The Wigglebutt Blog

Just a quickie☺

We are three weeks into the new "The Year of Jewelry Project 2016" and so far I am keeping up. Lol.  This one was hard to photograph. The colors were more true when I took the pics on the necklace display but I was super happy with the way I did the back and wanted to show it. I made a similar necklace for my sister a while back and felt the need to explain to her where the button "clasp" was supposed to be positioned but with this design it is very obvious and it can still be worn with the clasp on the right or on the left. I really love this one☺ Love the way this one came out too☺

Well... now that summer is coming to an end I  will be spending more time indoors, which means more time to make stuff and list stuff and post about stuff☺ This past Sunday I did carve out several hours to try and  play catch-up (again / still) on   The Year of Jewelry Project This one I think I actually posted on time but didn't share here These I just made and posted over the weekend  I need to get my enamels out ~  I miss playing with the torch☺ I really like this piece. The gorgeous lamp work beads are  from JulsBeads and I made the beadcaps, metal spacers, clasp,  polymer clay spacers and beads and the viking knit☺ (I did not make the cone ends for the viking knit;) I still have about 4 more weeks of catch up to do but it shouldn't take too long. In other news, we were hoping to have the new greenhouse up by now but, apparently, some of the panels are on back order so it's been delayed...

What with flying out of state for a few days and finishing the photos, etc. for the Big Reveal Day next weekend for the Bead Soup Blog Party  , (I'm in the second reveal on 4/6) and finishing my magnet order, I opted to submit something I was already working on, that I finished this week, rather than try to make something to fit this week's prompt, which was "A Personal Talisman", cuz I just didn't have time☺ Holy crap, could that sentence have been any longer!?? Can you have that many commas in a sentence? Anyway, this is my submission for week 13☺ I love the colors in this one And, once again, my color choices came directly from the focal. Juli has an awesome eye for color. I showed a picture of this one "in progress" to my sister while we were in Washington for the big bash and she decided that it really needed to live in Montana☺ So first thing Monday morning it will be on it's way.  Oh! and I ...

Quicky post today cuz I need to finish up this  and   this and I'm quickly running out of time☺ This is my completed piece for week 10. I am really working on keeping my knots a lot more even and  I know I still have a long way to go but I think I'm getting better☺ It was just cloudy enough today to make for perfect photo lighting ☺ Isn't that focal gorgeous♥ If you been around here much, you already know where I get these beauties but if not ~ go here .

I actually posted this on the group  on time but I'm late posting it here☺ I haven't followed all of the weekly prompts (they are just suggested prompts to help give you a kick start if you are lost for ideas) but as luck would have it this weeks "theme" was "Simplicity" Thank goodness!☺  Torch fired enameled beads on balled copper wire with handmade copper ear wires  I have been a little busy working on this and having a blast☺ Still have a ways to go on the moose but progress is good~ And getting a good start on the bears and whales. And I've made some progress on a couple of these trying to decide between clear or blue cubes for last bead row fell in love with these colors almost immediately (please excuse the multi-colored straight pins☺) and this one was a bear, to put it nicely! I tried about a dozen color combinations and hated them all. I had almost decided to start from scratch when this ...

And I couldn't be more pleased with it;~)  Aside from the hairy arm and pale skin, this photo shows the truest color of the focal and beads.  LOVE IT!  Ok let's recap how this little lovely evolved shall we? I told you a little while back how I had been inspired to try something new. And this one was the second one I was working on. (after a little mishap with the first one) This is how it started out I wasn't really pleased with how it was coming along, so I reworked it a bit. And it was slowly becoming this, but when I got to where I was going to finish off #1  ~ It was more choker length than bracelet length (unless you are the Hulk) #2 ~ I had a few cords that were just too short to work  with for finishing. Now, you need to know that when I decided that I wanted to try this micro-macrame thing, I went in search of instruction. I bought this pattern  as inspiration and I also got this b...

 I have literally dozens of things I want to be working on, dozens of things that are started that need, at some point, to be finished and I'm having a difficult time getting the oompf to do them. Clay things, charm things, bead things, I have metal clay, a kiln, ideas, no oompf. Life is good☺ Work is good☺ Hubby is good♥ Lily girl is good♥ It's all good 'cept for the oompf. I've been looking at some gorgeous micro-macrame jewelry by this awesome artist . I also stalk her on facebook  and I had been wanting to try something different, but no oompf :~( Then one day this lovely lady announced a sale on her absolutely gorgeous lampwork glass focal beads and I thought maybe I could combine the macrame and the lampwork. And since an entire drawer full of Juls beads is not enough for any living being, (I may have mentioned a small addiction a time or two) I had to order a couple of focals (and, ummm.... some beads jus...

This weekend I had about a weeks worth of projects that I wanted to accomplish. Did I accomplish all of them? HA! NO! Did I expect to? No☺ I did work on some MORE bee pendants. I am experimenting with colors and finishes and I like what I have so far. I finished a necklace that I think is probably my favorite EVER ..... so far☺ I can honestly say that I have never shopped for specific beads for a specific project (except for a bead weaving pattern I bought. Delica beads.  Dang they are TINY. Talk about a lot of work...whew☺) until I received this heart focal from StudioJuls and I knew I wanted it to be superduperspecialextragorgeousawesome! So I took my gift card I got for Christmas (Thanks Mom!) and got me some goodies from Fire Mountain . I have fallen in love with Swarovski crystals (aren't they perty?) and I discovered swarovski pearls too, cuz they were just the perfect cream color to go with my focal. And a grab bag of copper spacers...

(As usual my 'Summer Blogging' is proving to be very erratic☺) But, I'm sure no one is going through Wigglebutt Withdrawals;~) I finished filling and planting my pots for the front of the house. I have the usual flowers, but I also am trying tomatoes in two of the pots, strawberries in one, pablano peppers in one, cucumbers in one and herbs in another. Hopefully my gardening skills have improved over last year (Lily says "Hi") View from the side of the house. Usually I put a pot of flowers on top of my whiskey barrel, but I made this Fairy house,oh, maybe four years ago?  And it has been living in the shed this whole time, I figured it was time to bring it out. Maybe it will bring some magic for my crops;~) I also replanted a slew of perennials in my center garden. I ordered them from a wonderful company, Bluestone Perennials. They are wonderful! This was my second time ordering from them.  This time didn't go quite as smoothly as the first time due to an...

at least not by me. Not any time soon.   I absolutely love the way this necklace came out  but it was the biggest pain in the butt. Granted, I have to fight the urge to be a perfectionist and sometimes I lose,  like with the components of this necklace. Which means a lot of the time consuming part was me tearing out  and re-doing the seed bead parts. (Seed beads. I hate them but I am addicted to them. Go figure.) This necklace started with the focal made by Juls of JulsBeads (if you've been around a while, you know I am also addicted to her work or should I say her art) Each one of her beads is a work of art and whenever I make a piece of jewelry that contains her beads I always feel like it "needs to be worthy". That's when the perfectionist kicks in.  Juls focal, swarovski crystals, black onyx, polymer clay disks, tubular peyote and spiral rope stitch I had a vision of the finished piece before I started and this came pretty close. I like it☺