Is is Fall yet?

Fall is my favorite time of the year. I really start looking forward to it during the hot and humid summer days. I begin to think about the cooler days and wearing warm, soft flannel. The beautiful colors of fall, the dark reds and oranges and browns make me think of caramel apples and candy corn. Best of all Fall begins all my favorite holidays; Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  I love the food and the decorations and spending time with family and friends. The holidays are the feel good time of the year.  Since I was thinking about Fall, I decided to make a few Halloween items.  I had a lot of fun playing with polymer clay and made some iconic Halloween jewelry.

First I made some candy corn earrings. I shaped progressively smaller balls of polymer clay and formed them into the candy corn shape. I baked them with a metal loop inserted so it would be easier to hang them. I played with my Thing-a-ma-jig and made my own earwires for these earrings. 

After the candy corn I decided to make some cute pumpkins. I rolled two small orange balls with brown stems and inserted wire loops. After I baked them I painted a jack o'lantern face on them and attached them to earwires. 

Halloween is not complete without some cute ghosts! I shaped two white balls of clay into a ghost shape. I then rolled some black clay to make the eyes and mouth and green clay for a cute bowtie. Since these are flatter than the other pieces I made a hole in the top of the ghost and once they were ready I looped some green wire through the ghost and attached to earwires.

Finally I made a black clay cat with an orange bowtie. I attached it to a gunmetal chain and attached looping chains to orange and black beads.

I still have so many different ideas of Fall items I want to make...I will keep you posted when I do! :D

Still Thinking About Christmas

I was still continuing with my Christmas theme this week...Christmas is my favorite time of year. I am always counting the minutes until I can decorate my house. Working on Christmas jewelry gives me a taste of Christmas even though it is still far away.

I had purchased a Thing-a-ma-Jig earlier this year, but have not had time to experiment with it. As I was looking at some patterns on various websites, I came across the cutest Christmas Tree earrings using wire. The pattern was free and designed by Natalie Trinh. I made the tree according to her design, but added small jingle bells at the bottom.

I love the jingle bells, and decided that I would also make some Jingle Bell earrings. I attached jingle bells to earwires using some eyehooks. The jingle bells are varying heights to make them interesting.

Of course what Christmas project is complete without some pretty green and red beads. I made a set of beads out of polymer clay. I will probably be making them into a bracelet eventually.

Once I was finished with these fun Christmas projects I decided I needed to make something for Halloween too. I have a cat push mold, so made a black cat and added some embellishments to him, green eyes, pink nose and a cute orange bow. He came out ok for a first attempt, but I will make sure to cool the clay before removing him from the mold next time.

Christmas in July?

Started thinking about Christmas today. It's only July, but in crafting it is more than time to start making those holiday pieces. I was wandering in the craft store, (my favorite place to be!) when I noticed that they are beginning to set up those holiday displays. I saw some jingle bells and immediately thought about how cute they would be as a bracelet.

I began with a simple chain measured out to an average wrist size. Using red and green jump rings, I fastened my jingle bells around the bracelet at equal distances.  As I looked at my bracelet I decided that it needed a little more embellishment, so I added small red resin beads that gave the appearance of holly beads.

As I was constructing this bracelet, other ideas began to pour in...love it when the creative juices are flowing.
I had the idea to make a European weave chainmaille bracelet using Christmas colors. I began with a silver tone slide clasp and 7mm silver toned rings. I wove red and green aluminum jump rings interlocking with the silver rings to make a very pretty new piece.