Kansas in July…. a time for big yellow sunflowers with bright green leaves, amber waves of grain with the beautiful wheat fields, and fields of green corn (sweet and field corn). To capture the colors of Kansas in a new piece of jewelry, I created my “sunflower” necklace using items from my favorite bead supplier… Artbeads.
I then needed something for the “petals”. I found the perfect bead with some Flat Teardrop Pendant beads in amber. To compliment the amber and yellow, I wanted a pretty green bead for more color for my piece. I just love the Wasabi beads that Artbeads has, and I found some beautiful Wasabi luster glass brick beads that worked perfectly!
Sunflower Necklace
I couldn’t decide how I wanted to attach the teardrop pendants to the necklace at first, and then I remembered that I had a huge bag of vintage sterling silver bails that my Mom used to sell at her antique shop (she carried native American jewelry in her shop in addition to some silversmith supplies). They were just what I need to attach the teardrops. I also wanted to add some brown tones to the necklace, and found some rectangle Tiger Eye beads leftover from a previous project. They work well with the new Artbeads components that I was using for this Sunflower necklace, and with a few small seed beads for accent, I started my work.
The result is this “Sunflower Necklace”. I think it reflects the beautiful colors found in Kansas in July… what do you think?
Sunflower Necklace
Disclosure: I have received some of the components used for this design from Artbeads free of charge. I am posting an honest review of said products and have not been paid to endorse said products.
This Weeks Featured Artisan is Creations with Heart
I truly enjoy creating jewelry and it\’s a bonus and a pleasure to make it available to you!
I love to create classic and western jewelry that will always fit your style! Gemstones, crystals, pewter and leather are just a few materials I enjoy working with. I\’m a \”dog mom\” so including animals in some of my creations is a must — I love them so much! A percentage of all animal related purchases is donated to help the animals. It\’s something I like to do to help our furry friends that need and depend on us.
You\’ll see jewelry styles ranging from classic, animal themed, southwest, western and inspirational. My wish is to have my guests smile when they put my jewelry on. When you smile, you feel good!
I hope you enjoy the jewelry I\’ve created and may it bring you joy and happiness
This weeks Featured Artisan on Share the Love… Blogger’s Unite is
Love you More Designs
Kathleen is a stay-at-home mom of three who was a lawyer in another life. She has always been interested in creating — jewelry, poetry, scrapbooking and loves to create unique jewelry designs. She is also a member of the Ets yMom Street Team.
This weeks Featured Artisan on Share the Love – Blogger’s Unite is Caliope! Jazz up your warderobe with a stunning creation by Caliope. Visit her shop to see all of her beautiful works of art!!
This Weeks Featured Shop is pamannie ink- beautiful cards for all occassions! Say it with Love.. say it with Handmade! Stop by and see all of her wonderful creations! You can find pamannie at:
This Weeks Featured Shop is Shabby Bags – Jan creates wonderful purses and totes. The highest quality of work and every creation is done with love! Visit Shabby Bags to see all her beautiful Creations!
It has been a very busy week for me, but also an exciting one! I’m getting ready for the Whimmydiddle arts & crafts fair in Scott City, Kansas this Saturday. I’ve made so many new pieces of jewelry this week, but haven’t had time to photograph any of them. It’s a good thing I’ve been stocking up on gemstones, beads and findings over the summer, because I’m using many new components in my pieces! I’m really looking forward to the weekend, as this is an event that draws a large crowd every year. It’s also the first time I’ve ever had my jewelry at an arts & crafts fair. I set up at the Whimmydiddle 30 years ago, when I was oil painting, but I’ve only sold my jewelry online. It will be interesting to see how this goes!
More exciting news this week… a pair of my earrings are in a contest over on “Made for me by Oaklie’s” blog on her “Great Finds” contest. Please visit her site and cast your vote for your favorite “Beeutiful Great Finds” contest. Contest entries had to be either black, yellow or white, or a combination of any or all. I didn’t have anything black and yellow, and all of my black jewelry has sold out, so I used a pair of white freshwater pearl earrings.
Another exciting piece of news was the news that I would be featured on a couple of blogs this week, and I’m also the featured artist on another Ning network. I’ve been asked to the Foxy Findings “Designer Spotlight interview” on Saturday. Foxy Findings is a supplier of beads and findings that I’ve just recently started using as one of my suppliers. They have a great selection and prices, and they offer all kinds of fun contests on Facebook and Twitter. I won a spool of their Foxy Flex blue sapphire copper beading wire from them last month, and am just getting ready to use this beautiful wire in one of my newest pieces (this piece is going to be fore me!). I’m very excited to have been asked to be interviewed for their blog, and I’m looking forward to it!
I’m also going to be featured tomorrow (Thursday) on VA Beach Quilters blog. She does such a great job at promoting fellow handmade arts & crafts people! Please be sure to check out her blog.
If that wasn’t enough excitement for the week, I’m also the featured artisan of the week on the On Fire for Handmade network on Ning. Anne also does a wonderful job of promoting shops that sell handmade goods. If you are an artist or crafts person, I highly recommend joining this Ning network! Lots of great support and friendship over there.
Well, I’ve gotta go now. Still need to make several more pieces of jewelry before this weekend! Have a great Thursday!
I love to cook and bake! And I really enjoy the times I spend cooking or baking with my great nieces, Taia and Rhiley. Taia and I baked sugar cookies this week, and had a great time rolling out the dough, cutting out the shapes, baking and then frosting the cookies. Yummy…. were they ever good!
Since I have loved to cook and bake since I was a child, when I came across the Kids Apron Giveaway in the daily Handmade Giveaways newsletter that I receive, I just had to enter this contest! And I wanted to share the details with my readers so that you can get in on the fun!
One of the aprons that I liked was the one with colorful apples and pears. Such a cute style and great colors, don’t you think? And when you order one, you also get a bonus doll apron!
You can find very cute tote bags and purses here also. My great nephew, Logan, would love this
one! He just LOVES Thomas the Train! His parents took him to see Thomas this summer, and he was
so thrilled!
If you would like to enter this contest, go to the Adventures of a Wanna-Be SupahMommy blog to enter. You can enter several different ways to increase your chances of winning.
Or…if you just want to purchase one of these great handmade items, go to Aprons for kids shop on Etsy and place your order.
This summer, while I’ve been working full time to promote & market my online businesses (handcrafted jewelry and political gifts & apparel on Zazzle & CafePress), I’ve found so many great places to buy and sell handmade items! I thought that I should post about a few that I’ve joined, just in time for Christmas shopping! I plan on buying handmade gifts this year, and I have so many great places to shop now!
One of my favorite sites is ArtFire Studios. They have a beautiful site that is easy to navigate, easy to list, and they are so very much in tune with what their sellers want! They recently added an ArtFire kiosk that you can use on your Facebook profile or page, and the new coupon option is wonderful! (I have one of the coupons posted on my blog sidebar – be sure to use it if you order from me!)
Another place that I’ve been spending a lot of time at is Ning. There are so many groups to join on Ning! I’ve met some great new friends and fellow craftspeople there! I’m a member of several groups over there. Have you tried Ning? If you join, please let me know and I’ll add you as a friend! Here’s my Ning profile.
One of the most recent sites I’ve joined is called FuzzB – I just love that name! FuzzB is another place to buy and sell handcrafted and other items. I just opened my shop over there and really like the set up they have. You can even upload a video commercial to your profile! To join, click here Register on Fuzzb.com.
Here is a link to my FuzzB shop (again, using one of their super cool widgets)…
These are just a few of the many new sites and networks I’ve found and joined recently. I’ll add some more later. There IS a reason that they call it the “world wide web”. It’s just like a spiderweb, once you get started. If I wasn’t a multi-tasker before I started selling and blogging online, I would for sure be one now. I have no less than 5 or 6 tabs open on my browser at all times, and I’m constantly updating, adding, joining and traveling around the never ending web! I always think that I’ve joined just about everything that I can, and have seen it all, but every day I find more places to join and more friends to meet and things to do!
You can find very cute tote bags and purses here also. My great nephew, Logan, would love 
