Merry Christmas!

This is my first Christmas in the blog world.

I have spent the last months showing you my work, reading your comments and your incredible blog posts.

From NeelyGirls on Etsy

Thanks to you, I improved myself, well sort of. Thanks to you I have learned new techniques, I addressed my curiosity and read new things. Thanks to you I learned. A lot.

From PearlesPainting on Etsy

Today I want to show my gratitude to all the people that once in their life stopped by me, to all those lovely people who spend some of their time to write a comment, to all the ones who follow me.

From SnowFish on Etsy

In this day, my special wishes go to Lori, Patty, Hope, Erika, Christine… just to name some of the beautiful persons I met up to now and to each of you that will read this post.

From WeddingsAndWreaths on Etsy

Long necklaces!

Sometimes I loose track of the days and – usually on Thursday – you can hear me saying “Oh, no! I missed the BTW!”.

This time I wrote a note in a big font on my agenda. So I am ready to show you a couple of pictures.

I decided to make more of these metallic elements and to work them with Afghanistan Jade semi-precious beads. I think I will spend the next days making shabby connections as I want to make quite a long necklace.

Speaking of long necklaces, I made this one lately. What’s better than a long necklace on a turtle neck?

Don’t forget to go here to see what other bead tables look like today.

Tags: afghanistan jade, Bead Table Wednesday, btw, connections, long necklace, metallic elements

Holiday Shop Hop 2011

Welcome to the Holiday Shop Hop 2011!

This is a great weekend if you are still looking for a Christmas gift or if you just want to buy gorgeous handmade items.

You will find more information on the event on Shel’s blog: MiShel Designs.

To celebrate the event I decided to offer a special discount.

Saturday, December the 3rd, there will be a special 12% off any item in my DaWanda shop, but if you enter the code Holiday2011 you will receive a special 10% discount code to use for your next purchase by me. So, a 12%+10% bargain!

Sunday, December the 4th, I am offering a special 15% off any item listed in my DaWanda Shop. Just enter the code Holiday2011 to save your money.

Here is a taste of what you can find:

Asymmetrical symmetry

Sparkling black

Smoky teardops

Zen garden

… and much more!

And here is the list of all partecipant shops.
Holiday Shop Hop 2011

A Bead A Day

Blackbeary Mountain

Blue Pearls Handcrafted Goods

Chic and Frog

Crafty Hope

Dragonfly Dreamers

Etania Gems

ExPostFacto Jewelry

Fangdangles

GreenBead Designs

Handcrafted Serenity Jewelry Designs

Happy and Healthy Magnetic Jewelry

Holly Westfall / Silver Rose Designs

Just A Tish

 Just Mare Pottery

 Keefer Style Creations

 Kabs Creative Concepts

 Klassy Joolz

 Kristi Bowman Design

Lilly Rose Jewelry Designs

Little Rocks

MiShel Designs

Melinda Orr Designs

My Life Under the Bus

Olive Branch Organics

Pine Ridge Treasures

Pink Poppy Studio

Rosebud’s Lampwork Beads

Sand & Sea Designs

SCJ Jewelry Design

Sew Stacy

SongBeads

Studio Waterstone

Sundancegems

Suzanne Stevens

Sweet Creek Herbs

Sweet Water Designs

Have fun shopping around!

Tags: Christmas presents, DaWanda, discount code, Holiday Shop Hop

Challenge of Color – Reveal day!

In this very moment, 54 creative persons are publishing a post. True story and at the end of this post I will give you the entire list so that you can check by yourself.

Why now? Well, because today at 7:00 am CST (or 2:00 pm if your watch speaks German) officially begins the Challenge of Color Blog Hop hosted by Erin of Treasures Found.

Enough with the chatter, it’s time to show what I did with the palette created by Jessica Colaluca of Design Seeds that Erin chose for me.

First of all, the palette.

Really, really nice.

I didn’t want to use my usual browns or pinks or reds so I pick up a family colour not so common for me: teal.

When I first saw the palette I knew that I was going to use that particular shade of yellow to create a nice contrast. And to make things more challenging I decided to go with fabric as well.

New colours and new materials: this was a real challenge. Luckily I had clear in my mind what I was going to do and…

Swarovski beads in petrol and green shades (it looks more like blue in the picture, but I swear it’s not), wrinkled silk fabric in a neutral shade and ceramic beads…

I shouldn’t be the one telling this, but I am quite happy of what I made considering that I walked in a zone completely new for me.

And now that I showed you my creation, here is the whole list of partecipants. Have fun hopping around!

1 Norma Turvey ~ Teal ~ Color Crave

2 Jeannie Dukic ~ Green ~ Mineral Tones

3 Mary McGraw ~ Teal ~ Embellished Hues

4 Jo Tinley ~ Red ~ Decadent Tones

5 Rebecca Anderson ~ Pink ~ Tulip Tones

6 Kristi Jaro ~ Red ~ Temple Entrance

7 Stephani Gorman ~ Green ~ Dew Tones

8 Melissa Meman ~ Green ~ Fruit Star

9 Kathleen Lange Klik ~ Teal ~ Silk Hues

10 Cynthia Riggs ~ Red ~ Autumn Comfort

11 Heidi Post ~ Teal ~ Flora Bright

12 Cece Cormier ~ Teal ~ Merino Teal

13 Amy Freeland ~ Gray ~ Cultured Tones

14 Alice Peterson ~ Blue ~ Island Play

15 Rose Noble ~ Gray ~ Autumn Stacked

16 Kristina Johansson ~ Yellow ~ Sunny Flower

17 Kirsi Luostarinen ~ Teal ~ Dragon Hues

18 Tari Kahrs ~ Orange ~ Citrus Tones

19 Mallory Hoffman ~ Purple ~ Petaled Dark

20 Molly Alexander ~ Brown ~ Peppered Tones

21 Regina Santerre ~ Red ~ Frosted Berry

22 Emanda Johnson ~ Teal ~ Color Purl

23 Amy Severino ~ Orange ~ Winged Tones

24 Bobbie Rafferty ~ Teal ~ Lime Hues

25 Tanya Goodwin ~ Gray ~ Pecked Tones

26 Lisa Lodge ~ Blue ~ Nocturnal Tones

27 Hope Smitherman ~ Blue ~ Bloom Tones

28 Linda Landig ~ Green ~ Cacti Dark

29 Ambra Gostoli ~ Teal ~ Perched Autumn

30 Lori Bowring-Michaud ~ Blue ~ Sharpened Blue

31 Pippa Chandler ~ Teal ~ Hungarian Hues

32 Keirsten Giles ~ Purple ~ Mineral Brights

33 Jennifer Justman ~ Blue ~ Autumn Rays

34 Sandy Richardson ~ Purple ~ Moroccan Brights

35 CJ Bauschka ~ Teal ~ Teal Air

36 Shaiha Williams ~ Teal ~ Sushi Hues

37 Kay Thomerson ~ Purple ~ Autumn Spectrum

38 Sally Russick ~ Purple ~ Golden Gate Tones

39 Cilla Watkins ~ Purple ~ Autumn Infused

40 Shirley Moore ~ Purple ~ Frozen Heather

41 Jenni Connolly ~ Gray ~ Paw Tones

42 Tamara Soper ~ Green ~ Field Tones

43 Sharyl McMillian-Nelson ~ Blue ~ Nested Blues

44 Jen Velasquez ~ Pink ~ Sweetened Tints

45 Maria Grimes ~ Red ~ Bright Bloom

46 Elisabeth Auld ~ Gray ~ Petaled Tints

47 Susan Kennedy ~ Pink ~ Zinnia Tones

48 Shannon Chomanczuk ~ Gray ~ Autumn Leaf

49 Holly Westfall ~ Yellow ~ Sprinkled Tones

50 Patty Gasparino ~ Red ~ Color Carton

51 Angela Little ~ Pink ~ Singapore Brights

52 Lizzie Zawinski ~ Green ~ Budding Hues

53 Kristen Stevens ~ Pink ~ Scooped Tones

54 Dawn Doucette ~ Brown ~ Jarred Tones

Tags: blog hop, bracelet, ceramic beads, challenge, Challenge of Color, Design seeds, petrol, silk, swarovski bead, teal, Treasures Found

Christmas is coming!

Christmas markets are now open here in Germany and in a couple of days we’ll begin to open the windows of Advent calendars. I have never had one in Italy, but since I’ve been living here I have my very special calendar full of sweeties and chocolate. I am a lucky girl!

As I am talking of Christmas, I want to inform you that I’ll be partecipating in the Holiday Shop Hop 2011 hosted by Shel of MiShel Designs.

The hop will be on December 3rd and 4th and in these two days some of the partecipants will offer a special discount code to celebrate the event. I will certainly do! So, be sure to hop by either my or Shel’s blog for the complete list of participants!

Tags: Advent calendar, blog hop, christmas, christmas shopping, holidays, presents

New challenge!

They say that blog challenges are quite addictive and I think they are right. It’s not the price (they often have no price) but it’s because you test yourself and you see how you play when you don’t dictate the rules.

Challenges teach me to be malleable, to try new thing.

That’s why when I read that Erin of Treasures Found was going to host a colour challenge, I immediately signed in.

But what is this Challenge of Colour? Well, Erin asked all participants to pick-up a color family among 12. Then she matched us to a palette created by Jessica Colaluca (Have you ever visited her blog Design seeds? It’s gorgeous, a real source of inspiration.)

I chose Teal. I don’t know why, it’s not my favourite color and I have nothing in teal. But this is a challenge, right?

The blog hop is on Wednesday, November 30th and that day I and other 53 participants will show what we created using our personal palette.

And this is my palette. It’s called Perched Autumn.

The most interesting part is that point of yellow-ochre. I will try to use that as well. We’ll see…

Tags: Challenge of Color, Design seeds, Erin, Jessica Colaluca, palette, Treasures Found

No more secrets!

There isn’t too much on my beading table today as I spent some time trying to figure out what was wrong in my relationship with Liver of Sulfur.

Until Sunday I used to dip my copper into a solution of LoS and hot water. Well, I didn’t even have the time to blink once that everything turned completely back. Really. A quick dip and BUM! Black.

Just like that. It was also a little frustrating. Was I the only one who could not use LoS? No way!

After some experiments I realized that if the “dip technique” was not working for me, maybe I had to change my approach. So, why not “sponging” the copper? After all, if copper will not go to LoS, LoS must come to copper. (I am not sure this is the original saying…)

Anyway, my new “sponging technique” worked just fine for me and now I can decide which tone of colour and where. Well… almost.

But let’s cut the chatter. I know pretty well that a blog post is only completely a blog post when has a picture, that’s why I want to tell you what happened to these:

I followed your suggestions and made a couple of earrings. I darkened them with LoS but at that time I was still using the dip technique and the result was a couple of pretty dark earrings. I wasn’t happy with that, and after a lot thinking I added a Czech bead to give some light and now I love them!

And don’t forget to go here to see what other bead tables look like today.

Tags: Bead Table Wednesday, btw, copper, earrings, liver of sulfur, LoS, patina

A chaotic bead table

Quite messy, right? I know! It’s so full of stuff that I am working on my desk. Not so bad if I hadn’t bought that table to have my desk free from wire, beads, pliers and… stuff. Somehow something went wrong with my initial plan.

But let’s look at the bright side. This messy table is the living proof that I am working a lot lately!

Ready for some close-ups?

I won’t talk about n° 1, I have already written about it. Let’s skip to n° 2!
For this bracelet, I used the same beads used for the choker. It’s a statement, not a simple bracelet and I like it.

Number 3: earrings. They are made with semi-precious turquoise beads and some metal elements. Hearhooks are still missing, I don’t know whether to use handmade hooks or not. We’ll see.

Number 4: earrings in a minimalistic style (is that even a style?).

Number 5: more earrings. These are made with a puffy semi-precious magnesite bead with a bunch of deep blue crystal chips. Those chips have a great gold sparkling. I love them.

And don’t forget to go here to see what other bead tables look like today.

Tags: Bead Table Wednesday, bracelet, btw, chips, crystal beads, Earring, magnesite, orange, Red, semi-precious bead, turquoise, white, wire

Do you like me?

Do you like my FanPage on Facebook? No? Too bad! There’s a special promotion completely thought for my fans!

Tags: become a fan, Facebook, follow me, promotion

Something new

Some times ago I wrote a post about all the things I learnt from the BSBP. Well, in the past days I decided to try something new. It’s not a new path I am going to walk but it’s nice to experience something different just to see what I can do without using my most dear friend: the wire.

So I decided to use some of this

with those

Can you guess what I was going to make?

Right! A choker!

Definitely not my style but I like it.

What about you? Have you ever made something that you would never wear?

Tags: Black, BSBP, choker, Fashion, glass beads, Red, velvet