The Perfect Bead

 

It's amazing what beads you'll find in the bin when you dig a bit deeper and don't just take the ones from the top.

 

 

I mean, the ones on top are the ones that
 catch every one's eye right?

 

 

 

 

 

 Sometimes it's the bead at the bottom, or off to the side, or stuffed inside some other bead, or over in the corner that everyone forgot about – sometimes those are the ones that have the most to contribute.

 

 

It’s different, oddly shaped or possibly scratched up a bit but definitely worth using.

 

 

 

You reach your hand in the bin,…eyes closed, feeling around asking the ‘Bead Gods” to bring you the bead that needs to be found to put in that perfect project. 

 

 

And there’s that special bead no one else has wanted, waiting for the right person to love it, the right project,...the perfect place to call home. 

 

 

 

 

And then you connect.

 

 

 

 

 

Isn’t that the most wonderful feeling?

 

It happens with people too!

 

Until Next Time,

 

Peace, Love and Perfect Misfits!

 

 

Cheers,

~Shel~

 

Honor

The Key to the life I'm so blessed to live

is held by,....

 

 

 

 

Those who serve.

 

 

 

 

 

I am grateful for their sacrifice

and that of their families.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

Honoring all U.S. Veterans this weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Until Next Time,

 

Peace, Love,...and dreaming of the day where we won't need anything else.

~S~

 

 

I Heart Macro

 



Make Great Holiday Earrings!

Okay - so you want to make some really amazing Holiday Earrings and gift them to your family and friends, your little one's teacher, the girls in your book club and every other woman on your list who LOVES earrings, but you need some fresh and beautiful ideas first, right?

 

Well, hop on over to the Interweave Book Store and grab the newest must have eBook from the editors of

Jewelry Stringing and Beadwork Magazine.

 

Create Christmas Jewelry: 12 Holiday Earrings

 

 

 

These earrings are beautiful and will brighten up your gift-giving season, making you the envy of all those you create for!

 

Oh, and a little side note,...they used some of my ear wires in their designs!

 

 

 

Check out page 4!  Yep, those are my "Signature" style and my "Sexy Norm" style sterling silver ear wires on the earrings that Debbie Blair created.

(and they feature some beautiful crystal pearls, too!)

 

I mean seriously,...what more could you ask for?! 

 

To see how I create my 'Signature' Style ear wires,

check out the video here:
 

 

 

 

So,now you have everything you need to create gorgeous earrings this holiday season!

 

Whatcha waitin' for?   Get to work!!

 

Until Next Time,

 

Peace, Love and Beautiful Holiday Earrings!

 

Cheers,

~Shel~

I Heart Macro!

Happy Sunday!

 

 

 

 

Linking up with I Heart Macro over at

Studio Waterstone this Sunday.

 

 

Enjoy!

 

Until Next Time,

 

 

 

Peace, Love and Sunday, Beautiful Sunday!

 

Cheers,

~Shel~

Suburban Girl Studio Design Team - Fall Reveal!

November 1st! I know, huh?!  Where has the year gone?

 

 

Lucky for you, it's time for the 
Suburban Girl Studio Design Team's
Fall Reveal!

 

 

Diana from Suburban Girl Studio sent me one
of her Heart Shaped Pendants - Sweet!!

This time, I sort of knew what I wanted to do, so once I got started designing (which wasn't until the last minute!)

it went pretty smoothly.

 

 

 

 

I was lucky enough this go-around
to supply each member of the group with one of
my copper swirl clasps.

I wanted to make a couple of my own components this time too, so I wire wrapped this cool little rock that I found on one of our last outings in the desert and I created a Sari Silk, wire and bead wrapped 'bead', too.

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year and my sister and I usually take a sister's trip and head some place here in the state that cools off enough to have the leaves change
and actually look and feel (temperature wise) like fall.

This is a pic of Sedona from one of our trips a few years back.

Autumn in Sedona, Arizona
Photo my Michelle Buettner

 
The blue sky, the red rocks, the colors of the trees.

"Sedona"

 

 It was my inspiration for this piece.


The Hubby and I were married in Sedona 18 years ago this past September.




Sedona is a beautiful place - during any season!

Thanks to Diana of Suburban Girl Studio
for having me along for the ride this year.

It's been a blast creating designs with her
gorgeous pendants and components!

Hop on over to the other team member's
sites and see all their great designs!

**Special Note**  Team members Sandra Miller & Jan Onipenco are currently out of power  due to Hurricane Sandy and will post when they're back up and running.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those who are affected from this storm.**
 

Suburban Girl Studio Design Team

 

Diana Ptaszynski
Jenny Davies-Reazor
Kristen Stevens
Jan Onipenco
Marie-Noel Voyer-Cramp 
Sandra Basara Miller
Michelle Buettner

Until Next Time,

 

Peace, Love and Fall Fun!

 

Cheers,

~Shel~

I Heart Macro - It's Sunday!

Happy Sunday Peeps!

 

 

 

Linking up with I Heart Marco today over at Studio Waterstone.

 

 

 

 

Until Next Time,

 

Peace, Love and Pink Roses!

 

Cheers,

~Shel~

Saturday Night Cocktails

Whatcha doing this Pre-Halloween Weekend?

 

Plans? Parties?

Ghostly Gatherings,....Witchy Wanderings?

 

 

I've been hanging out over at the new Artisan Whimsy site.

 

 

 

 

  It's a site that was started by some wonderful artisan ladies after the Creative Bead Chat over on FB got to be so successful and people asked for something more. 

 Artisan Whimsy is loaded with all sorts of fantastic information for creative bead/jewelry minds,...videos how to's, tutorials, jewelry inspiration and ideas, forums and chats, challenges and give-a-ways, events, and fun and informative blog posts.

One of those blog posts is where I learned to pin my own MiShel Designs Etsy items onto Pinterest and then create a set with it over on another favorite site of mine, Polyvore. 

 

 

 

I had figured it out a while back and forgotten how to do this and then when I had tried it again, it was like I'd never done it in my life, so I desperately needed my hand held and told step-by-step what to do! 

 

Artisan Whimsy's having a

"Show Us Your HOOTERS" Challenge.

 

 

 

Nope, not those kind of hooters,...owl Hooters!! 

 

Go on over and check it out.

 

You've got until the 28th (tomorrow) to enter I think it is.

 

 And, if you've recently added some cool things to Pinterest, why not leave your link or follow me and give me a 'head's up' on what's going on over on your favorite boards!

 

Until Next Time,

 

Peace, Love and Saturday Night Spotlights!

 

Cheers,

~Shel~

 

Echo Creative Club - October Reveal!

Welcome to the October Edition of the
Echo Creative Team Reveal.

 

Remember when I showed you the two pendants that Jeannie had sent me to be used in both the October and November Reveals? 

 

As I mentioned, I decided to use her wonderful
Cherry Blossom Pendant for the October Reveal.

 

One reason is because it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month and there's shades of PINK all over the place - LOVE that!!

  The other reason is because the leaf she sent reminded me of my sis's cabin and Thanksgiving,...so I wanted to use the leaf charm/pendant for next month's reveal. (Nov.25th)

 

When I saw Jeannie's Cherry Blossom pendant I fell in love with it!  Although I take a lot of pictures of flowers, I don't use many of them in my jewelry designs. But this Cherry Blossom is super gorgeous and it also took me back to my childhood,....



Via Lisa Crabtree - Pinterest

 

 



Growing up in "Mayberry" (how I lovingly refer to my hometown) we had a beautiful cherry tree in our back yard.  I could look out my bedroom window and see it every day. I loved this tree. I loved how it looked in Spring when it would bloom and how the blossoms would smell. 

 

Cherries from King Orchards via Pinterest

 

I also loved the cherries it produced.  I loved them a bit too much.  I ate a lot (I mean a LOT) of cherries off that tree every single year!  So many in fact that each year my body would scream "Enough Already!" and I would break out in hives, covering me from head to toe in huge, itchy, red welts!

 

I even had to come home early one year from Church camp because I broke out in hives w/in 48 hours of getting to camp - that sucked!!  (My parents weren't very happy about having to come and get me, either!) 

 

Still,...I didn't learn. I'd eat a ton of those juicy little 'red-devils' every single summer! Until I got in junior high and didn't want to go through all the itching and looking like an massive red-welt for a couple of weeks!

The dark bark of the tree, branches, cherries, cherry seeds and stems 

 

But I'd still snatch one or two off the tree each year just to temp fate because they were so darned yummy!

However, in my defense,....ya gotta eat a lot of cherries to have a proper 'cherry seed fight' with your brother (who's a few years older than me) who was consistently able to spit seeds a bit farther and faster than I was!  Just sayin',...

 

 

 

I remember one day after school a friend of mine rode his bike over to my house to talk about some of his 'girl problems'.  He was a bit upset and ended up throwing his bike against my cherry tree. I yelled at him for that cause he put a huge gash in the tree and if my dad saw it he would come unglued and yell and my brother and me. 

Well, the tree survived the bike, but when my friend passed away in August of this year that memory came rushing back,...

 

From the Cherry Blossoms to the Cherries,....

 

 

That cherry tree was a source of comfort. It was always there. It always bloomed, always produced the best tasting cherries, it was pretty with or with out blossoms or leaves and was a constant in my life from the time I was born until I left home at age 19.


Anyway, several years after I moved away and after my step-mother had sold our house, I went back to Mayberry and rounded the corner to my Aunt's house where I always stayed when I went home (it was across the street from my old house!) and that's when I noticed it. 
 

The cherry tree had been cut down!  OMG!  How could it be gone!?! I was so angry. I stormed into my Aunt's house demanding to know why on earth those jerks who lived in my old house cut down the most beautiful cherry tree on the face of the planet! 
 

 

 

 

 

She just looked at me, raised her eye brows and said (rather sternly!), "They're not jerks they're kids who grew up here, just like you, and they didn't want to cut down the tree, it got struck by lightning and split in half. They didn't have a choice!  Welcome home.  Now, what do you want to eat?"

 

 

"Oh."  That's all I could say. Just "Oh."  And then the tears started to well up. My Aunt looked at me and said, "Don't you dare cry about it. It's just a tree!" She was right. But, to me, it was my tree,...part of my past,...part of me. 

 

 

 

So, when I got Jeannie's Cherry Blossom Pendant in the mail for the Echo Creative Design Team Challenge this month it brought back all those special memories and the comfort of that tree.

 

I know I'll probably re-design this necklace a hundred more times since nothing will ever be perfect enough,...but for now, this is my "Cherished Cherry Tree".

 

 

Thanks so much Jeannie for allowing me to take a ride down memory lane this month with your beautiful Cherry Blossom Pendant and the Echo Creative Team!

 

 

Be sure to check out all the other participants this month and see the wonderful designs they've created using Jeannie Dukic's (Jewelry by Jeannie) components.


Kim Dwork

Michelle Buettner 

Shannon Chomanczuk 

Jeannie K Dukic

Cindy Cima Edwards

Beth Emery

Erin Prais-Hintz

Charlie Jacka

Kristen Stevens

Lola Surwillo


Echo Creative Club

Jewelry By Jeannie

Echo Creative Club

Flickr group

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love and Cherry Blossoms!

Cheers,

~Shel~