Happy New Year!

Well, I'm a couple of days late with the new year wishes, mostly because I have been very busy! We were away for the New Year, and when we returned, I started on the traditional Bank Holiday pursuit of the DIY! Having had an extra day off today, I started painting a room in our house, and managed to get the front door and the banisters painted. I think hubby was quite pleased when he returned from work, although when we went to get Dixie from the cattery, I don't think she was so pleased as it restricted her domain to the kitchen for a while! Never mind, she's sleeping on the bed now, so normal service is resumed.

In addition to the decorating, I've been exploring some new jewellery ideas - using jump rings not just as findings for clasps, but actually forming part of the pieces themselves. I'm quite pleased with the results, and this has given me some good practice on turning eye pins as well!















I made this bracelet using ball head pins which I threaded a seed bead and a smaller green bead onto, then turned an eye pin at the top. For the larger beads, I used wire and made an eye at either end of the bead. I then connected these all together with jump rings to make quite a chunky, but very light bracelet.

















I've used exactly the same technique for this necklace, although this time there are no additional beads attached. I've used some tigertail wire to make the back of the necklace, rather than having beads all the way round. Of course, you could use ribbon or cord to finish off - I just happened to have this colour in my stash!















For this last piece, I've used peacock blue pearls as spacers between blue beads which are dangling from varying lengths of jump rings linked together. I've used flat head pins and created eyes at the top to affix them to the jump rings.

I've just ordered some gemstones from jewellerymaker.com - hope they come in time for the weekend so I can post the results!