This is a project I made last year when I was a total wire noob. My brilliant friend Rosa, therefore, attached the rose and closure -- teaching me as she went. The beads are from broken grandma jewelry and the rose came from Rosa's stash.

My Amelie-inspired necklace:

Quirky Cute Fun a la France

The Backstory: I was "commissioned" yesterday afternoon to make some jewelry for a friend of my DH's, whose birthday party we were to attend that night. I do not know the girl and he could not remember if she has pierced ears, so I went for a necklace and had him pull up the birthday girl's My Space page so I could get some idea of her personality, style, interests. She had listed Amelie as one of her favorite movies and I had a "Eureka, I have a gnome figurine!" moment.

From there I was off and running with a French flag color theme, hearts for the romantic element, the two windmills for the restaurant where the title character worked, and two quotes from the movie:

vous n'avez pas des or de verre (you do not have bones of glass)

et

meme des artichauts ont des coeurs (even artichokes have hearts)

I made the hearts, windmills and quotes beads (including the closure findings) from no. 6 plastic, Sharpied and oven-shrunk. I love, love, love the way the text came out:



I shall leave you now with the obligatory 'action' shot for a sense of scale. (See how tiny the quotes script is?)



p.s.: This was a project of many firsts for me: making my own jump rings (need practice, hate the plastic coated wire I unwittingly picked up); making shrunken plastic beads (literally shrieked at the test batch's cuteness); Dremelling and drilling away at a plastic figurine (disturbingly fun.) So feedback is appreciated.

Okay, that slideshow is a little dizzying - what with all the captions. And, apparently I am no longer the noob of all noobs. So I will try to actually imbed the images. (And then quit hogging the thread.)

I made this Shabby Chic (does anyone reference Ashwell these days?) 'stained glass' window for my mom from a veeeeeeeery rustic window salvaged from her parents' farm.



The saying refers to my Grandma Ruby's ingenious ways of making do below the poverty line with six kids.

Originally I was planning to incorporate some vacuum lids from her canning jars with their brightly colored handwritten labels along the frame, but decided they would only clutter the piece.

As you can see, I went a little heavy with the glass spray paint on the first panel, but otherwise am pleased with the result.

While I have been designing beaded jewelry for some time, I always had to hang my head and ask someone else to actually construct the pieces.

Thanks to the local library loaning me Bead on a Wire and my best friend loaning me her jewelry pliers, I picked up a few quick tricks and made earrings for my mom and her twin sister's b-day.

These are the earrings I made for my mom:


and the tin I decoupaged with a picture of her as a girl (printed on the inkjet and sealed with glossy acrylic medium.)



The image is kind of ghostly (it is from a very old, very scratched negative) so I hope you can see it.

Dumb me forgot to snap picks of my auntie's earrings, which were very different looking