Button Swap 'n' Hop

  Today is reveal day for the button swap challenge! Hip Hip Hooray!

This lovely swap was arranged by Cindy Wimmer of Sweet Bead Studio. If you click on the image above (aka the button swap banner), it'll take you to the post that explains it all, but in quick summary, all of us participants were assigned a partner to whom we sent some small number of buttons, and in turn our partners sent us back some buttons of their own.

I've always loved buttons, but I'd not yet used them in my jewelry. My mom recently gave me a huge sack of buttons, some vintage and some brand spanking new. Because I'm always looking for a way to challenge myself as an artist, I just knew that I had to enter this blog hop, so I did-- and boy, was it challenging to decide what I wanted to do with those buttons!

First things first, I was paired up with the lovely Cynthia over at  Antiquity Travelers, and these are the buttons I received from her:

I told her that blue was my favorite color, so she sent me an all blue set. YAY!

This challenge was particularly challenging because I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with the buttons. Not only did I end up using a different button than I originally planned-- the blue and white gingham instead of the shiny one with black swirls all over-- but I ended up creating something completely different as well. Take a look for yourself to see what I mean:

Yep, you guessed it-- a stitch marker of my very own!!!

My original plan was to make a bracelet or a necklace, but I think I'll get a lot more use out of this project!  I wrapped the button with bright blue wire, and added a star bead and pewter rose to finish it off. I need to pick up a few more buttons before I can use the black swirly one-- I have a metric ton of them, but not too many that are a good match for that particular one-- so once I do that, I'll post lots of pretty photos of the finished product.

Since this is a blog hop, I'm gonna keep this short and sweet-ish and say "see you later" for now. If you want to hop along with the rest of us, click on the links below to travel to the other participants and see what they made. Happy hopping, y'all!

Day Thirty-One, Can't Believe I'm All Done!

So today's entry is bittersweet-- the end of the month, the last day of my personal challenge to make a pair of earrings each day.

I'm happy because it will let me pursue other projects that I've been meaning to do, and had to put off day after day; I'm sad because I truly loved pushing myself to create something new every single day.

Since part of the goal of this challenge was to increase my earring-making skills, I decided to push the envelope a bit. Today's design was inspired by something that I found on Pinterest (from About.com)-- not an exact replica, of course, but I'm way too tired to find the link tonight. I'll try to do it tomorrow.

In any case, here they are: the last of the Mohicans... er... the daily earring updates...~

These earrings are made out of brass wire, brass figaro chain, and small round onyx beads. All the non-chain elements were made by myself, from hand. No autographs, please!

Seriously, though, I'm proud of myself. Not only did I create a pair of earrings for every single day of the month... not only did I improve on the quality of my earring construction... I also took photos and blogged every single day! This was a month of true self-improvement.

As I used to tell my parents when I was little, "You can say 'Good Job, Julia'!"

What's next for me, and what's in store for you, all my faithful readers? Well, for the month of April I'm taking part in another post-a-day challenge-- the A to Z blog hop! Basically, I'll be posting every day of the week except for Sunday (unless I truly feel inspired~!); every day of the month is assigned a different letter.

In other words, I'll be blogging my way through the alphabet, and will touch on, well, pretty much anything and everything related to my art interests.

Again, today is bittersweet. I'm upset about being all done with the earrings, but I'm very excited to start a new challenge for this month. And I'm looking forward to taking all of you along with me on this special journey.

See you tomorrow~ and don't forget to say "Rabbit Rabbit" when you first get out of bed!

Day Nineteen, Fit for a Queen

Alright, so I didn't drop off the "bandwagon" entirely, I've just had a rough few days, health-wise. I've been bed-bound the majority of the time, and I've *written* blog posts for every single day, but I haven't been able to actually put them "live".

I don't have a lot of energy, so I apologize for the brevity of these posts.

Today's earrings are designed to match a necklace that Hubby made. He is still holding most of our jewelry captive-- still trying to take photos of it-- but I'll see if I can grab the necklace for a short bit.

Not my best work, as a photographer, but I'm very proud of them as earrings <3

The earrings are made by hand, with brass wire. Ear wires and everything else was made by me-- and I put a faceted jade bead, colored teal in the middle of the spirals.

Thank goodness I'm done with the "teens"~ onto the last third of this challenge!

Day Twelve- I Truly Delve!

So, first things first~ the earrings of the day!

Today's pair is a special request from a friend of mine. These are brass wires, wrapped in a spiral, and ending in an onyx teardrop. I plaon recreating these in sterling silver quite soon~ and while I know that you all think the model is OH SO ATTRACTIVE, this photo doesn't show the detail as well as I'd like... so more photographs will be attached tomorrow.

And now for something completely different.

I wanted to thank all my friends and family, and those who have visited me here, for being so supportive. Since posting about my health a couple weeks ago, I have received so much love from so many people, both on here and in real life. It means the world to me, and keeps me smiling when things get hard. Since then, as always, I have had good days and bad days... and the thing that keeps me going when things get tough is the idea that I will always have people in my life who support what I do.

When Hubby and I were watching Star Trek: Voyager on Netflix, and reliving our youth, the Vulcan character (Tuvok) said something that truly resonated within me. I was surprised to enjoy a quote from this particular character, since I am pretty much the anti-Vulcan for the most part.

"Do not mistake composure for ease." 

My life has challenges, but I always try to hold myself together as well as I can. I always try to keep my head up, and keep going. Many people say that they would never have known that I was unwell, had I not told them. I don't like to complain, and I don't enjoy showing my weaknesses to people. Some seem to think that because I don't show these feelings, that I'm perfectly fine.

Even when I'm at my worst-- no, ESPECIALLY when I'm feeling my worst-- I always try to make things seem much better than they truly are.

This does not mean that I feel any less unwell... just that I try to hold myself together as best I can. And the two things that truly help me to do that, are the important people in my life, and my art. Those two things help me keep my composure through the worst of times.

What inspires *you* to keep going, when all you want to do is stop? <3

Earring Challenge, Day Six-- "Another One Bites the Dust"!

~Are you ready, are you ready for this? Are you hangin' on the edge of your seat?~

Okay, so clearly I should cut back on the coffee, and stop listening to rock music and posting in my blog at the same time... apparently this combination causes a little too much "creativity"... yeah... that's what we'll call it...

Anyhow, today I only have one photo of the earrings, but it's a beaut, just like them---

These earrings use sterling silver ear wires, flattened at the curve, and a piece of sterling silver wire, ball formed at the end for a truly "finished" look. Two freshwater pearls, using different colors and different sizes, complete the classy design. Perfect for a woman who loves to wear "pops" of color, while subtle enough for those who prefer their accessories to be more muted.

These pearls will perfectly match any style in your wardrobe, from jeans to summer skirts to formal dresses, and look equally lovely with a wide array of colors. Imagine pairing these with a subtle yellow sun dress and a blue purse... or with a white tee-shirt and blue jeans, with ballet flats to match... or even with a black pencil skirt and white button-down shirt, with a necklace to match, for an important job interview. The sky is the limit, and these sky-like pearls can be worn in many ways, for a different "look" every time!

Day Six-- COMPLETE! As the song says, another one bites the dust~!