Monday Morning and I am planning an earring day. I love making earrings from the many vintage beads I've had the pleasure of gathering. A girl can never have too many earbobs and one of the best selling items at the Summer Jewelry Market, September edition held this Saturday the 5th to coincide with the Apple Festival in Hendersonville NC. What do you think of these?

I used Magic-glos resin yesterday with much success since it was a sunny day! I love the domed effect it gives and it dries, fast clear and hard! I made a simple pendant with a bird print background and a small flying bird embellishment, no need to glue the embellishment in and the resin did not make the ink from the print bleed, it wasn't a photocopy though. I will move on to something bigger and better from here! I also had a beading friend bring me some Beadwork & Bead & Button from 10 years ago and I was amazed and thrilled to see how far the beading world has come! Of course some things remained the same, peyote is peyote, but what we can do with it has come a long way baby! It is wonderfully entertaining to read through these editions! If you can ever get your hands on old beading magazines, jump at the chance! Today we are finishing up St. Petersburg chain and learning to finish a knotted strand of pearls! Happy Thursday to all.

Happy Hump Day. Todays agenda...make altered jewelry workshop sample for October schedule. Shall we etch something, dap, hammer, bend, twist, solder, collage? Stay tuned and I'll share the finished sample. My favorite tool (right now) for use making trendy mixed media pieces is my hole punch! It will put a hole through most metals perfect for connecting to or hanging just the right trinket from. Sold at My Garden of BEADin' of course. Just $15 and if you're an altered art fan, you just gotta have one, for jewelry and otherwise.

Hello! I need to tell you about the experiences we've had with Bronz Clay. The first few times we've used the product it was difficult to enjoy because it was so different than the silver clay we love and were so used to. Now my taste in metals leans toward the antiqued and organic most of the time so jewelry from the warm bronz metal seemed really appealing. The first couple firings didn't result in many pieces we'd be proud of as the final effort ranged from thin & crispy to outright powder and a few in between. Going back to the drawing board and re-reading the firing techniques as they have changed from those techniques set out from the beginning and voila' we have a beautiful piece of finished bronzclay jewelry. My advice is to perservere if you love the product! Now, I can't wait to make more!!!

Watch for more Precious Metal Clay workshops to be held at My Garden of BEADin'.

Hello, hello! You may have noticed that the last blog was back in March! Well, a few things just got in the way of my blogging. But I mean to embrace it from now on! So stay tuned if you like. Today I am cooking 7 pieces of Bronz Clay. This is a new precious metal clay product that we haven't had alot of success with. It's similiar to the silver clay but the firing of the product is just more sensitive. I read the firing instructions from Cool Tools and I've set my kiln to ramp full speed to 1550 and hold for two hours because these pieces are less than 3mm thick and all equal in size. I will let you know how it went tomorrow. We've had some pieces overcook, some undercook and a few cook nicely so I am anxious to see if I "guessed" at all the variables correctly! We are having a UNICORNE glass trunk show until the 29th of this month. It is hand blown from borosillicate glass and it is yummy. I've made 2 pieces from Unicorne, a spiral rope to hand a glass donut pendant and cute flower earrings to treat my inner hippie!