New Tutorial: Constructing Accent Pieces for Your Scarves, Sweaters & Shawls

I am excited (and relieved) to finally have finished and published my latest tutorial:  Constructing Accent Pieces for Your Scarves, Sweaters & Shawls.  In this 50 page pdf lesson I give step by step instructions on the basic construction of our most popular selling items -- our scarf jewelry and shawl pins.  We have been selling our shawl pins in local yarn shops for several years now and are a very popular item.

Our scarf jewelry is our main attraction in any of the shows we are in.  They are our best selling item and we have made and sold hundreds over the past few years.  My purpose for this tutorial is to teach the basic construction of these pieces so that nearly any technique can be applied and this way you can give them your own personal style.

You are welcome to sell any items that you create from this tutorial, just do not share any of our trade secrets, copy, share or teach from any of our published lessons.

My lesson is broken down into segments with plenty of pictures to make it easier to follow.  There are links throughout for easier viewing on a tablet.

This is a break down of some of the content:

-- The Shawl Pin - Supplies and Determining Size
-- Making the Shawl "Ring"
-- Adding embellishments to your Shawl Ring
-- Making the Shawl "Pin" or "Stick"
-- Adding a Decorative End to the Shawl Stick (3 different methods)
-- The Scarf Necklace - Supplies and Determining Size
-- Making the Scarf Necklace Bail
-- Working with Crystal Rhinestones
-- Making the Beads for the Scarf Necklace (3 different Methods)
-- Assembling Your Scarf Necklace including basic jewelry making Instructions
-- Making a Scarf Buckle in a faux "tooled leather"
-- Making Your Own Custom Texture Stamps
-- Making a Form for Baking the Shawl Pin Rings and Scarf Buckles

Also included is a two page photo gallery for design ideas along with supply references to help you find some of the materials we use such as scarves, etc.

The supplies needed to make all of the items in this tutorial are all easy to find and very affordable.   Most items you probably already have on hand.

I have had many requests to share what we use for the stick in our shawl pins.  We were not prepared to divulge this trade secret of ours but I not only share what the material is but a simple and effect method for covering it with clay.

The tutorial is available as an instant download in our Etsy Shop or in our online store where we will e-mail it out to you (please be sure to give the correct e-mail address and check your spam box if you do not receive it within several hours of paying.)

New Brilliant Blooms Jewelry

Every spring I get into a mode of making lots of flowers.  I am not sure if it is due to spring fever and all the flowers popping up that inspire me or more to the fact that when I go through our inventory, I discover that we have few flower designs left in stock and the need to make more.

This year I wanted to create flowers that were extra bright and cheerful.  I decided to use the Pantone Spring 2014 Fashion Colors for inspiration.

Whenever I make my flowers (shown above), I like to save some extra "petal" canes to make the sculpted flowers like the ones in the scarf necklaces and earrings (below).  These were made the same way as the "Daisy" flower in my Sculpted Flowers Tutorial.  I just used bright colored clay in place of the white and black instead of the grey for the outlining.

These are our new falling petal earrings

for our interchangeable earring system:

The colors I used to make the flower petals shown above (left to right) are:

Dazzling Blue (with more white added),

Violet Tulip (reduce the amount of white mix to 1/2 part)

Cayenne, Radiant Orchid, Celosia Orange, Freesia

Each earring comes with three "strands" at different lengths that can be worn individually or combined in various ways.

Knit Your Own Scarf Necklace

Donna from Donna's Yarn & Craft in Kamloops worked out some simple scarf patterns to go along with our scarf jewelry.  These are two variations of one pattern that are quick to whip up and if you are an average knitter, can be created in only a few hours.  She has the pattern available now and will have the "published" pattern available in her store by the end of the month.

Faux Turquoise Scarf Necklace

We mixed up a batch of our faux turquoise this week.  It is still one of our favorite techniques and is so versatile.  You can do so much with it and as a veneer, it can be applied to a variety of things for a real turquoise stone effect.  Here it is used as one of our scarf necklaces.

This turquoise looks so real, the only thing that gives it away is how light it is compared to real stone, but is also a great advantage as you can create large chunky jewelry pieces without all that heavy weight.

If you want to mix up a batch for yourself, my tutorial is available in our Etsy shop as an instant download or you can purchase through our Artfire studio and we will e-mail it to you direct.  My lesson is easy to follow and the clay color recipes for the turquoise color shown here is included using either Kato or Premo clay.  Of course there is so much more to learn besides making the faux stone.  I show you how to use it as a veneer to make beads, cabachons and to use it in other ways like in a pendant frame.  The supplies required are easy to find in any hobby or craft store that sells jewelry supplies.

The Canadian Men's Curling Championship - Tim Horton's Brier Kamloops 2014 is Now On

Just a reminder about the Tim Horton's Brier Kamloops 2014 (Canadian Men's Curling Championship) is going on now in Kamloops.  This is an exciting event for Kamloops.

Also a big reminder that Essentials & Beyond is having a great sale for this event.

We are pleased to have our work for sale at this cool boutique and a selection of our scarf necklaces, bracelets and earrings are featured front and center.  (See our previous blog post here)

Blossom Scarf Necklace in Vintage Blue

Spiral Bracelets

Hurry Hard to Essentials & Beyond for the Tim Horton's Brier Kamloops 2014!

The Tim Horton's Brier Kamloops 2014 starts this Saturday, March 1st.  This means there will be a lot of curling fans visiting the city of Kamloops.  Essentials & Beyond (on Victoria Street downtown) has caught the spirit with their fun window display.  They welcome these fans to look at their new line of ladies wear, jewelry, giftware and souvenirs.

We are pleased to be a part of their ladies accessory and jewelry collection featuring our scarf necklaces, bracelets and interchangeable earrings.

While there yesterday to "freshen up" our items at the store, we noticed a lot of beautiful new items they received in time for spring.  Since I am always interested in color, that is usually what first grabs my attention and Essentials has some gorgeous new items in this year's spring colors!

Here is a cute dress with a matching cardigan in the Pantone Spring 2014 fashion color of Dazzling Blue!

And I love the colors in this dress with splashes of Radiant Orchid, Celosia Orange, Violet Tulip, Dazzling Blue and lime green.

They have some wonderful things in this adorable boutique.  It is always a treat to shop there and find something new every time!

Tooled Leather Jewelry

Here is a scarf necklace made with the same tooled leather technique I showed you the other day which is now available in our Etsy shop.  I am finally finding a bit of time each day that I am setting aside to work on our online stores and add some new listings.

All our earring beads are sold separately from our ear wires.  It is all part of our Interchangeable Earring System.  These earring beads are now available in our online Etsy shop.  The ear wires are sold separately.

We have three ear wires styles we make ourselves in a choice of Argentium Sterling Silver and 14 Karat Gold (fill).  They can all mix and match with any of our earring beads for custom fit and styling.

Some of our beads have a different pattern on each side making them not only interchangeable but 2 earring styles in 1.  

Personalized Textures

I've been experimenting with making some of my own texture sheets.  This is something I've been wanting to do for a while but just didn't have the time.  Here are two new designs I've made so far, used to create some scarf jewelry and earring beads.  They are both for sale at Essentials & Beyond on Victoria Street, downtown Kamloops.  They carry a wide selection of our scarf accent pieces as well as our interchangeable earrings collection.

Interchangeable Earring Beads are also reversible

Interchangeable Earring Beads are also Reversible

If you are interested in making your own texture sheets, Helen Breil has a tutorial on how to do this.  She has some really great tips and is a good way to get you started. 

Ladies in Red

It has been an extremely busy month but looks like things are quickly getting back to normal.  We have  mainly been filling store orders as this is a busy time of year for them which, of course, is good for us.

For the past year and especially during this Christmas season, we have had more jewelry requests in the color red.  We rarely make the same item in the same color combination more than once but we have repeated certain designs (in limited amounts) due to customer requests and popularity.

Here are some of our creations in this seasonal jewel-tone color.

Other than it being Christmas, there is another reason the color red has been so popular.  Many of you have heard of the Red Hat Society.  Well there is another group of ladies called the "Crown Jewels of Canada" (CJC).  I had the opportunity to meet with some of the ladies who are members of the CJC and after learning more about the group, I felt inspired to make more items in red.

We had bought some kilt brooch pins some time ago hoping to make some sweater pins with them.  These ones shown here as well as other styles and colors are now available at Donna's Yarn & Craft (north shore Kamloops) and will also be listed in our online shop soon.

Scarf Jewelry Collection

For the past year, our scarf jewelry has been our best seller, so we have shifted our focus more towards developing a wider range of designs and styles.  Some of this depended on finding the right scarves that would work best for us and then developing the clay accent pieces to go with each type.  For instance our "Soft Elegance" line is based on a soft and airy polyester scarf that is light enough to wear in a hotter climate, yet also elegant to wear in the winter over a heavy sweater.  The clay pieces we make for this scarf also need to be lighter in weight so they don't pull on the scarf and can stay balanced and in place.

This scarf is included in several of our scarf accent designs:

The "Soft Elegance" Scarf Necklace

Scarf Charms

Scarf Clips

Our "Classic" Scarf Necklace required a heavier type scarf and were very excited to find these gorgeous ones in viscose.

"Classic" with the metal bail

"Classic" with all clay textured bail

And our third type of scarf are our viscose animal prints for our new "Exotic Line".  I love the print and colors in these scarves and they are so comfortable to wear.

Our scarf jewelry is sold in several stores in our area (click here to see) and we are slowly adding a few designs to our online Artfire and Etsy shops. 

I should mention that we now offer free shipping for most of our items to Canadian residents.  Due to the size of the scarf jewelry, we only charge a small (subsidized) flat fee and orders will be shipped by expedited mail.  For other countries we still charge a low flat fee for as many items you buy.

New Scarf Charms

I am finally getting around to listing some scarf jewelry pieces in our online shop.  These scarf charms are a new design made from a mold I created using a combination of several findings.  I love the bling effect of the Swarovski Rivoli crystals and to securely hold them in place, they are actually embedded into the clay behind the front textured sheet creating a bezel around it.

The texture I used for the all clay bail is a favorite of mine and one of Wendy Orlowski's designs called "Feather Boa".