Do Over Challenge Reveal

After a bit of a delay, here's my Do Over of the beaded necklace and earrings sent to me:

Here's the full length view of the necklace, very long .

This is the close up of the two different configurations of beads I used  the length of the necklace.

I opted not to make a pair of earrings and just focus on a necklace. I really liked the orange-y colored beads and the smaller iridescent clear/gold beads. I left the clear beads out of my design. I really like tribal, ethnic designs so I chose some carved wood beads from my stash to complete the look. The design itself reminds me more of Native American designs in the overall shape of the necklace. Hopefully, I can find somewhere to wear it.

It was a different experience for me. I consider myself an advanced beginner when it comes to beading and I tried to stretch myself to do something different than I would normally make and I hope I achieved that.

Thanks to Jeannie for organizing this. Check out Jeannie's Blog so you can check out the rest of the participants Do Overs.

Camille

Do Over Challenge 2

I am participating in the Do Over Challenge 2 created by Jeannie, a jewelry designer and here's the link to the challenge posted on her blog, http://site.jkdjewelry.com/blog/2011/09/19/do-over-challenge2/. And here's an explanation of the challenge:

"The jewelry sent out for this challenge are designs I made when I was new to jewelry-making and did not know any better.  These are designs I won’t sell.  I can’t guarantee what you get or that you will even like it.  Just have fun and keep within the spirit of what this challenge is about; DO OVER! Take a “before” and “after” picture.  Try to use at the very least 50% of the do over piece.  You can add beads from your own stash."


These are my "before" pictures of the earrings and necklace I received. The photos aren't great, I still need to work on my photography.

Come back later for the "after" photos to see what I came up with!


Camille

Back from vacation...

Here's a couple of pictures from my recent trip to Southern California. My husband is the photographer in our family. When he gets all the photos processed & edited, I will post a link to his site. Here's the link to some of my husband's photos from our trip. Most of them are of animals from the zoo and he's not done editing all of them so there will be more trickling onto the site as time goes by. http://www.flickr.com/ashdr

Enjoy!

Camille

Crooked picture of the beach

Tony taking pictures on the harbor cruise

Sunset from the airplane ride home. I used the Hipstamatic app on my phone.

Etsy: Handmade Portraits

This week's Handmade Portraits series on Etsy is showcasing Mabel Pike, a Tlingit Native beader/bead artist. She truly found her love of beading at an early age and I admire her dedication to her craft for the last 85 years.

This video makes me long for the hand beaded barrettes gifted to my sister and me by friends of my grandparents. They did quite a bit of traveling in the Southwest and brought us each a set of barrettes on several occasions. Between the two of us, I acquired the bulk of the barrettes but over several moves the last 8-10 years, I only have one barrette left out of 6-8 sets we originally had. Maybe this will inspire me to attempt hand beading my own barrettes. Hmm.

An Artist's Process

Family Craft Day

Last Saturday, my mom, sister and I gathered at my sister's house for what is to become our monthly craft day. Whoever is hosting the craft day chooses the craft and picks a lunch recipe. My sister chose to make decorative pillow cases for throw pillows.

Since this was our first craft day, things didn't go as planned but we still managed to have fun, eat fondue and chocolate, and work on at least one decorative pillow cover.

I also forgot to take pictures of what we did throughout the day. My goal for next month's craft day will be to take more pictures and possibly post instructions on what we did.

Below is the pillow I made on the craft day. I didn't follow the instructions and flew by the seat of my pants so there was no way my pillow case was going to fit a 20x20 inch pillow form. I adjusted it with a tuck in the middle and the flange around the outside, so the 12x16 pillow form fit inside the case. My pillow was made out of two matching cloth napkins I purchased from a home, bed and bath store.

My sister, Bernadette, sought help from my mom and there was a little more planning involved for her pillowcase than I did so hers turned out beautifully and fit the form. The morning of our craft day we all went to a fabric/craft store to check out fabric and my sister found her fabric in the clearance section and it was an additional 50% off. We also found fabric that would make a great liner for a purse and have hopes of making purses on a future craft day.

My mom worked on shortening some king size pillowcases to fit her standard sized pillows for her bed. When she was done with that she lent moral and sewing support and made the Jarlsberg and Gruyère fondue.

Welcome to craft-a-mamie

Welcome to craft-a-mamie, a craft blog, where I explore and post my projects and also other inspirational projects from other sources. In 2011, I am trying to do more things that make me happy and feel fulfilled and one of those things is creating and crafting.

The name of this blog will hopefully encompass the wide variety of crafts that interest me from sewing, quilting, paper crafts (including quilling, kirigami, and origami), jewelry making/beading, kids' crafts and home decorating projects, etc.

I will highlight the other crafty people in my life and their chosen fields of interest.

To kick this blog off I will be posting a piece of origami a day from the daily calendar I gifted myself at the after Christmas sales.

Hope you find the crafts, inspiration, and ideas you're looking for!

Camille