Poinsettia Snaps for the Holidays

We only have a few days left to finish off some new items for the Craft-a-Fair this coming Sunday at the Sandman Center in Kamloops.  We created some new poinsettia designs in a snap for interchanging in the various jewelry pieces.  They are also now available in the Decorative Snaps Section of our online store.

To see more of our designs and accessories in our online store, we have included 2 other fun ways to help with your search:

Shop by Color:

and Shop by Collection:

Snowflakes in a Snap Tutorial

It is that time of year when we are busy creating items for Christmas shows.  Our snowflake snaps last year were a popular item and are in the process of making more as well as in some new colors.

If you are interested in making some interchangeable snap jewelry either for gifts or to sell at the craft shows, now is the time to stock up on your supplies.

We are also offering a free pdf copy of our tutorial, "Snowflakes in a Snap" plus a bonus snowflake charm with a minimum purchase from our DIY snap supply section in our online store. **

This tutorial is not for sale but only available as a bonus gift with the minimum purchase of snap supplies.  And don't forget to sign up to our website for additional offers or discounts.  We promise we will not share your information to anyone else and you won't be bombarded with a ton of e-mails. 

** If you already received my tutorial and snowflake charm last year, we will send you a free snap ring base and snap pendant instead.   See the bottom of our page for more information here.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas

to all of our followers!

It has been snowing here for the last few days so it really is a winter wonderland where we are.  If we are lucky, tomorrow we might see the Mountain Sheep come down the mountain looking for grass to graze on.  It is always a nice treat when they do.

Each year we make a special limited edition Christmas ornament only for our wholesale clients as a collectors item.  Since we were really into snowflakes this year we decided to go with that theme.

Christmas Show Now Over

Our Christmas show of the year is now over and is nice to have it finished early.  Dave and I were both physically exhausted after but we were still able to enjoy dinner out later with our new friends from our polymer clay guild who were also there selling there handcrafted jewelry.  It was a nice way to unwind and relax afterwards.

Our interchangeable "Snap" Jewelry was a huge hit at the show.  I managed to take a few pictures this time before the doors opened and the floods of people came in.  We added a new item to our "Snap Decisions" collection which was our chain style belts.  These were not only a popular item they really added that extra touch to our display.  These belts are so gorgeous and of course I had to keep one for myself to wear.  We do have a few left over that are available in our online store.

Christmas Earrings & Chase Country Christmas

Our Chase Country Christmas is this weekend and we are preparing for our local craft fair on Saturday at the community hall.  It is a fun time and starts with a parade Friday evening with other events throughout the weekend.

These are some Christmas earring beads we made this year and will have for sale at the craft show.  All our earring beads and ear wires are sold separately to mix and match in our interchangeable system.

We will have lots of candy cane earrings on hand.  These are a real popular item this time of year.  We made some longer styles with chain tassels and Czech crystals in red or green.  You can click here to see my free tutorial I shared on this blog 3 years ago.  I added a slight variation on this last year which you will find here.

The red rondelle beads in these earrings are made from polymer clay and look like real glass pearls.  I have a published tutorial to make these type of beads.

These earring beads have Swarovski crystals embedded.  These beads are also reversible making them more versatile to wear year round.  To create the snowflake pattern, we used some metal snowflake findings to make our own "texture plates".  I share how to make your own texture plates and these type of beads in my "Constructing Accent Pieces for your Scarves, Sweaters & Shawls" tutorial.

Snowflakes are the theme for this year's Country Christmas celebration so we made some in different colors.

We love this time of year when we can get together with our friends and neighbors and really look forward to this weekend.

Memory Wire Bracelet Tutorial

It is that time of year again to pull out our supply of candy cane beads and make some more jewelry.  We made a huge supply of beads last year so still have a bunch on hand to play with.  If you play with polymer clay you will find my free tutorial here to make your own.

We like to use the shorter beads in bracelets and so we made some up in the spiral memory wire style.  The nice thing about this type of bracelet is that they are easy to put on and take off and they fit any wrist size.

Working with memory wire can be a little tricky at first, but once you know what you are doing, it can be a lot of fun.  When you first unpack the wire you will notice it is a lot like a "Slinky" toy.  When you stretch it out a bit and then let go, it will spring back into the same shape.

With this type of bracelet you want to have 4 to 5 "rounds" or rings so it will wrap around the wrist several times making it more secure and giving it that stacked bracelet look.  It is best to cut a bit more to allow for finishing at each end.  Do not use your good jewelry cutters for this type of wire as it will ruin them.  There are special "memory wire shears" you can buy for this.  These are very strong cutters and are like a mini "bolt cutter" so are also handy for cutting other things like soldered chain or other steel or brass wire.

Make an eye loop at the one end of your wire with your round nose pliers.  The loop acts as a stopper for your beads when stringing and you can also add some pretty dangles and charms on it after.

This type of bracelet can take quite a few beads which can make the bracelet rather heavy if you are using a lot of glass or metal types.  Because Polymer clay beads are light, they work really well.  Long tubes also look really stunning on these bracelets and the typical ones are made from metal.  Not only are these tubes rather expensive, they are also heavy and can tarnish quite easily.

I discovered a great substitute for the metal tubing which is called Softglass cord and is available at Shades of Clay  (*See update below)  The Softglass cord is like Buna except it is hollow inside so you can thread wire through it.  It also has a beautiful satin glass-like finish and comes in a wide range of gorgeous colors.  The other cool thing about using this type of tubing is that you can cut it to any length.  You can use scissors or I find using a heavy tissue blade makes really clean and straight edges.  Here I used the 2.5mm but the thicker cord works well too.

Now the fun begins.  You can play around with different patterns to see what works for you.  The main idea is to have your beads somewhat evenly spaced or "weighted" all the way around.  You will notice that the bead placement can change drastically with different tube lengths.  If you find it isn't working, then try cutting the Softglass cord longer or shorter and see what works best.  For the bracelet shown here (below) I am using the Emerald Green Softglass cut into 1-1/2" lengths.

Start threading your beads and cord tubing on the wire.  When you are happy with your pattern, slide the beads down to the end of the wire.  Keep adding your beads until your wire is full.

When you are happy with your bracelet, finish off the other end with another eye loop.  Add some pretty bead dangles and charms at each end and you are done.

* Update - Unfortunately, Shades of Clay no longer carries the hollow cord show here in the different colors but is available in black or frost.  You can use any cord, however that is hollow for these bracelets or make your own hollow tubing from polymer clay.

Craft-a-Fair 2014

The Salmon Festival is over and we are preparing for our first Christmas Show of the year.  It is the Craft-a-Fair at the Interior Savings Centre in Kamloops this Sunday, November 2nd.  It is put on by the Royal Inland Hospital Auxiliary with this year celebrating their 30th Anniversary.

We will be in the same spot as we have been for several years now which is on the concourse --  turn left at the main entrance.  We are down a little ways on on the left hand side.

Our main feature again this year is our interchangeable earring system with plenty of new styles of art beads to wear along with our most popular selling item, our scarf jewelry.  This year we will also be featuring our latest interchangeable scarf necklace designs which were first introduced at the Lake Country Art Walk last September.

Make-over for our Bracelet Display Stands

A few months ago I shared with you a tutorial on how to make some simple bracelet display stands out of cardstock which worked very nicely for our jewelry display at the Art Walk.  They worked really well for us so I decided to make more solid ones from polymer clay, using the original "cones" as a form for shaping and baking.  (Tip:  Use a release of some sort such as cornstarch to prevent the clay from sticking to the cardstock.)

We also decided they would be multifunctional if we could display some matching earrings.  Since all our ear wires and art beads are interchangeable, we only needed to display the beads by making a special holder with some heavy gauge wire and adding an alligator clip to hold a label or card.

These are now ready for our next show this Saturday at the Westwold Community Hall.

Candy Cane Beads

Last week we made several batches of candy cane beads for our Christmas shows.  I shared a tutorial how to make your own candy cane beads with you some time ago and if you haven't seen it yet, you will find it here.

Since I am constantly looking at ways to increase productivity, I decided to try a slightly different method. Instead of making the colored clay strips, we created a clay stack and then arranged slices from it around the white clay log (see pictures below).

Now I am ready to create some new jewelry designs with my fresh candy cane bead supply.