Delightful Bangles, a tutorial

I was inspired today to make a bracelet, so I made 3... ha ha. My fingers do hurt now but I did take pictures and write up a quick little tutorial if you want to give it a try. I got the inspiration from a Pin on Pinterest of this Bangle but it didn't have enough pictures for me so decided to make one for myself and do lots of pictures for you. This one is easy if you have all the supplies and you do not need any soldering equipment. So let's get started.

Supplies Needed:

• Round nose pliers
• Flat nose pliers
• Flush wire cutters
• Bracelet Mandrel
• Hammer
• Stainless Steel Block
• 12 or 14 gauge wire (for bracelet)
• 24 or 26 gauge wire (for wrapping)
• 3mm stones or crystals

Instructions:

1. Gather all your supplies before you start and make sure the stones you choose will slide on the wrapping wire.
2. Cut 10” of your bracelet wire which is either 12 gauge or 14 gauge.
3. Make a loose curl on one end of the cut wire with your round nose pliers.
4. Form your wire around the bracelet mandrel inserting the straight end through the curled end. As you can see I have marked on my mandrel the size I want my bracelet to be. Mine is 8”.
5. With your round nose pliers curve the straight end of the wire around to tighten.
6. Make a loop with the curved wire.
7. Hammer the wire on the bracelet mandrel all the way around… hammer more.
8. Hammer on the stainless steel block. Switch between the mandrel and the block, hammering to harden the wire.
9. When it is the shape you want, nice and round and lays flat you are ready to begin to add your stones.

1. Cut about 36” of your wrapping wire which is either 24 gauge or 26 gauge and start wrapping on your bracelet at the coiled end.
2. Wrap the tail of the wire until you just have about 1/4 “ left.
3. String a stone on the long end of the wire.
4. Bring the stone down tight against the bracelet.
5. Hold the stone in place and start wrapping the wire around the bracelet.
6. Continue wrapping about 3 or 4 times, add another stone.
7. More wrapping.
8. Continue wrapping and adding stones until you get to the end of your wire.
9. Cut the wire at the top of the bracelet and flatten with your flat nose pliers.
10. Cut another length of wrapping wire (not as much) and start wrapping around the bracelet. I like to start wrapping behind the stone and then wrap around to the front. I cut the tail off on top of the bracelet and flatten it with my pliers.
11. Continue wrapping and adding stones until you get back to the beginning. Clip tails and flatten them on top of the bracelet. Always cut the wire on the top or sides otherwise it will scratch your wrist underneath.
12. Enjoy your bracelet.

If you have any questions, please be sure to ask.

Lazy Sunday

Sunday's always tend to be lazy around our house... okay that is most days but especially true on the weekends as we don't like to get out and go shopping on Saturday or Sunday due to the traffic and amount of people in the stores. Don't get me wrong, I'm not phobic about crowds but it does get tiresome when you are trying to shop and there are long lines and impatient people. We just go during the week and it is much calmer. We will go to my mother's today (first time for DH to be out around people since surgery) for snacks and football, so that should be a welcome change for a little while. I'm sure most the country will be watching the game, now who is it that is playing again.... lol, can you tell I don't watch football... I just watch it for the commercials.

One of the projects I mentioned last post was my little bags for the kids in the oncology department at the local children's hospital. Well here is a picture of the first batch ready to be delivered.

They could be drawstring or snap close but not buttons as they were afraid the buttons would come off, so I did a mix of both. My kid theme fabric was sorely lacking but I think this is a good start. If you would like to donate little bags (mine are 4 x 5 and smaller) or material, please contact me. You would get a donation receipt for tax purposes. You can contact me via the e-mail me button on the left hand column or leave me a comment with your e-mail address and I'll contact you for specifics.

In getting back in the swing of things, I volunteered to host an art charm swap. This one has a Zentangle theme. Oh, what fun will these be. I have only done Zentangles on paper but wanted to try to do some on pieces of wood that I could make into a charm so I found these small "Z's". I'll drill a small hole at the top and insert an eye pin so that they can hang. I think I'll have to get more of these as they were really fun.

This is the front.

The back.

As you can tell I did the front and back as well as three of them around the edges. If you like Zentangles and want to find out more about them or how to make them, then visit www.zentangle.com. There are also a ton of books available that are a great inspiration.

I love making things, as if you couldn't tell that already, and for the holidays I made homemade hand lotion and cream. Well now I'm developing my own recipe (I used someone else's before). The first batch didn't turn out quite the way I wanted and felt a little gritty in the liquid state but was fine after you rubbed it in but I still didn't like that feeling. The second batch turned out much better with just a few modifications and additions. I did try to fix the first batch this morning, hopefully the gritty feeling will be gone once it cools.

Second batch, cooled lotion.

I also made some cuticle cream and have a recipe that I love. I added a touch of lemon and lavender essential oils and it smells really good. It would also be good on rough scaly heels and feet.

All of the lotions I'm making have a paraben free preservative, so I feel much better about using them and giving them as gifts. DH asked me last night if I was doing this as a hobby or if I intended on selling them and I'm still asking myself that question but my first answer is that I want this as a hobby to use the products for myself and give as gifts. If those friends and family start coming back to me for more between gift giving then I might consider taking money to help offset the cost of materials, but right now I'm having too much fun playing.

New Projects

I finally finished my rag quilt yesterday and DH has been using it ever since. I got the idea to make one from my sister-in-law who has one and I fell in love with it when visiting during the holidays. Hers was a bit different as it had squares and rectangles and I just used squares. The next one I may do some rectangles or triangles, who knows, but I wanted to do one and finish it before I started something else.

Rag quilts are made with flannel, squares are quilted and then sewn together with the seam out on the front side. The seam is clipped just up to the sewing line all around. When you wash and dry, it will get softer and the seams will fray and get all cool looking. It is just a cozy quilt to curl up with on a Winter's night.

Since I finished the quilt, I started working on some art charms for a swap I'm in. I've talked about this Art Charm group here before but for those of you that don't know, it is a Yahoo group formed by the authors of the book "Making Mixed Media Art Charms and Jewelry", Christine Hansen and Peg Krzyzewski. I have a button on the right hand column if you are interested in checking it out. We have a ton of fun. This swap has an Ancient Egyptian theme, so I've been researching symbols on the internet. If you have any ideas, I'd love for you to leave me a comment.

I chose to use copper wire and turquoise for my stones. I like how the little stone charms with swirls turned out but not so sure about the lotus flower... looks more like a lobster to me in the heavier gauge wire. LOL The pyramids aren't bad but the rectangle with the wavy lines is the symbol for "pool of water" and I like that one the best. Too bad it takes the most time to create. I need to make 20 of these puppies. I may end up with a mixture of different charms but I think the lotus flower is out.

Just because I didn't have enough to do, I volunteered to work on a project for the Orthopedic Association for the children who are patients in the Oncology Department at Mary Bridge Children's Hospital. The kids get tokens when they get poked or a dressing change and then they can turn those in for a prize but they needed something to keep their tokens in. So, I'll be making little drawstring and snap baggies for the kids. I went through my stash of cotton material and found some that was kid themed and started cutting and sewing.  As I told the organizer of this project that I wanted it to be on-going, I probably will be needing more material. If you have any kiddie cotton that you want to donate to the cause, I would love to take it off your hands. I'll post a picture when I get a few of them completed so you can see what they look like.

Cheers, and have a great week.

Back into the Swing of Things

Well my trials with finding a new computer has finally come to an end. Yesterday I talked about a new tablet that I was trying out and after playing with it for a day, realized that tablets really won't replace a computer. Just to do the blog post yesterday was stressful and the learning curve was huge. So, off to the electronics store I went again and found a wonderful little Toshiba Ultrabook. It's lightweight, 13"and really fast. All really important things when cruising the internet, blogging and playing on social media sites. Now I'm back in business and won't have to worry if my computer will boot up.

With the busy month we have had I think I am finally getting back into my normal life. DH is recovering nicely here at home, strength and appetite returning and back to his old self. So, I revisited some things that I had put on the back burner and decided to get back into it. Today I submitted a proposal to teach at a local bead show (Puget Sound Bead Festival) and finalized some paperwork for teaching at Art and Soul Portland. I'm hoping I'll be accepted at the bead festival and submitted 3 different gem tree designs for them to choose from. I will be teaching a Bonsai Gem Tree class at the Portland Art and Soul in September. Here is the info if you would like to check it out. http://www.artandsoulretreat.com/retreat-Portland2012-2394-workshop.php Art and Soul is a mixed media art retreat that offers all kinds of classes ranging from jewelry design, painting, art journaling and now my gem tree sculptures. I may have to look at taking a couple of classes myself.

Here is a look at the new classes that I will be teaching this year at Shipwreck Beads. I will continue to teach the Standard Gem Tree and the Pine Tree classes this year. Click HERE to check out the dates and times of classes.

Have a great week everyone and I'll let you know how it goes on all those other projects.

A New Toy

I've been struggling with my laptop for the past month and DH told me to finally just go out and buy another one. I had a Toshiba netbook and unfortunately the store didn't have anymore of them in stock but they did have some new tablets with keyboards so I thought I would give it a try to see if it would work for me. So here I am typing away on this thing and today it is better than yesterday as I continue to get used to the keyboard. The tablet is an ASUS Transformer with a keyboard docking station. Last night I was trying like crazy to figure out how to copy and paste a url into this post to show you what it looked like.... heck I would have been happy to be able to copy the picture but alas, I couldn't to it so here I am trying again.

http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/

Finally success at copying a link. So you get the idea. Still haven't figured out how to copy a photo or link it or even add one .... ugg. I think this is going to be a big learning curve.

If any of you use a tablet to post your blog posts and upload photos, please let me know how it is going and if you revert back to a desktop or laptop computer for these types of posts.

The New Social Media

I think that a lot of us crafters and home based business owners struggle with how to market ourselves and our artwork and this is where social media comes in. I know a lot of artists that don't even have a Facebook account for their business page.... okay why not? It is free and you can promote all you want. How many marketing strategies in life are FREE? So go now and create a page. I have one... actually I have two one for my jewelry business and one for gem trees but the Dana's Jewelry Design page gets updated more frequently kind of like my blog here.

My newest thing is Pinterest. Unlike Twitter you can search the entire site for things you might be interested in. Such as books, DIY projects or Tutorials, Home decor, Fashion, etc. I have several pin boards that are related to jewelry such as my tutorials I have written and jewelry organizers. One of the boards I have that I continue to go back to is a DIY or Things to Make board. I love to find ideas either from other pinners or from blogs that I might want to make one day. If you aren't a member of Pinterest, it just takes a minute to request membership and it is also free. If you would like to follow me, I have a button in the right hand column.

For months.... okay maybe years I have wanted to do a video of making a gem tree, well I had a customer want more detail on how to build the trunk of her tree and so I took the plunge. Since DH was still in the hospital, I used our digital camera and set it up on a tri-pod (next time I'll use the video camera). A few minutes later I had made the video and after much nail biting I was able to upload it to YouTube. I wouldn't say I am technically challenged but I felt this was a big step for me. I do plan to make a few better ones but here it is in all it's glory. LOL

Okay, I'm off to make some bran muffins. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.