Delicious yummy gemmy beads!

My ship came in yesterday, and brought me lots of lovely, lovely beads! As we'll have to watch our spending very carefully next year, this will be my last big buy-up for a while.

As I was cataloguing them, my 'helper' enjoyed herself immensely!

What are these?

Ooo, sparkly!

Can I eat them?

Plum-tuckered out from rolling around in my lovely lovely gems.

No beads were harmed in the making of this photo series.

The Handmade Expo Giveaway Extravaganza!

The lovely ladies at The Handmade Expo are doing a giveaway to celebrate 100 followers of their awesome blog!

Now, you need to get over there and put a comment on the blog, because the more comments on the blog, the higher the monetary prize!

Come on, click here all you south-east Queenslanders, what would be better than having $100 to go towards Chrissy presents (or yourself ;)!!!?!!

Babushka and bushki-minis

I saw these recently on the Brisstyle blogpost, and I think they're just adorable. Mumma and Bubba Bushkas by mygirl

I have to find some way to justify buying them, and getting them into the house without my husband finding out.

Actually, I have a plan: When Moo-ma goes fish shopping with daddy to restock our aquarium, she waves in the general direction of a tank, and voila, those fish are our new pets. I intend to try this technique with the Babushka dolls. Only trick will be getting said husband to go to the markets.

I'll work on it.

I want those dolls.

For my Moo-ma of course.

Not for me.

Creativity mojo is running amok

I'm loving being a stay-at-home mum. Before, by the time I'd get home from school, my brain would be sucked dry by all those kids' needs, and I'd have barely enough brain power left to put one foot in front of the other, let alone to create something new and exciting.

But now, I'm finding I can't sleep because my brain is so full of designs and creations that I want to make. This is so exciting! Like the cuff in my post yesterday, it's inspired by the Twilight bracelet, but it's design is entirely my own.

My shipment of beads came from the US, and I'll be making some more of my necklets with the double-terminated focal stone. And I've got some new earring designs that I'm trying out. This one is earringsbyerin design, from this tutorial. Click here to see what they 'should' look like. My first attempt was with square wire for the curls, and it was a slightly bigger gauge than it should have been.

This unfinished pair are with the correct sized wire - I think I prefer the bigger square gauge, myself.And the pair on the left are designed by silverknuten from this tutorial. I don't plan to make any more of these, I just wasn't fussed by my end result. The pair on the right were an experiment. Not sure about them either.I'm also playing around with my market table for the next Handmade Expo. Lots to do, lots to do.Oh, oh, before I finish up, a creature strange is having a giveaway of one of her fabulous new iphone holders. They are in gorgeous colours and materials, I really love her style. Pop on over to her blog and have a look.

Twilight Inspiration - Can you sparkle in the sun?

I was approached by a friend to make her a bracelet/cuff like the one Bella wears in Twilight. It's very pretty - simple and charming - and I can see why it's so popular.

However, unfortunately, what I made could only be said to be loosely inspired by this bracelet. It's gothic, to say the least. It is far from simple, but still charming, I think ;) The stone is labradorite - everyone's favourite - and everything else is sterling silver.

As this one isn't really her cup of tea, I'll have another go at a simpler version when I get some more of the correct gauge wire, and try to sit the stone inside the front of the cuff, rather than on top.

Gorgeous red orbs

Made this one a couple of days ago, but only now have I got around to photographing it and listing it on Etsy.

It's such a beautiful stone, with red orbs which is not common for ocean jasper.

Ooo, oo, almost forgot, it's been a while since I was featured in a treasury but my little ocean jasper fishy is out and about at the moment.

He's in good company, don't you think?

New style pendant

Well, the tax is done (bleck!!!) and as soon as I could shove all the receipts into a folder and hide it at the back of the filing cabinet, I bought my first tutorial from Jewelry lessons. I'd been salivating over Earrings by Erins gorgeous style for a while, and I thought I'd try her way of wrapping cabs. This is her beautiful pendant, click the picture to follow the link.

So, me being me, I read through the tutorial, got the basics, and like a bull at a gate, off I went. Well, it wasn't as much of a disaster as it probably should have been (I did follow the basics, after all ;) and here's what I came up with.

For starters, symmetry and I aren't really great mates so I chose an asymmetrical style. The amethyst cab I used was muuuuuch smaller than the one she had pictured so the designs over the face probably look a bit heavy, but I'm happy with it.

Here's the back - as pretty (if not prettier) than the front!

I also got her gorgeous earring tutorial, so I'll keep you posted when I try those.

Taxtime aargh!

Well, I've put it off and put it off and it's almost the end of October and I want to KEEP PUTTING IT OFF!

In fact, I've put it off and made these earrings, and photographed them and listed them on Etsy all in one day (something I never do). I normally drag the process out for about a week. But procrastinating tax can do that to a person.

How I hate tax time - I'm sure everybody hates it. This is what my inbox currently looks like

and I've got to go through it and make some sense of order. And stop my 8 month old from eating the receipts. She has this thing about receipts.

But order shall prevail. And hopefully I shall wrench some of my hard-earned cash back off of the tax man. We shall see.