The Charm Barn: bracelet

The Challenge:

Create a piece (or pieces) of jewelry using the links provided. Use at least one other component.

Details:

First of all you have to become a follower of my blog. Then you will need to email me at peggy@willowbridgecenter.com with your name, mailing address and blog information by July 22^nd, 2012. If you are one of the first 20 people to email me I will send you 25 links. You will have 3 weeks to create a masterpiece with the links. As soon as you are completed, you will need to email me a picture of your project along with your name and blog information. You will need to send me this information by August 15^th, 2012 or any time before that (so I don’t go nuts on the 16^th). August 17^th, 2012 will be the reveal day. On that day you will need to blog about the challenge, your experience with the links and show a picture of your project. I will be posting pictures of all of the projects on my blog that day as well. Direct your friends to my page so they can vote for you and on August 27^th the blogger with the most votes will win a $20.00 gift card to my etsy shop WillowBranchBeads.

The Fine Print:

If you do not complete the challenge you will not be able to participate in any future challenges that I host. I will be sending out different links to different people, this will be completely random.

The Story:

So a year ago I ordered a TON of acrylic links to sell at a bead show that I was having. When they arrived I was teased so badly by my fellow beaders "who would want to buy those?" "what are those?" "why did you buy those?" etcetera. Anyways, they did not sell well at the show or at the bead shop so I took them home and packed away they went.

I stumbled upon them last April and even though nobody else liked them I still did and decided to list them in my etsy shop. Within a few days I sold my first lot and within a few months they were all gone. Now I sell many different types of links at my etsy shop and they are my hottest item.

I have a handful of buyers who make jewelry with the links then sell the jewelry they make on etsy. I can’t believe how successful they have been! I always look forward to seeing what people will make with the links now. Usually people just link them together and sell them as is. I would really like to see them used with other materials.

Now you know how I came up with the idea. I hope you enjoy the challenge!

The day has come! Hurrah!
This is the first time I have ever participated in a blog swap hop and I could not be more excited!
Back in March I signed up to be a participant in the Button Swap Blog Hop by Cindy Wimmer of Sweet Bead Studio. A few days later I was partnered with Michelle Hardy of Firefly Visions and my hunt for buttons began. Michelle and I swapped our buttons and I was so happy with the ones she sent me.

There were so many great buttons that I had a hard time choosing which ones I wanted to work with. My favorite buttons were the little glass shank buttons with the mushrooms on them but I did not get around to using those ones (yet).

This is what I made for the reveal. I used the Lansing buttons on the card.

I had to surround my new bracelet with shells because my partner kept referring to herself as "Shell" in out emails.
I love the peyote stitch and I really like simple designs. My biggest concern about using buttons was that they would flip flop all over the place. I came up with a design where I used the shank on the button instead of a bead in the pattern. It worked great, no flipping all over the place. I like this bracelet so much that I think I am going to teach this pattern in one of my fall classes. I came up with the design all on my own and I am real happy with it (I am sure that someone somewhere has thought of this before me..blah..blah..blah..).

Here is a picture of me wearing the bracelet.

I did get to play with the other buttons as well. I have a major problem with editing sometime, I always want my jewelry to be so colorful that it just ends up tacky and over done. Here is an example of what I mean.

I was thinking that I would make a rainbow bracelet and started bezeling the buttons. I spent so much time playing with colors that I did not want to pitch the idea. Finally I decided that I really did not like how this bracelet was looking and gave up. I am going to take this apart and start over. I will most likely still bezel the buttons but I am thinking that I will choose just one color instead of the rainbow idea.

I had a lot of fun working with buttons and I can't wait to see what everyone else did. As soon as my Mother's Day dinner with the boys is over I am going to come home, relax and look at everyone else's projects!
Oh and if you would like to see what Michelle "Shell" Hardy made with the buttons that I sent her just visit her blog at http://fireflyvisions.blogspot.com/