my blog for a while can tell you I can't follow tutorials, I do try, I read the first few steps and then my mind starts saying oh add this... change this.... try this.... oh what about.... and I am so easily distracted that while I think I'm doing what I should be in fact I am listening to my wondering mind and changing little things here and there....  

And this is what I ended up with, I really love it, but I have an itch to make a few more as it is not quiet neat enough and then I think I would like to try all of Nicole's other tutorial (I was very impressed, can you tell?) Seriously if you have a few spare moments you need to check this ladies work out it is stunning!

And just to show you how much I love keys....

These are from our latest trip to London when we visited The V & A 

With so many beautiful thing there and I ended up with lots and lots of photos of keys....

This one was 3 foot long (almost as big as me)!

There were even a few photos of locks as well....

Oh so pretty (Some think I may need help).

Have a fab day!

The History Hop Reveal

Today I am joining Leah Curtis of Beady Eyed Bunny for her History Hop. I choose to do the Roman era, as I love all things Roman from the beautiful shapes of their glass vases to the stunning seal rings.
I was lucky enough to visit the Roman Baths in Bath a few years ago and this week I also came across this in the Albert and Victoria Museum in London, I think it is Roman tho I did not get much time for standing and reading as we had all the kiddys (half term)....

Now as much as I would love to be able to make a beautiful silver cuff with this image going around it my skills do not quiet stretch that far yet, So I used this for inspiration instead....

Lots of lovely Roman glass, I love the iridescence of Roman glass. Now my design is not finished but I thought I would show it any way....

I quiet literally used roman glass as my inspiration as that is what my focal is, the colours are so beautiful but so hard to photograph, I also used a selection of Roman beads including these lovely lapis lazuli swirls....

Now it is no where near finished but I am hoping it will be by the end of the week, and who knows it may well look completely different, Thank you Leah for the inspiration.

Have a great day

Focus on Life Week 22 Foodie

Hmmm, now I have to admit I am no foodie, I have children so I have to cook, but I neither enjoy it nor am I very good at it! I put it down to the pressure of expectations! Mostly I HATE cooking for my other half, because he is a much better cook than I am, he understands herbs and spices and what go with what and even remembers what ingredients go into what ever it is he is making, where as my style of cooking is a lot more hap hazard!!! 

The other half calls me queen of the oven, if it goes in the oven I can cook it (Roast dinners are about the only thing I can confidently cook but really is about it, but I'm fine with that).

Now this week was half term and while I have taken many, many photos none of them have been of food, partly due to the fact I have been lucky enough to avoid most cooking this week and partly because  we have eaten out quiet a lot! So I am going to cheat on this post and show you some of the pretty birthday cakes I have made and forgot to post (Cake is food right, and it makes up quiet a large amount of what I eat)....

 This was my nieces  birthday cake half way through, I used a Willson castle cake kit, which made my job 10 times easier, and here it is all finished....

It was so huge I had to finish it off at the party, and here is mess makers 5th birthday cake which was the beginning of May....

She is Laalaaloopsy mad at the moment and luckily for me quiet easily pleased!

I'm really looking forward to everyone else's posts, hopefully I might pic up a new recipes for the other half to cook!

Have a great day