Lily's of the Valley Jewelry & Creative Creations

Monday, September 9, 2013

Fall my time for Rebirth ...

A new year fall , a new time ,

To me fall has always been a time for rebirth , something about the colors being so beautiful or the weather being crisp , or Halloween and getting to play come as you aren't night or something ,
But right now I'm trying to start fresh , in a few ways , I'm trying to get myself to start fresh , not dwell on past mistakes and enjoy life a bit more , personal things have been exhausting lately , My Father has been very sick he has brain cancer and had brain surgery in the spring , he's getting better but it's still very scary , and my daughter had to repeat first grade , which is fine , she needed some help and I rather her do it now then have the schools pass her and her not learn anything . So that's just personal stuff ,

On to Other things

I truly love doing my crafts , but my muse has left me hopefully it will come back , I've just been talking with some people in local places to try to get some of my stuff in there for sale , **fingers crossed ** ... Also I'm hoping to get some more swapping in , I've got a box here waiting to send out *waiting for my check to come lol * ... I also just did a paper bead swap , once I can get photos from my phone onto here I'll do that .. I also hope to Blog more I find writing soothing and therapeutic ,

Well anyone who's reading, thank you for doing so , I hope you will continue because your reading and comments help me keep writing ,

What's coming up for the next few months ,

1. A Art charm swap , like I did last year , with a auction .... This years Theme is LOVE ! ... who can't be excited about making a charm that has something to do with LOVE !! ... More about this to fallow

2. In October for Breast cancer awareness month , (which my sister in law had as well as my husbands auntie did ) I shall be going PINK , and Bleach my hair and dye it pink .. its something I've really really wanted to do for awhile now , and I think doing it because of something is a great thing , perhaps I could try to arrange a small swap or something to do with PINK items !!

3. I will be making my daughters costume for Halloween she wants to be a princess wolf not sure how were going to put a Tutu , a crown that she's asking for onto a wolf but we shall try !!!

4 I also want to blog and create more , I know I'll never be some famous blogger but I'd like to make some people read , give tutorial's on something's , cute ideas , etc. ... so keep reading , It's going to be a exciting Rebirth of me , and I'm happy about it !!

Monday, November 12, 2012

Beads of courage ~charm swap the Great reveal!!!

I participated in a lovely charm swap for Beads of Courage Which is a organization that collects beads and uses them to help uplift children in hospitals , they also sell beads on there website and the money goes to helping the organization.

Well we all did Art charms to swap and the them was laughter . we had to make 11 Charms and send them to the host of the swap , and we got 11 charms back including one of our own , I had SOOO much fun ( it also inspired me to get the book Making Mixed~medis Art Charms & Jewelry by peggy Krzyzewski & Christine Hansen , that book has sooo many AWESOME idears for charms I really recommend any jewelry maker, or artist to grab the book to check it out !)

Any way , I thought and thought about it , I wanted to make A charm that was not to complicated , Knowing i had to make 11 of them , something that would be sturdy , and that would in some way communicate laughter and something about children , wile the charm was not being given to children , I thought that because it was a organization for children that it might be a nice idea to include them ..

Well this is what i came up with , ...

Drum roll Please !!!!!!!

CUPCAKES!!!!!!

All kinda of cupcakes , different colors of frosting , and I like to believe it's a carmley cake .

Pink ones,

Yellow ones,

Pink and Purple swirl ones!

I thought about what to make for quite awhile , and it hit me when a friend invites us to her daughters birthday party and my 6 year old asked "WILL THEY HAVE CUPCAKE!" wile giving me a huge smile , and that hit me hard , Kids love cupcakes , I LOVE cupcake , what person doesn't love cupcake, there are shows about cupcakes! cupcake fabric , cupcake bakeries or cupcakearies and cupcake wars , the world must love cupcakes , and wile i don't know anyone who can't smile or even give a little giggle when they have a cupcake in there hands . I made them out of polymer clay , getting the bottoms right was kinda hard i wanted them to look like real cupcakes , not little round bottoms that just had lines on them , cupcakes have a little bit of a slant to them so getting that was kinda tricky but that's what i love about polymer clay , you can mess up , and smoosh it and start over again , so after some playing and some smooshing i got it the right shape , then i took some of the color i was using for the "frosting" and make a little cone and places it upside down on the top or else i would have had to make the coils of "frosting" very thick and it wouldn't have looked so pretty , At first i was going to just make them all one color however I thought if you go to a bakery , they don't just have one type or color , so i just went crazy with my colors but i also tryed to keep them in the shades you'd see in a real cupcake , and then i brushed the "cake" part with bronze colored pearl FX powder ( I LOVE that stuff) and it gave it such a pretty sheen , wile the sheen is not what you'd see on a cupcake , well they were not real cupcakes , what woman doesn't love her jewelry to have a little SPARKLE to it !!! so i also put pearl fx powder on the "frosting" yellow on the yellow and a violet pearlzed powder on the pink and purple ones . All in all i believe there just GORGEOUS!!!! I really enjoyed making them and i hope the people who received them loved them as much as i loved making them !!!

Please check out the whole list of participants blogs to see what they made and there ideas and thought processes of there charms , Wile i haven't posted there work on here , I received 11 adorable charms including one of my own (which my 6yo promptly made me put on a chain and she had claimed it as her own ) my camera is dead and i have had some medical issues so i haven't been able to do anything for the past few weeks so i haven't gotten batteries but you can see the other charms in there blogs

Also some are being auctioned off please go check that out , all the money will be going to Beads of Courage , it's a wonderful organization and cause , so please go and bid !!! check out The Auction here!

Here is everyone elses blogs please Hop around.

Thank you and Enjoy!

Auction Site: http://myworld.ebay.com/glassaddictions

Alenka Obid http://pepita-handmade.blogspot.com/2012/11/art-charm-exchage-reveal.html

Alicia Marinache http://www.allprettythings.ca/2012/11/charm-swap-reveal-blog-hop-and-auction.html
...

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Hoilday bling blog hop 2012

Hey everyone , I joined up to do the Holiday bling blog hop hosted by Shelley and Marlene (eveyones info will be at the end of the page , ...
I was parted with a newbie (her first blog posting is about this hop...) we made gifts for our partners , now in the middle of all this , I lost my Grandmother , and our family passed around a nasty bug, and some other personal issues came up (they seem to always arrive when you have things that MUST get done don't they ??? ) ... Anyway , you can check out what i sent my partner Gina and you can see it here on Gina's blog ....

She made me some lovely things , My blog must be short , please forgive me it's been a rough few days ... but i wanted to post the pictures and keep the blog hop going ...

She knew i loved jewelry making so she sent me some beautiful pendents ,

Gina made this one herself , i believe she made both of them but i have to check on that , If anything I'm wring is wrong i will glady re~do this , my mind is just crazy right now ...

SHE MADE THIS SNOWFLAKE (we both adored snowflakes ... ironically Ginas address has SNOWFLAKE in it .. i think that's awesome .. and it's sooo gorgeous ,

She send me a gorgeous neck lass and a apron for both me and my daughter , My camera died before i got pictures of it , and i need to go buy batteries ... so please sign up for updates for my blog and you can get notified when I update ..

Gina you where a awesome partner , I am so sorry that life got in the way , and I'm sorry that pictures are missing , but life had to come first ..

Now here are everyone who participated please check out everyone lovely items people had made and gifted ...

Check out the participants in the links below. This has been a lot of fun! And thanks for stopping by, I'll be posting again soon with some pictures of some of the jewelry and components that I enjoy making.

Michelle Fanucchi	http://micheladasmusings.blogspot.com
Monique Urquhart	http://ahalfbakednotion.blogspot.com
Therese Frank	http://theresestreasures59.blogspot.com
Heather Otto	http://www.thecrafthopper.com
Jo-Ann Woolverton	http://itsabeadifulcreation.blogspot.com
Linda Florian	http://lilysofthevalleyjewelry.blogspot.com <---- You are here
Debbie Rasmussen	http://kepirasmussen.blogspot.com
Alicia Marinache	http://www.allprettythings.ca
Ginger Bishop	http://lilmummylikes.blogspot.com
Lo/ Lynn Jobber	http://thecreativeklutz.blogspot.com
Leanne Loftus	http://firstimpressiondesign.blogspot.com
Rita/Toltec Jewels	http://www.toltecjewels.blogspot.com
Shelly Joyce	http://www.aujourlejour-shelly.blogspot.com
Shai Williams	http://shaihasramblings.blogspot.com
Lori Bowring Michaud	http://artfullyornamental.blogspot.com
Lennis Carrier	http://www.windbent.net
Marla Gibson	http://spiceboxdesigns.blogspot.com
Mary Howell Govaars	http://mlhjewelrydesigns.com
Linda Younkmann	www.lindysdesigns.blogspot.com
Shirley Jones Moore	http://www.beadsandbread.blogspot.com
Melinda Orr	http://www.orrtec.blogspot.com
Marlene Cupo	http://amazingdesigns-marlene.blogspot.com
Shelley Graham Turner	http://shelleygrahamturner.blogspot.com
Sonya Stille	http://dreaminofbeads.blogspot.com
Dyanne Cantrell	http://deelitefuljewelrycreations.blogspot.com
Anindita Basu	http://www.alankarshilpa.blogspot.com
Dee Elgie	http://cherryobsidia.blogspot.com
Gina Hockett	http://freestyleelements.blogspot.com--You are here
Lori Jean Poppe	http://lorillijeanscreativecorner.blogspot.com
Charlie Jacka	http://clay-space.com/blog
Stephanie Stamper (Woods)	http://skwds.blogspot.com
Mary Hicks, Shannon Hicks	http://uptwnsh-fallingintothesky.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also just to make some smiles ... and hopefully be forgiven for messing up . but part of what life got in the way was a friend I've known since i was in 1st grade called me having no one to baby sit her daughter , My "niece" and of course i had to take her , then there was a family emrengery in her family so I've had my nice one to two times a week , and yes i could put the baby down and just go about doing my "work" packing up boxes ect .. but look at this face and tell me if you'd want to put her down ...?

My Little HARLEY QUINN !!!!

The first day i had her , i pulled the blanket off her carrier and relized it was this itty bitty 8 lb baby !!!

Even Lily adores our little Harley!!!

Friday, September 28, 2012

A AMAZING GIVE AWAY BY A AMAZING ARTIST !!!

http://jenniferjangles.blogspot.com/2012/09/12-days-give-way.html?showComment=1348864963264#c8052869798890094516

The AMAZING Jennifer , of Jenniferjangles is giving away an AMAZING collection of holiday and other items ... it's a AMAZING collection , Go enter for a chance to win ... she has such amazing stuff , and shes such a wonderful artist , I wish i could spend the day with her and create with her ... so if you sign up and you win , Pretty please share a little something with the gal that sent you there :)

Side note .... I'm sorry I've been lacking in postings , My grandmother passed a few weeks ago , and then a yucky tummy bug went thu my family , it seemed to go on forever !!! and then when that cleared up my best friend's mother in law was very sick and I was asked to take care of her 2 month old baby ... my little niece Harley Quinn ... OHHH How i ADORE here !!!!! shes in the smiley phase and soooo alert , holding her head up and she cooooos and babbles to me and it's the SWEETEST thing ever !!! and it's made some of the bad days , tolerable because i knew I'd have the sweet baby a few days later and it was so nice ...
but i shall be up and blogging soon ,

I have the holiday bling blog hop , to chat about (i was sick and everything happened so quickly my items are a little late being sent to my partner , i feel awful for that )

Also I have the Beads of Courage art bead charm swap ... everyone makes 11 art bead charms , send them to our host , and we get 11 beads back , some go to be auctioned off to be sold for Beads of Courage which is for kids in the hospital ... it's a great cause ... so I'll be back soon and be posting more !!
Thanks for your understanding and please enter her giveaway ... and remember me please

Friday, August 17, 2012

Another big reveal !! this time with LINKS !

. Well I had a new challenge ,To use links ,

And let me tell you this was NOT easy i have no problem admitting it the links are so pretty , and they snap together to form a chain , but the Challenging part was that Peggy asked us NOT to use them as just a chain , but to use them with other materials , and I received them and wow they were soo cool i had a fun time just playing with them , but then i got down to work , I got to work on it , the links alone screamed FALLING LEAVES !!!! ... i finished it , and saw it and decided it needed to have something "fixed" and well i broke what was holding it the way i needed it ... so i fixed it again , and boy am I nervous and slightly intimidated , I cruised around the blogs in the challenge and there are some INCREDIBLE pieces !!!! but I really LOVE my piece and I AM proud of it ! but it's a little nerve racking when your up against some really great jewelry makers :) and they all did awesome jobs , please visit Peggy's blog , Charming Peggi's to vote on the one you love the best the prize is a gift certificate to Peggy's store , of course i would LOVE it if you voted for me , please vote for the one YOU love the best , I have great respect for everyone who took this on because it was thinking WAY WAY WAY outside the box and i want the best to win , ...... and without further chit chat .... here is my entry ....

I call it Falling Leaves ,

I thought it looked like a willow tree with there long branches with long leave on them , there was a beautiful willow tree in the field across from my best friends apartment long ago , shes passed on now , but i remember playing under the willows , please enjoy , and hope to the other entry's below and go vote and thanks so much for stopping by !!!

The other link challenge entry's ....

Ilenia Ruzza

Shelley Graham Turner

Tania Spivey

Ambra Gostoli

Kashmira Patel

Linda Florian <<---- this is me

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

All the pictures from the Bead Soup Blog party #6....

Well here are the rest of my pieces i made for the Bead Soup Blog Party !

Now my lovely partner gave me a few pieces I could use and put together , to make one piece and she has said that if i wanted i could use them separately , and i fiddled and tested and what I came up with is something I truly adore !!!! I hope you do as well , so without further interruption , here is my whole Bead Soup Blog Party #6 Set ...

Useing my focal .....

This is my other piece that used my focal piece , I was given a few to be used as I wished , I came up with this and I have to admit I fell in LOVE !!! , It's a Brass flower, that is bent with a curve so it sits on the wrist really well, Added to it are two brass links ,I added some pretty Dangles with the black and green beads that came with my soup and were used in my necklace , I also used the swirly wire that I (and everyone else) LOVED !!! this time I wanted it to have a little more weight to it so I slipped a gold pearl inside it , It needed just a little something then i remembered that I had also I received a long ribbon of sari cloth , which was sooo pretty and after I finished the bracelet and was trying to think of something else to just make it complete I was flipping around in a magazine, and noticed a few pieces in there that had silk ribbon or sari cloth just tied on , and I thought I'd try it and it worked wonderfully and i ADORE IT!!!.. I LOVE THIS PIECE SOO much I hope you guys like it as well ....

The gallery below are the pair of earring I made to just finish off the piece set , I love making earrings , they are my favorite things to make because you can do so much with out using allot of materials and a simple pair of earrings can really complete a look ....... They are made with the frosted green beads from my soup that were used in my necklace , (those beads were my FAVORITE.. I wish i had a huge jar full !!!!!!!) and the green crystals , as well as small creamy green crystals to make them have the graduated look , then again I HAD to add the swirly beads because ... well JUST because , and because i adore danglys on my pieces I put a few little green crystals on headpins and hooked them on there ........ the two of them ON me were taken by my 6yo Lily , and i thought they looked kinda cool , so i had to put them on because she was SOOOO proud of having taken them ,

Picture by Lily May

pictures by Lily May

Well I hope you guys all enjoyed .... I know i LOVED making all of my pieces , as well as the challenge posed by receiving beads you don't know if you'll love , if the colors will be something u use , and IF your imagination will go to the places you need it to ..I wanted to clear it up , ... All of my pieces were done on time , I had issues with my camera , this may not matter to some , and some may have been upset that they were not all done at the same time , I just did NOT think to take pictures days in advance (besides it was raining buckets for 3 days ! ) But ... I had gotten pictures of my necklace , and my daughter needed something , I stopped to get her lunch , and came back to finish and my camera was dead , and i had NO batteries , (ain't that always the way ?) .. anyway , i had no car to go anyplace and my husband did not get them even tho i asked him , but he works 12 hours a day and i felt bad nagging him to pick up batteries after 12 hours at work , well anyway i got batteries today , and got some pictures of EVERYTHING , I made the necklace which you saw , and i got sooo many lovely comments on and i thank you all for that , they made me feel really good !!! .. I really enjoyed it , the one thing i learned ... TAKE PICTURES AFTER YOUR DONE !!! so you get the PICTURES ALL UP AT THE SAME DANG TIME ... that and KEEP BATTERIES FOR YOUR CAMERA ON HAND AT ALL TIMES !!!!!!

I hope you guys comment .... and show me some Beading love :) ...
Thanks y'all .....
Linda ...

Saturday, August 11, 2012

My Bead soup party #6 reveal

This is my reveal .... I will be coming back later on in the weekend to add a picture of the other piece i made with the gorgeous focal that my lovely partner sent me , If you want to check out her reveal check her out here http://windbent.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/6th-bead-soup-my-dramatic-reveal/ she did such a amazing job , it's so fun to see what a Pile of beads turns into in the hands of someone , well my pile of beads turned into this ... She gave me the lovely clasp , the black green and clear crystals , as well as the awesome green and black puffy twisted frosted beads which i ADORED and wished i had oodles of them ... OK enough talk I'm sure you want to SEE what i made , ...... alright *gulp* ... nerves setting in .... OK .... here we go ...

There you have it , my creation ..... I though it came out really beautiful ... it hangs really pretty , the open swirly links , the hallow floral beads an the gemstone chips are mine ....

As promised I shall post soon the other piece i made that's floral and beautiful .... don't want to give away to much about it .....

Please check out all the the other people who participated in the Bead Soup , and ENJOY !!! and be inspired , and please comment on people pages so they can feel the love !!!

and thanks sooo much for checking out mine

Please check out Lori Anderson's site for all the beady goodness , and to see the first reveal and the 3rd reveal in another week , and to check out some amazing artist , check out there Blogs , there Etsy sites and to see when the next bead soup blog party is so maybe you can be doing what I'm doing this time ... It's how i got involved in it , and I'm sooo glad i did and i hope i get to do it again !!!!

Thanks for stopping by , come back soon ,

Linda.....

http://lorianderson-beadsoupblogparty.blogspot.com/