New Interchangeable Snap Necklace Styles

We recently added some new interchangeable pendant styles to our Snap Decisions collection.  All of the decorative snap base pendants have our unique "easy clip" for interchanging.  You can clip them onto a necklace chain or onto any of our scarf bails to wear on a scarf.

These new pendants along with our other styles are available in our online store and we will also have them for sale at the Kamloops Craft-a-Fair this Sunday.  If you can make it we would love to see you there.

Our Snap Decisions Collection is also sold at the Silhouette Fashion Boutique.  We are excited to announce that Silhouette Fashion Boutique recently opened a second location at the Village Green Centre in Vernon.

I thought I would share this video that was made by Roxy of Shuswap Events featuring our Snap Decisions Collection and demonstrated by T.J. the owner of the Silhouette Fashion Boutique.

The Silhouette Fashion Boutique has such fabulous clothes with most of them Canadian made.  They are having their fall fashion show at the Vernon store location this Thursday which you need to book in advance.  To see other events and specials, you can follow them on facebook to stay informed.

If you are not able to shop in their store, you can find all the fabulous clothes they carry in their online store.

Lots of New Scarf Jewelry for Fall

Over the past few months we have been working overtime to create some new scarf jewelry for fall.  I have been teaching Linda, our assistant, how to make them with me in a sort of production process and so we were able to create a wide range of designs and have some fun at the same time!  These take a fair bit of work to make but is one of my favorite items to create.  The bails are handcrafted from clay and then we hand-shape sets of clay beads to match.  After baking and finishing all the pieces, they are put together with unique charms and beautiful beads to create a balanced necklace.

Our scarf jewelry is one of our most popular selling items.  We have had a difficult time listing them online as they would sell so quickly.  This time we managed to document and photograph these latest pieces before we take them to our Christmas show coming up in less than 2 weeks.  We will be at the Kamloops Craft-A-Fair at the Sandman Centre on Sunday, November 5th.  We will be in the same location as past years (on the concourse - turn left at the main entrance and down a bit on the left hand side).  If you are not able to attend, we have a wide selection listed in our online store and also adding some select designs to our Etsy shop.

Our new classic collection is in a wide range of fall colors.  You can add one to your own favorite scarf or they can be purchased with one of our soft and luxurious linen scarves in your color choice.

Heart N'Sole Quilts and Cherry Tree Quilts

We are excited to announce two new stores here in B.C. that are now selling our work.  We met them both at the Salmon Arm Quilt Show last month and I was kicking myself for not taking more photos but we were too busy to think of it!

Catherine & Rod of Heart N'Sole Quilts

One of the stores is Heart N'Sole Quilts in Grand Forks.  They now have a nice selection of our handcrafted buttons as well as our scarf jewelry which will be featured in their upcoming "Quilts in the Garden" show this Friday and Saturday (July 8 & 9).

Flower Scarf Necklace

 

Grand Forks is a quaint little city right at the Washington, U.S. border.  We are hoping we will make it there sometime this year since it is one of our favorite places to visit and we now have two reasons to go!

The other store is Cherry Tree Quilts in Summerland.  They have recently expanded into more space and have added a wide range of giftware.  Along with our handcrafted buttons, they are also now selling jewelry from our Snap Decisions Collection.

We are looking forward to a possible visit in the fall and teaching some classes there.

New Prototype - Combining Styles!

I love engineering and inventing new items when working with polymer clay.  When I get an idea, it is in my head sometimes for months while my brain tries to work it out.  For some things I need to work in stages and create my first prototype which sometimes evolves into other variations or new ideas.  Other ideas just suddenly pop into my head and I am totally surprised why I hadn't thought of it before!  This new style I came up with is a perfect example.  We have been making more of our scarf jewelry components interchangeable simply by adding a special clip type clasp.  We can also add "snap" base pendants to the scarf bails for another variation.  I then realized we could maybe add a snap base to the scarf bail but had to work it out to see if it was possible.  Here is the result!

So to create the scarf bail with the snap base, I combined  methods from two of my tutorials:

Constructing Accent Pieces for Your Scarves, Sweaters & Shawls

and     Snap Decisions - Part 2

Here are the instructions to make a scarf bail with a snap base using the above two tutorials.  I will refer to them as "Scarf"  and "Snap" as the instructions will switch back and forth between the two.

# 1 - Roll out your sheet of clay to add your snap base - See Snap Tutorial - Step 1 (page 5)

# 2 - Cut our the scarf bail base form - See Snap Tutorial - Step 2 (page 5)  AND  Scarf Tutorial - Step 50 (page 18)

# 3 - Crimp your snap base onto the raw clay piece. - See Snap Tutorial - page 27

Add snap to center front of scarf bail before baking

Side view of snap base crimped onto clay

# 4 - Attach the ring and bake your piece. - See Scarf Tutorial - Steps 51-60 - (pages 18-20)

Scarf bail with snap ready to bake.

Side view of scarf bail with snap.

 # 5 - Add the veneer to the scarf bail base.  - See Snap Tutorial - Steps 11-15 - (pages 7-8)

Bake your piece and you are done!

We now have a large selection of snap supplies and tools in our online shop as well as jewelry findings that we use in our tutorials such as the smaller rings for scarf bails.  These rings are a perfect fit for the clip type clasp used to make the scarf jewelry interchangeable.

Rings for scarf bails

Clip Clasp

Interchangeable Scarf Jewelry Pieces

Make Your Scarf Jewelry Interchangeable!

Next to our new Snap Decisions Collection, our scarf jewelry is still a popular selling items at shows.  Since publishing my tutorial, Constructing Accent Pieces for Your Scarves, Sweaters & Shawls, we discovered a special clip finding that could make our designs interchangeable.  And now with our snap base pendants, we can combine the two making them even more versatile!

This scarf necklace is one of my favorites -- We filled the metal scarf bail from behind with clay and then added color with mica powders.  The Swarovski crystal was added later with Apoxy clay.  To create the matching clay beads in the cascade, I made my own texture stamps from the metal bail (see page 45 of my tutorial).

Using the special clip type clasp, the bead cascade can be removed and interchanged with any of our "snap" base pendants for a different look.

We now have a supply of these special clips available in our new online store along with other supplies that are hard to find and used in our tutorials.  Be sure to sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss out on any specials or promotions.

Photographing Outdoors

The weather here has been really fabulous lately.  With the midday being so hot we are thankful for the central air conditioning in our home but the morning and evenings are perfect for sitting out on the patio.  We needed to photograph some of our scarf jewelry for listing on our new website and noticed the lighting on our patio under the shade of our large umbrella was perfect for this.  My set-up was quite simple which was a white tablecloth draped over a garment rack.  We have several of these racks for displaying our scarf jewelry at shows and now found another use for them.

While taking my pictures a few little visitors on our patio caught my eye -- they were the baby chipmunks that live underneath our deck.  I managed to snap a photo of one before he scurried away.

And here are a few photos from today.  These items will be available on our new website very soon.

Faux Red Turquoise Stone Scarf Necklace

Bargello Scarf Necklace

Pink & Purple Scarf Necklace

After Craft Culture

We had a fun but exhausting two days at the Craft Culture show last weekend.  We are constantly asked by our customers what other shows we are in so they can find us again but truthfully we do very few shows and even then, only select ones.  We find them very exhausting as there is so much preparation work beforehand in not only preparing enough product to sell but also working out a proper display so everything is well presented.  Then there are the long hours during the show and then the take down and packing up process at the end and then usually a long drive home afterwards.  We are finding doing shows more and more of a challenge to do and so instead we are currently working on a new website for selling more of our product which should be up and running soon.

One thing we like about doing shows, however, is meeting our customers in person and seeing the happy look on their faces when they leave with their purchase in hand.  We also had a more complete line of our interchangeable snap jewelry collection available and received lots of feedback with more ideas of what our customers were looking for.

One thing about this show was that there was plenty of live entertainment with everything from music performers and gardening tips to cooking demonstrations such as Chef GIULIO PICCIOLI of  One Big Table shown here.

The other thing we enjoy is talking with other vendors in the show.  This is Marzio who was our neighbor and was really great getting to know him.  He is an excellent cartoonist who does caricatures and also has a great sense of humor as you can see in the ones he did of Dave and I.

Another artist that was across from us was abstract painter, Graciela Blancarte,  Graciela is originally from Mexico but now lives here in Canada.  She is so sweet and the colors in her paintings are so intense and beautiful.  You can visit her website here to see her work. 

Marzio also did Graciela's caricature that she is holding.

Organized Jewelry

I sometimes feel I have the best "job" in the world and at times at the end of the day I feel I played more than I actually "worked".   I also get to wear a lot of jewelry that I custom make for myself to coordinate with my clothing.  Every time I wear something we created I look at it as a form of "advertising" when people notice it and ask me where I got it.

Over the years, I have accumulated a fairly large collection of jewelry pieces that we have made and I thought I would share with you how I have some of it organized.  Since all my earring beads are "interchangeable", I can keep all my sterling silver and gold-filled ear wires safely packed in my container handy to add to any of my earring beads that I want to wear.  The case is also handy for storing some earring beads when travelling.

I needed a way to hang my earring beads and found these Christmas ornament hangers on sale.  Of course I could have made my own hooks but these were handier.

This is a large cork memo board that I covered with fabric and hung in the bedroom.  The rod below it has shower curtain rings that hold my scarves and scarf necklaces.

I use push pins to hang some of my necklaces on the left and my bracelets along the top.  The earring beads are on the hooks I showed above and hung on two 20 inch lengths of chain.  The bottom row are my brooch/pendants hung on the same hooks.

I love having most of my jewelry pieces hung up like this so they are easy to see and coordinate with what I am wearing.  Sometimes I am in a rush and don't have time to spend rummaging through everything to find just the right thing.