Red at the Coast Collective

Hello everyone!  I am pleased to announce that I will have four pieces in this year's Red show at the Coast Collective!  They even chose a picture of my earrings for the show's poster, which is absolutely thrilling!

The show runs until February 26 during the Coast Collective's regular Wed-Sun operating hours and features work by a large number of artists in a whole variety of mediums.  It's a great place to buy unique locally handcrafted gifts for your sweethearts for Valentine's Day.  Or to pick up something for yourself if, like me, red is one of your favourite colours.

I have four pieces in the show, which they've displayed beautifully.  I'll be posting pictures from the opening on my instagram (@whisperedreams) if you want to check those out, but for now, here are the pictures of my pieces which I submitted for jurying purposes.

First, the earrings as seen in the poster:

They're made with tarnish-resistant brass wire and cherry-red miracle beads.

Next up is another pair of earrings.  I'm really excited about these because they're the first finished piece I've made with a new tool, a jig.  It lets me make a greater variety of wire forms than I could with just pliers and pens or dowels.  They're a flirtatious and romantic pair of chandelier earrings:

They're made from tarnish-resistant brass wire, glass bead drops, and Swarovski crystal bicones.  I look forward to making all sorts of snazzy things on my new jig in the future, so keep your eyes peeled!

I also included a necklace and bracelet of the beaded pearl variety, in my hematite-black seed bead and burgundy glass pearl colour scheme:

The bracelet for the show is actually a little different than the one pictured here, because I decided to make one with a heart-shaped clasp.  With the hearts, I call this design Dark Romance.

I hope you can make it out to the show to see my pieces in person, as they really are lit beautifully.  The rest of the show is gorgeous as well, with a whole variety of mediums represented.

Next post should feature a bunch of bright colours as I get ready for spring.  I already have some beautiful violet miracle bead freeform coil earrings I need to photograph in some nice sunshine, and hopefully I'll manage to put together some items in a floral theme.  Follow me on instagram for more frequent updates!

Small Treasures 2016

Hello Everyone!  I'm excited to tell you that one of my necklaces was accepted into the Small Treasures show at the Coast Collective.  The opening reception is tonight, November 4th, from 7-9pm, and I will be in attendance.  If you cannot make it tonight though, the show runs until November 20th.

The piece I have in the show is my lovely sea glass pendant on a braided beaded chain:

As stated in a previous post, this piece features a silver-plated copper wire wrapped piece of Vancouver Island sea glass with a large starfish charm hanging on a braided, four-strand chain of seed beads and freshwater pearls.

It closes with a lobster claw clasp paired with an extender chain to make the length adjustable to suit various necklines.  I'll be selling it at the show for $99.

Small treasures is, in the words of the Coast Collective, a "Gallery exhibition of smaller works of fine art perfect for gifting."  The opening reception is tonight from 7-9pm at the Coast Collective's Wale Road location.

The Small Treasures show runs from November 2 until November 20th during the Coast Collective's normal operating hours.  While I only have the one piece in the show, I have recently restocked my gift shop inventory at the same location, so you can look for me there as well.

I hope you can make it out and enjoy all of the beautiful artwork on display!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everyone!  I hope everyone is having a spooktacular time today.  To add to the harrowing delights, I have a picture of my Halloween bracelet being modeled by my new hand model:

What do you think?  He said he was dying to be a model.

Ready For Halloween?

Hello everyone, just a quick post today to let you know about a new item up in my Etsy shop.  I've made a bracelet that's perfect for Halloween:

This is one of my beaded pearl style bracelets with silver-core orange seed beads and Tahitian-style black glass pearls.  It's 20cm or nearly 8 inches long, and closes with a golden lobster claw clasp.

I have it up in my Etsy (here's the actual listing) for $20 (Canadian).

It's a fun and sparkly bracelet that lets you show off your Halloween Spirit without being overly big or cartoony, so you can easily wear it to the office or to school.

If anyone is interested, I can make one of these at necklace length.  But if you want it in time for this year's Halloween, you'll have to get in touch soon.

I'll have more news about my website very soon, and a celebration for its launch.  Until then, hope everyone's having a wonderful October, and getting into the Halloween spirit!

New Pieces and Big News

Hello Everyone!

I have some new pieces for your perusal and a big announcement, which I may as well get out of the way before we get to the pretty pictures.

The announcement is that I will soon be launching a genuine website for WhispereDreams Jewellery.  There you can view a large gallery of my work sorted into useful categories instead of scrolling through archives of blog or clicking on the label tag cloud on the side here.  I'll also have info and links on shows and venues, although I will of course still post about those here.  I've also launched a facebook page for my business, which I will endeavor to keep updated with new pieces on a regular basis.

I'll post again once the website goes live.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of pieces I've been working on lately.

The first is a new sea glass pendant on a braided chain made from seed beads and genuine freshwater pearls.  I love the challenge of wrapping all the different shapes and sizes of sea glass I find, but it does make me miss working with colours, so I plan on making quite a few chains like this.

 This one blends iris seed beads with silver-core icy blue and silver-core clear seed beads for a cool and liquidy blend that matches nicely with the silver-plated copper wire, the silvery starfish charm, and the white sea glass.  The dark freshwater pearls add a nice contrast.

I've finished it off with an extender chain to make the length adjustable.

I also have a few new pendants without chains.  The first two are silver-plated copper wire on white sea glass:

The next is made from gunmetal brass wire over white sea glass:

And the final piece is copper wire on white sea glass:

I'll post again soon, once my website launches, and also to announce my fall/winter show schedule.

Autumnal Colours Show

Hello everyone, I have very exciting news this post.  I've had a piece accepted into the Autumnal Colours show at the Coast Collective.

Autumn is my favourite season, so I'm very excited about this.  I will be at the reception mentioned on the poster there, on Saturday August 29th, and I'm thinking of baking some pumpkin snickerdoodles for the occasion, so you should definitely come check it out.

The piece that's been accepted is my Autumn Colours coral-style necklace.  It's inspired by trees changing colours in the fall.  I posted about this piece back in 2013, but couldn't really justify spending the time to finish it since these large pieces take so much time to complete, and it's hard to charge minimum wage for my time on them.  That's part of why it was so exciting to be accepted into this show based on the work in progress picture -- it gave me a good reason to prioritize finishing a piece I really liked but had put on the back burner.

So without further ado, here it is:

It's made with five different colours of seed beads, golden bugle beads, and 100 Swarovski crystal bicones (fire opal), including the one on the extender chain I added to make the necklace adjustable.  It's choker-length without the chain, since the coral part extends a good few inches below the length of the chain, but it can be worn more loosely if desired.  I've priced it at $299 for the show.

Here's another shot of it hanging on a bust with the extender chain draped over the top:

I am absolutely delighted with how it turned out, and I hope you like it just as much as I do.  Hopefully I will get to meet some of you at the reception.  Please let me know you read about this on my blog if you do come.

New Pieces Ready for Acres of Art

As promised, I am posting some pictures of new pieces I will have ready for the Coast Collective's  Acres of Art show on July 12th (details in a previous entry).  Many of them are familiar designs in new colours, but there are a couple new designs or new variations on old ones.

Let's start with new colours in familiar designs.  I've done a bunch of new colours in my pearl bracelets.  As you'll see, I've expanded into some brighter colours for the summer months.  These are made with glass pearls and seed beads and have lobster claw clasps so I can add an extender chain and make them adjustable if need be.  They are $20.

The first is a combination that makes me think of August in the Okanagan, of multitudes of grasshoppers singing in the sun baked hills.  It's caramel pearls with gold-core green seed beads.

The next bracelet features the same gold-core green seed beads but has green pearls.  I suppose it's the June or July to the previous bracelet's August.  Or more of an herb garden.

The final piece using these seed beads has violet pearls and is definitely more of a flower garden or summer meadow.  I really love this combination.  I'll almost definitely do a necklace in it at some point.

  

 

And here's the three of them together because I'm considering doing a multi-strand necklace in these colours.  They also happen to be Mardi Gras colours, which is fun.

Sticking to the violet and green theme, I also have a set with green pearls and some lovely oily-finish violet seed beads.  Kind of a reversal of a green "vine" with violet blooms.

I also did one with those same oily-finish violet seed beads with lilac/lavender pearls.  This one is cooler in tone.

And to finish off the range of purples, I have one with the violet pearls and iris seed beads.  The violet pearls really bring out the pink iridescence in the finish on the iris beads.

The next few bracelets all feature navy blue pearls.  The first one is relaxing, deep and cool with silver seed beads.

The next features a bit more contrast -- in fact, its opposite on the colour wheel -- in the form of clear copper-core seed beads.  I feel like the copper makes the blue pop more vibrantly.  And I don't know why, but I feel like copper is the metal of summer.

The final navy blue piece features blue copper-core seed beads which give a more muted version of the previous design while adding extra depth through the second shade of blue.

I'll fess up I did also do a few more neutral pearl bracelets.  I noticed when posting my previous batch of photos that I was out of white with silver, so I made one to go with the necklace I have.

I also decided to try a white with iris.  I was delighted by the result.  It's very delicate and feminine and airy.

I also brought some colour to white pearls with the icy blue seed beads I've come to love.  You've probably already seen them with dark grey or black pearls, but I can't believe I didn't mix them with white before, because it's gorgeous.

Which brings us to necklaces, because I loved this combination so much that I made a necklace in it.  Here it is on my snazzy new bust.  Like my other single-strand pearl necklaces, it's $39.

I also have a couple new multi-strand designs to show you. 

The first is in sun-kissed gold tones.  It's an asymmetrical two-strand design of white pearls with bright gold seed beads and caramel pearls with clear brown seed beads.  I have a few shots so you can get a good sense of it, and a close-up of the filigree box clasp.

The next is a triple-strand center with a single strand chain.  It's a design I came up with to make a triple strand necklace more manageable in terms of time and materials.  The single strand chain is a new design featuring white pearls and grey-silver core seed beads.  This is attached to a lovely silver-coloured three-to-one connector which is in turn connected to light grey, dark grey, and black lines of pearls with iris seed beads.  It's quite long and I need to get a larger bust to display it properly.

That's it for pearls.  I actually have a couple more bracelets to show you.  They are two versions of lace stitches with seed beads.

The first is done with grey silver-core seed beads and is horizontal lace.  Because of the number of beads in each loop, it ends up curling or ruffling, which I'll fess up was by accident but I thought it was pretty fun so I kept it.

The next one is more of a cuff.  It's vertical lace made with pink pearl-finish seed beads and edged with black pearl-finish or hematite-finish seed beads.  It looks really fun emerging from a long sleeve, but I think it could be pretty funky summer-wear too.

Back to necklaces.  I have another familiar design with new colours.  It's a daisy chain with bugle bead leaves in blue.  So it's a forget-me-not chain.  here it is on my new bust and then a bit more of a closeup on my old flat stand.  Like its violet sister, it's $30.

 

And the final piece I want to show you isn't new at all, but I am forever trying to get a good photo of it.  Here's my latest effort, on my new bust: Treasures of the Deep.

And that brings this really long entry to a close.  I am busily at work on new beach glass pieces for the show as well, since everything I've posted photos of before is over at the Maritime Museum.  I may or may not have time to post photos before the show on the 12th, but even if I don't get pictures up, they will be there.

New Photos of Earrings

As mentioned in my previous post, I will be at Coast Collective's Acres of Art show on Saturday, so this week I'll be posting pictures of some of the pieces I will be selling there. 

I'm going to start off with some earrings that you've seen before if you're a longtime reader.  I'm much happier with these photos though.  As always, you can click on the images to enlarge them.

First up are some of my tassel earrings.  These are made with silver-plate ear wires, bright silver-plate tulip-shaped caps, iris seed beads, silver bugle beads, and blue E-beads.  They're $20.

I have another pair of tassel earrings in cool tones.  These are made with silver-plate ear wires, dark silver coloured tulip-shaped caps, turquoise seed beads, silver bugle beads, and blue E-beads.  They're $20.

The final pair of tassel earrings I have are in gold tones.  These have gold toned ear wires, gold toned tulip-shaped caps, green seed beads, brown silver-core seed beads, and gold bugle beads.  They're $20.

Next up are a set of fun freeform coil earrings.  The first pair are done with copper wire and pale green beads with a lovely inner banded shine.  They're $20.

I have another pair made with copper wire and the same green beads, but these ones feature a scroll or spiral on the bottom.  These are $25.

I have a freeform coil pair designed to go with my harlequin necklace and bracelet designs.  They're made with silver-plated copper wire and glass pearls in white, grey, and black.  They are $20.

I also have some freeform coil earrings that use miracle beads.  Miracle beads are those really snazzy ones that have a sort of layered look as though there's an inner bead beneath a shimmery transparent outer layer (and unfortunately, photos never seem to do them justice).  This first pair is fantastic for summer, featuring silver-plated copper wire and a refreshing cool blue set of miracle beads.  These earrings are $25.

The next pair features gold-plated wire and cherry-red miracle beads.  They're $25.

These final earrings are a pair of donut wraps done on shell hoops.  They feature silver-plated copper wire, blue and purple E-beads, and some interesting pink rectangular beads.  They're $35.

And here's another picture of them because I thought that they made my glass look like an owl and that amused me.  (See, they're like the owl's big eyes?)

And I think that's enough for today.  Tomorrow I'll post pictures of some of the new necklaces and bracelets I've been working on.