Friday, 18 April 2014

A Brand new Blog!


You may have noticed that my blog's looking a little different today. That's because I've moved!

After battling with Wordpress, I've thrown in the towel on trying to get my posts to appear as I'd like them and not how wordpress thinks they should look. So now I'm a Blogger blogger! :)

I hope you like the new site! I will be back here soon with more posts, but for now, I've added in everything from 2014 and all of my tutorials so you have something to browse while I sort myself out :)

 Thanks for joining me! I hope you'll stick around!

 Caroline x
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Thursday, 17 April 2014

Spring Fever Design Challenge – The Reveal!

Good morning all. The day is finally here… the big reveal.

I’m so excited to visit all the blogs and see what everyone has made, but first a quick recap…
Lesley Watt, Claire Braunbarth and myself each supplied some of our goodies to put together challenge packs with a Spring Theme.



Sets were sent out to 23 participants all over the world with the challenge of creating Spring themed designs.

 I was thrilled with the set I received back after they’d all been put together, it was done blind so that none of us knew what we would be getting. As usual, I forgot to take a picture of what I got before I used it, (you think I’d have got the hang of it by now!)
There was a beautiful green ceramic focal and bead set from Lesley, as well as some small cream and rust coloured beads which you’ll see later on!

Some orange/red silk from Claire

and a bird set  by me. There was a smaller white bird and a leaf in the set, but I didn’t get round to using those!

The first piece I chose to work with was Lesley’s focal pendant. I love the green on this one. It’s not a colour I would have picked up myself to work with, but once I got going, I loved the rustic design that came through from it. The necklace is strung with leather and I created a knotted bail with the same leather and one of my lamp work urchins which matched the colours nicely. I began with a few of my ceramic beads, but seemed to have got a bit carried away as I ended up with a great big chunky statement necklace. I’m not overly sure about the sliding clasp on this one. I might change that!

Next, I chose the small ceramic beads from Lesley, and silk from Claire. I must have had a rustic mood on, as I grabbed more leather. This time it was 5mm thick. The silk was wrapped around the leather and secured with copper wire. I started out with it wound around the whole thing, but I liked the natural colour of the leather poking through.

I love the multi strand designs that are popular at the moment, so I chose some coordinating beads and attached the strands together with 5mm end caps. After trying it on, I wanted the strands to sit in a certain way, so I made a couple of large copper jump rings to hold them together and added some dangles. I am constantly fighting the urge to add everything I have to my designs, I just love beads so much! But I think the 3 added here set it off just right.

And for my final piece, I was left with my bird set. I bought some stunning flower beads from Laney (Izzybeads) at the Flame off with the intention of using them for the challenge. I played around with all sorts of designs and added bits in and ended up with most of my stash out on the worktop. This design sort of fell together out of the chaos, and is my favourite of the three.
I created a lariat with silk ribbon in three colours and 2mm leather! It was undone half a dozen times while I decided on the best placement, but I kept it simple so that the flowers were the main focus. I’m pleased with how the ribbons drape and look like tendrils sprouting from the flowers. It’s lovely and light to wear, and I think the most Spring like of the designs.
Sorry about the poor photo on this one, I went out to retake this and one of my lovely children stood on a flower and broke it :( This was the best of what I had!

I hope you’ve enjoyed looking through my designs and taking part in the challenge!

And now for my favourite part… the hop! 

Thank you to everyone who’s joined us in the challenge, we were overwhelmed by the fantastic response we got and I’m bursting to see what you’ve made!
Here are the links…
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Monday, 31 March 2014

March Component of the month reveal

I’m really excited for this month’s reveal as it’s my design that’s being used by everyone to create their pieces… can’t wait to go and see what everyone’s done!

The component was one of my moth pendants. Handmade and carved from porcelain and glazed with precious metal lustres.
I don’t often use my beads in my own work, so this was a double challenge for me!


I decided I wanted to go for a bold statement piece and toyed around with a few ideas. My first was to make some components from copper clay, but I probably should have tested if I could do that before I committed, as I failed miserably and they were too thin (I’ll know for next time!)
Next I got everything out of my supplies and tried to add as much as I could in, but that didn’t work either. The moth was drowned out by the busyness around it, so I finally settled on a simple chain design with a couple of extra pierced and etched copper moths, Czech turbine & cathedral beads, copper leaves and magatama drops, all topped off with a beautiful chunky copper chain.


I love the Art Nouveau feel to the design, I’m still undecided as to whether the copper moths should have been a bit smaller, but it certainly makes a statement!

And I love the play of colour on the component. They are really difficult to photograph, but you can see in this picture, the deep velvet cerise colours that come through in parts of the glaze.
Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll visit our special guests and AJE Team members to see what they created with their component!

Guest Artists
Helen Simon – Helen’s had to drop out due to an injury, get well soon Helen!
The AJE Team
Caroline Dewison – http://www.blueberribeads.co.uk << you are here
Jenny Davies-Reazor - http://www.jdaviesreazor.com/blog
Rebekah Payne - www.treewingsstudio.com
Francesca Watson - http://francescawatson.com
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Monday, 3 March 2014

AJE Component of the month – February


With February being a short month, we’re a little bit late for the reveal. But this month it was Melissa Meman’s turn to provide the component. Melissa makes stunning enamelled copper pendants and charm’s amongst other things, and she chose fluttering hearts for this months challenge. If you’d like to see more of her work, you can find it here https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MelismaticArtJewelry

This is the pretty pink heart I received to design with. I love the texture of the raised dots of enamel! My heart had 3 holes, one in each corner, and I originally had the idea to rivet it on to a cuff, then I changed my mind and was going to make a brooch, but eventually after jingling around my stash, I decided on a necklace.

I wrapped Czech beads and fluorite with bronze wire and attached them to some beautiful hand dyed silk for an extra splash of colour. I didn’t use a clasp, as it ended up as a long necklace, so can be slipped over your head. The silk is lovely and soft against your skin.
Thanks to Melissa for a beautiful component, it was great fun to work with! And if you’d like to see what the rest of the AJE Team and guests made with their hearts, you can visit them using the links below!
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Thursday, 27 February 2014

The Results are in...

We’re a bit more organised than expected so we can announce the winners of our Spring challenge a bit earlier than we originally said. We were thrilled by the response and got so many entries, we’ve decided to pick an extra 3 winners to take part!


I’m just going to keep this short, you don’t want to listen to me waffling on.. you want results. So without further ado, here are the winners of the Spring Challenge…

1 ShaLayne
2 Emma Quinn 
3 Kathy Lindemer 
4 Vicky Roberts
5 Lori Bowring Michaud
6 Leigh Thow 
7 Ailsa Jackson 
8 Steph L 
9 Kristi Harrison 
10 Merja
11 Lucy Haslam 
12 Penny Neville 
13 Linda – Earthshine beads
14 Kristen Stevens
15 Erin Prais – Hintz 
16 Klassy Joolz 
17 Jenny Argyle 
18 Shaiha 
19 Claire Lockwood 
20 Patti Gasparino 
21 Suhana Hart 
22 Toltec Jewels 
23 lori anderson 


Congratulations if you’re name was picked, we will be in touch soon.

Sorry to those who didn’t, and thank you to everyone who shared, liked and helped spread the word.

If you missed the draw and would like to play along you can find Lesley’s ceramic flowers, and Claire’s silks in their shops



And I will have more birds in my shop in a week or so, keep an eye on my Facebook page for updates…
Caroline x

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Sunday, 23 February 2014

Spring Fever Design Challenge

What do we want? Spring! When do we want it? Now! Well all right then!


I usually love Autumn and Winter, but I don’t feel that we’ve had proper seasons this year… what should have been crisp frosty mornings and beautiful snow filled landscapes has turned in to a wet mess. We’ve had damaging storms across the country, and the South has been hit by awful floods.
We’re ready for it to be over and are looking forward to everything Spring brings. There are small signs in the garden of warmer times coming, the bulbs are starting to break the surface and over the last few days, the birds have been singing. So in the hope of things to come, myself and Lesley Watt are hosting a glorious technicoloured ceramic Spring Fever design Challenge! 
 There are beads from myself…

 There are beads from Lesley…

Everything has been specially made for the challenge with the theme of Spring. But that’s not all… this year, the lovely Claire Braunbarth of Smitten Beads will be joining us adding some of her sari silks in to the design packs.

Each pack consists of a surprise flower focal set from Lesley, a surprise bird bead set from me and a length of matching silk from Claire. Each bead is handmade and individual.
The challenge sets are offered at the discounted price of GBP£12 each + P&P (£2.50 uk/£3.75 overseas) and there are only 20 available. Winners of the sets will be randomly chosen from comments left on mine and Lesley’s blog.
If you’re a winner, we will let you know, get in touch for payment, and your pack will be posted out. You can create as many designs as you wish, using the beads and silk from us and anything in your stash. Designs need to be completed and ready for the big reveal and blog hop onWednesday 16th April.

 

 All you have to do to enter is comment on this post or on Lesley’s blog post but please note – you must be willing to take part in the blog hop on Wednesday 16th April.
There are are lots of ways you can increase your chances of winning too… Do any of the following and leave an additional comment each time and you will get an extra entry for each one:
Share this giveaway on your own blog
Share this giveaway on your Facebook pages, Google+, Twitter etc.
Become a new follower of ‘The Gossiping Goddess’
Become a new follower of ‘Blueberri Beads’
Become a new follower of Smitten Beads
Become a follower of my Facebook page.
Become a follower of Lesley’s Facebook page.
Become a follower of Claire’s Facebook page
Follow me on Pinterest
Follow Lesley on Pinterest
Follow Claire on Pinterest
Like Lesley’s Etsy shops THEA jewellery and THEA too.
Like my Etsy shop Blueberri Beads
Anything else of you can think of to spread the word.
Don’t forget to leave a separate comment for each method to maximise your chances though! The draw will close at 8pm GMT on Wednesday 26th February and we will randomly select and announce the winners on Friday 28th February.
Winners will be sent an e-mail asking them to forward payment in Great British Pounds to my Paypal address – payments should be made as quickly as possible to ensure beads are shipped in good time.
We will aim to have all packed shipped by Monday 10th March which will allow five plus weeks for delivery and design. It’s as simple as that so good luck and I’ll see you back here on the 28th and hope you’ll be with us for the big reveal.
If you’d like to see what happened in the last challenge we hosted, check out the Pinterest board here to see the stunning Autumn design Challenge creations.
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Friday, 31 January 2014

AJE Component of the month reveal - January

It’s AJE component of the month reveal time again… I can’t believe how quickly January has flown by! I’ve been pretty busy since the beginning of the year with new designs and shop updates, and also designing something around one of these beautiful components from Jenny Davies-Reazor.


Jenny is an amazing mixed media artist, but don’t just take my word for it… 
have a peek at her work here   https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/jdaviesreazor
The components were finished with a word chosen for each of us, and topped with resin to create a stunning keepsake. My word was calm… I could do with a bit of that at the moment, it has been a hectic month!


Calm for me is the evening. My favourite time is a Summer’s evening at dusk.  There is a peaceful stillness that falls over the garden, the drone of everyday busyness has died down and as it says in my word description, there is a feeling of tranquillity. Then as the sun sets, the heat of the day fades and the stars start to appear one by one… I’m relaxing just thinking about it!
Ahem… back to my design…
My component came with 2 holes, but for the idea I had in mind, it needed at least 3. I didn’t want to drill it, so I used copper wire to create the loops where I needed them. From the word, I hung one of my porcelain moons, a Czech glass bead and a copper star cut from sheet. I pulled out the blue silk and loved the colour combination with the blue, copper and gold, but it wouldn’t hang right on the silk alone. I wanted to add more beads to create the feeling of luxury, so more copper wire wrapped in a spiral created the stiffness and loops I needed.


I’ve a bit of a thing for Czech glass at the moment (you might have spotted that!), so I pulled out everything I had in blue and gold and swapped and changed them until I was happy. A handmade simple copper clasp finished off the design.
Looking at it again, I’m tempted to add some more dangles, I might play with it a bit more!



Big thanks to Jenny for the chance to create something with her wonderful component! It has been great fun to work with!   If you’d like to see what she and everyone else has created with their own words, follow the links below…
Thanks for reading! x

Guests:
Hope of Craftyhope -
Sarajo of SJ Designs Jewelry

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