Gifts for Myself and Others 2016

I am pleased to announce that I will once more have items in the gallery shoppe of the beautiful Gifts for Myself and Others show put on by the Island Artisans Association at the Leonardo Da Vinci Centre on November 19 and 20.

This wonderful juried show has been running for 28 years and features exquisite handcrafted and upcycled works by local artisans.  I am thrilled to be included once more.

So please shop local this holiday season and pick up some unique handcrafted gifts for your loved ones, and maybe something special for yourself as well!

Gifts for Myself and Others 2015, Nov 20-22

I am thrilled to announce that I am once again participating in the Gifts for Myself and Others Juried Show and Sale of Fine Craft.  (There's actually a short youtube video with pictures of a bunch of the artwork at that link as well as a list of participating artists.)  I won't have my own table this year, but I'll be part of the gallery shoppe, which is a large booth featuring the works of a number of Island Artisans members.  (The video's info is a bit outdated; the cafe and gallery shop are on the main floor.)

Once again, the show is being held at the Leonardo Da Vinci Centre right across the Bay Street bridge.  I got to look around a bit when I dropped off my jewellery this morning, and it looks like it will once again be a fantastic show this year.  In case you missed it in my title, it's this weekend, November 20-22. 

Here's a look at my Gifts for Myself and Others 2015 collection:

Remember you can click on the images to enlarge them.

Here's a picture without the busts blocking the necklaces on the stands:

As you can see, there are a few old favourite designs and some new ones.

Some spiral earring designs make a comeback, with pure as snow white and silver spiral earrings set for strolls through winter wonderlands. $20:

I also have two ombre versions in silver plate.  The first has a white center and gets darker towards the edges for cool sophistication on winter days. $20:

and the second starts dark in the middle and brightens up at the tips like clouds with a silver lining, $20:

New this year I have a design in candy cane red and white for Christmas time delight, $20:

I also have the classic gold and white and gold and caramel and white designs with brass and glass pearls, and the cherry red miracle beads and brass.  New to the golden scale this year is a pair featuring clear amber-coloured beads for a warm honey glow, $20:

I also have a few sea glass pendants at the show, like this one featuring brass wire, a shell charm, and a freshwater pearl.  They're all ready-to-wear on black cotton cords with clasps to match the metal used in their wrap.  $25:

New this year I have a series of triple drop earrings.  These are long and elegant dangling earrings that can be worn to taper towards the face or away from it, depending what flatters your face shape best.

To stick with the golden theme, first up we have a set in brass with pale rose freshwater pearl drops, $20:

Next are some that I think would be perfect for holiday season parties, especially New Years.  They feature silver-plated wire, shiny little hematite stars, and glittering Swarovski crystal bicones.  They'd add the perfect sparkle to any party outfit.

Last in the new lineup of drop style earrings I have some with silver plate, icy blue seed beads and beautiful blue glass beads cut in faceted rectangular prisms.  These would add some fun and colourful sparkle to your look:

And last but not least, since it's in the show and I may never get to see it again, here is yet another picture of my beautiful fringe necklace Treasures of the Deep.

If you make it to the show and enjoy it, drop me a line and let me know.  More news to come soon about my next Christmas season event.

Gifts for Myself and Others 2014 was Lovely

Hello to anyone I may have seen at Gifts for Myself and Others 2014 last weekend.  It was a completely beautiful show with so many talented artists and so many lovely visitors.  It was delightful to speak to all of you.

I thought I might post a few pictures for those of you who missed the show.  As I mentioned in my last post, I shared a booth with Deb Thurlbeck and her wonderful, whimsical fabric art and photography.  Below are a few pictures of our booth.  I apologize about the quality, but my camera didn't do super well in the low light.

First up a nice side view of the booth in its entirety:

 

You can see several of Deb's beautiful masks, a couple of her sea horse giraffes, and a few of my pieces, including my Treasures of the Deep necklace (closeup of that at the bottom of this post).

Next up is a snot of one of my sections of the table, with my beaded bangles, donut wraps, and some of my fancier pearl necklace pieces:

I'm considering discontinuing the beaded bangles, so they are getting pretty sparse.

The final table shot I have for you is mostly of my sea glass pendants.  I'm rather proud of the little beach I manage to set up for them, with the oceany scarf and drift wood and shells:

A little overexposed, but hopefully you get the idea.

I also figured I'd include some photos of some new earrings I had available at the show.  Neither pair has sold, so they are still available.

The first is a pair I made a couple years ago.  They are delightfully extravagant, with a base made from silver-plated copper wire donut wraps on shell loops, and three dangles featuring freshwater pearls and Swarovski bicones.

The wrap on the donut features various types of beads.  This pair of earrings is $50.

The next set are also silver-plated copper wire donut wraps on shell, but they feature central obsidian beads and a square crystal dangle.  They're in multiple shades of blue, silver, and black, not quite as extravagant as the previous pair, but still quite funky.

The central obsidian beads can rotate freely to show multiple sides.  These earrings are $40.

And that's it for today, but please look forward to my next post with info about my final show of the year and photos of a bunch of new pieces.

Gifts for Myself and Others 2014

I've been quiet lately because I've been prepping for my biggest show of the year.  (I'm also on the committee for it, which has been a wonderful learning experience and has kept me quite busy as well.)  So I am very pleased to inform all of you that for the second year now I will be sharing a table with the wonderful fabric sculpture artist Deb Thurlbeck at Gifts for Myself and Others!

As the image here shows, Gifts for Myself and Others will once again be held at the Leonardo da Vinci Centre at 195 Bay Street (map).  It will be this coming weekend, Friday Nov 21 to Sunday November 23.  The hours will be as follows:

Friday November 21 -- 12:00pm to 8:00pm
Saturday November 22 -- 10:00am to 6:00pm
Sunday November 23 -- 11:00am to 5:00pm

Admission is $4, but you can get $1 off if you bring a food bank donation.  There are hourly door prize draws and a chance for a grand prize of $250 which can be spent with any of the participating artists.  New this year we're adding soap and candles as vendor categories, and we're having a gallery shop with work by Island Artisans Association members who did not want to have a full table.  I am super excited about this show; it'll be fantastic.

As I mentioned, I've been busy making new pieces for this show.  I haven't photographed many of them yet, but I can show you pictures of two new bracelets in my glass pearl and seed bead line.  I'm branching out into brighter colours.

More pictures to come soon!

And just a reminder, if you're planning on ordering something from my exciting new Etsy shop, and you want it in time for Christmas, you may want to make your orders soon.  Canada Post recommends early December for orders within Canada, and earlier if you want it shipped internationally, depending on the country.  That being said, if you're willing to pay extra for shipping, I can courier it to you at a later date, but you'd have to specifically request that.

Gifts for Myself and Others Report

Hello fabulous readers! (aka, Hi Mom!)

I thought I'd make a brief report about how the Gifts for Myself and Others show went, since I chattered about it so much in advance.  It was my first crafts show, so it was very exciting.  Prepare yourself for a long slog.

On the Thursday before the show, we were allowed to come in for a few hours and set up our booth/display, but not allowed to put out any of our product since there would be no security that night.  I should have taken more pictures, but here's the one I do have of our empty setup.  There's a big table out of view, across from the shelf.

Friday we were allowed to come in a few hours early and fill up our display with all of our lovely items.  As I said before, I was sharing a booth with Deb Thurlbeck, who makes all of the lovely fabric sculptures you'll see below.

We'll start with a shot of the overall display/booth.  We did rearrange things a bit as the weekend went on, partly as figures sold, partly just to keep things interesting, but here's how it started out:

 

Doesn't Erin the Heron look wonderfully festive in his little Santa hat and collar? And the peacock on the table is quite a show-stealer, isn't he?

My jewellery was mostly clustered on the left side of the table there, as you can see.  Here's a closeup from day one.  Sorry, it's a little blurry:

Here are a couple less blurry shots of sections of that main table spot:

As you can see, I had quite a few bracelets out.  Beaded bangles and the S curves with pearls in all sorts of colours.  I learned that I need to make a greater variety of bracelet lengths though, or at least have some extender chain and pliers on hand so that I can make them adjustable.  My preference with bracelets is not to have the chains though, personally.  What do you think?  Leave a comment and let me know if you like to have a length of adjustable chain on your bracelets.

I also had a few things on the stepped tables along the side.  You'll notice the earring tree under the lamp in the corner.  After a while I realized nobody was noticing it there, so we moved it up to the shelf, though I don't have a picture of its new home.

The giant glittery pine cones you've probably noticed are real, and enormous.  Deb collected them on a trip to California and then glitterified them.  I think they're just delightfully festive.

Here's a closeup of some of my donut wraps.  Deb and I finished setting up much faster than expected, so I had time to make a chain for the copper one.  I'm not 100% sure how I feel about the shape of it.  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.  (Again, I apologize for the quality of the images.  I took these with the camera in my phone since I forgot to bring my actual camera along.):

Oh, and here's another shot of the copper one with its chain (comment please!) against a lighter background:

In between moments of talking to delightful people about my beading and Deb's fabric art (and a bit of browsing and shopping through all the other wonderful vendors) there were some lulls when I was able to work on some more beading projects.  Here's a pair of festive earrings I came up with.  I call them my jolly holly earrings:

I also made another variant of those with red pearls.  I'll post a picture later.

The last project I had time to work on was a fringe necklace I'd already spent a good 35-40 hours on in the past.  I kind of stopped counting.  I had done all the fringe, but I wanted to turn the ladder stitch over the fringe part into brick stitch in order to tidy up places where you could see knotted thread and also to make it less inclined to flop back and forth over the top of the chain rather than lie straight.  I was really pleased with how the brick stitch helped with both of those goals.  Ta da!

I don't know if black is the best background for it.  The colours are supposed to look like flowing water, which is why I put a pearl in the center, since it could be a natural jewel of the deep.  I may take a better picture later, but in the meantime, let me know what you think of the colours, what you see in it.

So that's about it.  I think our display ended up looking quite lovely once it was filled in and that our items complimented each other quite nicely.  Sea horse giraffes may have wound up wearing bracelets as necklaces for parts of the show, but sadly there is no photographic evidence to prove it either way.  It was lots of fun and I got to talk to lots of great people (shoppers and other vendors).  I look forward to doing more shows in the future.

Gifts for Myself and Others starts tomorrow!

I'm very excited that Gifts for Myself and Others will be starting tomorrow.  We did our setup of our display space this afternoon, and tomorrow morning we'll all be arriving early to put out our stock.  I've been continuing to work on new stock for the show (in fact, I've got a series of small blisters on my left index finger from all the wire wrapping) and I have a few pictures of new pieces to show you.

First up is another set of spiral earrings.  I'd done so many in silver that I figured I really ought to do another pair in warm gold tones, so here it is.  (glass pearls, gold-plated copper wire)
 

I also made a necklace to go with the purple daisy chain bracelet with the leaves.  It has a nice vintage-y look with the fringe of bugle bead leaves.  It's displayed on my newly papier macheed cardboard necklace stand.  The papier mache gives the home-made stand +3 classy points, no?  (seed beads, bugle beads, lobster claw clasp)

Next up are a few new donut wraps.  I tried to give each one a unique "collar" -- the housing for the loop one uses to attach the pendant to the chain.

First up is the one I wrapped in copper wire.  I don't know that kind of stone it is.  Again, if anyone has any idea, I'd love if you let me know in a comment.  For this one, since I had a lot of dramatic angles in the wrap, I decided to attach the collar with some zig-zaggy angles too.  (stone donut, copper wire, swarovski bicones, faux swarovski bicones, e beads)

The next is in gold-plated copper wire.  I decided to add some extra scrolls (the flat spirals) to this one.  Again, don't know the stone.  (stone donut, gold-plated copper wire, swarovski bicones, faux swarovski bicones, e beads)

The last new donut pendant is wrapped in silver, but I finally chose a stone that wasn't green or turquoise in colour tone!  This one, I'm fairly certain, is rose quartz.  It also had a hole drilled through it so I was able to include a scroll in the center.  (rose quartz donut, silver-plated copper wire, glass pearls, swarovski bicones, e beads)

And finally, I decided to make a donut-wrap set of earrings.  Instead of being wrapped on heavy stone, these are wrapped on donuts made from some sort of pearlescent shell.  (shell donuts, silver-plated copper wire, e beads, square beads)

Time to get a good night's sleep before the show tomorrow.  If you happen to have read my blog before attending, let me know.

The Gifts for Myself and Others show is happening this weekend!

As mentioned in the title of this post, the Gifts for Myself and Others Christmas crafts fair is happening this Friday through Sunday (details can be found here) and I've been working hard to make some new inventory for it.  As a result, I've neglected posting in this blog over the past few days, so I'm going to make up for it now by including a whole pile of pictures of my work.

I'll start with a couple more pictures of bracelets.  This first batch is a set of what I call my "beaded bangles" which are fun, colourful, slender bracelets which can be worn alone or mixed and matched as a series of bangles, or twisted and braided together, or anything else you can come up with.  I should have a few new colours at the show.  (Seed beads and bugle beads)

The next set of bracelets are more of the same type as the harlequin bracelet I posted before.  I also make these in all sorts of colours.  (Seed beads and glass pearls)

I also have some of that design in necklace lengths.  Here are two of the ones in rich, warm tones.  Please note the lovely home-made stand my boyfriend and I put together for the Bastion Square Market this summer. (seed beads and glass pearls)

I believe I mentioned at some point that in addition to bead threading I've also recently gotten into wire-wrapping.  Here's an example of one of my donut wraps with a simple beaded chain made to match.  Unfortunately, I didn't write down the type of stone when I bought it, so I've no idea what it is.  I do know it did not cost enough for it to be turquoise, so I would guess maybe some kind of agate.  If anyone has any ideas, let me know.  (chain: seed beads and e beads.  pendant: stone donut, silver-plated copper wire,  e beads, swarovski bicones)

And last but not least, there are earrings.  I've been spending most of the last few days making earrings, and I'm quite excited about them.

The first pair I'll show you is meant to match my harlequin set.  (seed beads and glass pearls)

The next set are some fun and colourful tassel earrings I made over the summer.  Sorry about the red strings in the photo, but I took it at a market and those are my price tags.  (seed beads, bugle beads, various metal caps)

And this last set are the earrings I've been working on for the last little bit.  They're a really fun freeform coil wire technique.  Here's a shot of the full set that I've made up so far: (silver or gold plated copper wire, copper wire, glass pearls, tiger's eye, various beads)

Here's a closeup of the ones with glass pearls.  They'd go nicely with my harlequin sets, or just look really snazzy with a little black dress.

And last but not least, here's a closeup of the two pairs I made with those neat beads that sort of look like they have two layers to them.  My camera had a bit of trouble with them, so you will just have to come to the show to see them in person.  The light blue ones look like little drops of ice with their silver spirals around them, and the red ones look beautifully festive for Christmas, trimmed in gold.

And that is all for today.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some new pictures to post.  If not, I'll definitely post some images from the Gifts show.

A Work in Progress for the Gifts show

Here's a coral I'm working on for the Gifts for Myself and Others show.  I apologize for the quality of the photograph, but I took it using my phone.  I'll upload nicer pictures once it's finished.

The colours are supposed to reflect autumn foliage.  Seed beads, bugle beads, and swarovski bicones.  If I have time, I'll work on one in winter tones as well.

Some Bracelets

I suppose I should go ahead and post some of my work.  I'll start with a few of the bracelets that will be available at the Gifts for Myself and Others show (see my previous entry for details on that).

This first one is more or less a basic daisy chain, but I decided to see what would happen if I added bugle bead leaves.  Personally I rather like the effect, and I think it could be really pretty for a short necklace as well.

The different colours in the bugle beads look a little funny in places in the photo, but I promise the effect is more subtle in person, and I think adds a hint of "realism" to the leaves, if one could use that term for anything so stylized.

The next bracelet also makes use of seed beads and bugle beads.  This is a design I tried back when I was twelve and wound up just hopelessly snarling my thread.  It then got filed in my mind under a "too difficult to be worth doing" category and sat there for entirely too long.  Only a couple of years ago, when I came across the design again, did it occur to me that I might now have more fine motor control than I did back then, haha.

I only have the one colour so far, but time permitting, I'll do a few more.

The last one I'll post today is my most common type.  This is also done as a modified daisy chain, but the effect is quite different from the classic one.  Glass pearls and seed beads.  I make these in quite a few colours.  I call this particular design "harlequin" because of the way the dark and light crisscross.

I also make these at necklace length, and am working on a few different earring designs.

Well, that's it for now.  Next time maybe I'll post a work in progress shot of the coral I'm working on.

(Please feel free to comment, btw.  My traffic counter says 42 people have viewed my blog, but I've no idea what anyone is thinking.)