Etsy Treasury: A Lime In The Coconut - Remembering Spring by Emerald Moon Design

Thanks very much to Jenn at Emerald Moon Design for including the Coconut necklace, no. 1 in her Treasury!

Latte Coffee Brown Doub... aloha2summer $32.00	B O G O / S A L E - Coc... designbycassan... $20.00
Brown Gladiator Leather... sandali $60.00	Natural Sunscreen in Li... rainwaterbotan... $5.00
Paradise Icon print 12x... impulseART $22.00	4.5oz Coconut Goats Mil... Germaphobe $4.50
Turkish Bath Towel...PE... TurkishBath $26.00	Coconut Earrings - Pias... TribalStyle $25.00
Natural Coconut Dispens... FLcoconuts $18.00	Dark Plum Coconut Shell... aloha2summer $32.00
Coconut Diamond Earring... VickyVK $18.00	Grace Dances at Beach J... maclancy $20.00
Two Hawaiian Coconut Tr... 3rdAveShore $116.00	Olive Wood Bead Wrap Br... DeOrdioDesigns $46.00
Lip Balm MONKEY FARTS L... HowardsHome $3.00	Adjustable Large Coconu... TheLoft10Beyon... $18.00

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com A/B image testing.

Bead Table Wednesday, Issue #2: DBC Does 'Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood'

Y'all folks are so kind with the previous - and my first! - BTW post, thank you so much for your comments!  If you enjoy my posts, you ought to check out the Flickr page featuring beaders and jewelry makers from across the world, sharing what's on their bead table every week!

Last week, you loved the Rockslide necklace, which will be available for sale in my Etsy shop very soon with other new designs.  This week is a very unique design concept and thrifted repurposed piece I picked up during a shopping spree at Value Village.  (Oh my, I will have to brag about that stuff in a later post.  Incredible finds!)  Nick has been playing quite a bit of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, an XBOX video game with its setting in 16th century Rome/'present day' 2012, with an epic yet complicated story about an ancient brotherhood called the Assassins and their lineage as they try to protect mankind from the Templars and protect an ancient 'biblical' artifact with the potential of great power to whoever possesses it.  It's a pretty damn cool game.  Eighty-five percent of the game's characters and events are historically accurate accounts of the House of  Borgia's power and influence through 15th and 16th centuries in Italy.  It's a pretty cool game, and he plays it a lot.  He's playing it right now.  (Not just as I type this, but probably as you're reading this a few days from now, too!)

You play as Ezio Auditore, a trained Assassino like his father, hailing proudly from city of Firenze, Italy.  The traditional Assassin costume is white and red, his traditional armour is patterned much like feathers of birds wings.  Nick had been bugging me for a while to make something inspired from the game, and I just happened across the coolest find at Value Village.  This'll be perfect for an Assassin's Creed-inspired piece.

Bead Stories in Pictures

So, I'm photographing away, bag o' beads after bag o' beads from my destash pile that I'll be listing on Etsy.  I've constructed a rudimentary 'white box' with natural sunlight, which is really helping capture a true colour representation.  I'm lining them up with the best features, excusable flaws, in groups, in pairs, in piles and all these fun configurations.  I had even included a prop; a white porcelain teacup from my Japanese tea set.  (It has the Japanese character for 'tea' on the side, hidden appropriately!)  It's pretty handy for keeping the smaller round beads together when I photograph them, especially when it's laying on its side.

The photos turned out really well!  The white made the colours and textures pop, and reflected light nicely around some tricky shadows.  Something else came from these photos, too - unexpectedly, I had created these little picture stories with the beads in the photos I took and ran with it.  These 'storyboards' were coming to life, putting personality into these little guys.

Here are a few of my favourites for you to enjoy!  Which one's your favourite story?

Just Call Me The Bead Hoarder ...

It's the curse of most jewelry makers and beaders I know, that we're buying stuff left, right and centre for potential future projects.  I've amassed such a collection of beads I'm not even looking at anymore, it just seems like too much to do.  I've started organizing the beads I know I'll use and the beads I can separate with, and I've put in a good dent.  I figure with the beads I'm not using I'll sell on my Etsy shop to make a little money back.  I'd even be up for trading if anyone has any stuff they're looking to let go of, too!

Here's a look at some of the beads I'll be offering up!  (My photography skills are starting to pay off, too!)

More to come, believe it!

Bead Table Wednesday, Issue #1

Welcome to what's-on-my-table-this-week!  I had discovered Bead Table Wednesday, or also affectionately known as 'BTW' (ha!), through Sue at Hello Gorgeous Design.  I found a nifty button on her blog that lead me to a Flickr group of international beaders sharing the mess on their own bead tables!

I'm a little too embarrassed to show you my actual workspace right now, I really let myself go.  I'm in the middle of a mass exodus of bead-sorting and material-purging, some may find itself for sale on my Etsy shop.  I'm also happy for the opportunity to review what I have in my own stash and focus on what materials I've been using the most lately.  You know what they say, "One man's trash is another man's treasure."  This stuff certainly isn't trash, it just got lost in the mix and, consequently, I lost interest.  There are a few that, with fresh eyes, I find new ideas and stash it away for later, like these ones here!

Etsy Treasury: My Inspiration. What's Yours? by Reba Belle

Thanks very much to Reba Belle for including the Namaste necklace, no. 4 in her Treasury!

50's Will Steinman ... ladyjanedesign... $175.00	Polka dotted coffee mug... JDWolfePottery $20.00
A COLLECTION OF 9 LARGE... SucculentsGalo... $38.00	We Have Roots Here - 8x... studiolyon $17.00
Namaste necklace, no. 4... designbycassan... $40.00	Vintage 1940s - 1950s L... delilahsdeluxe $36.50
Three Upcycled Turquois... sparrow $35.00	modern colorworks round pillowhappy $60.00
Frog Postcards Vintage ... memoriesempori... $3.99	BOTTLE OF DREAMS tiny g... JewelsInTheHay $16.00
Fruits Ladies Beach Day... SunshineSister... $9.50	Gypsy Fortune Teller po... tartx $7.00
Apple cozy jacket red I... knotworkshop $11.00	Beach Fence 3 schugirl $20.00
Im SO Crafty I Make Peo... MuthaCrafter $4.00	Handcrafted Wooden Wine... honeystreasure... $60.00

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com A/B image testing.

I've got a new blog!

Well, folks, remember the "Big Move"?  There are still details that I won't reveal yet, but here's what I can tell you:  I've got a new blog!

For those who've been following the blog for a little while now, you're probably familiar with some of the theatre and music performing endeavours I've been participating in.  It can get pretty convoluted in this blog here with all the arts and crafts I enjoy, so I had started a separate blog all about my love of music and theatre, inspirations, past and present productions and 'lessons learned' as I continue to study and participate in the performance arts. 

I've called it "The Pursuit".  It's an intriguing pursuit of happiness, purpose and fulfillment in what brings me the most joy, and that's a life of art.  I do invite you to follow and stay in touch! 

Thank You, moo.com!

Oh, these exceeded expectations ...

moo.com had a limited-time offer for Etsy sellers to grab 50 free business cards, and I darn well took advantage of that!  I was having a lot of trouble really nailing the 'look' of a business card I would want to hand to people, and moo.com has a lot of customized options that can help with someone as indecisive as me  I had selected about a dozen images or so to be featured on these cards, with the basic info of where you can stalk me online on the back side - Etsy shop, blog, Facebook, Twitter.  Maybe you'll get one of these in your next purchase from Design by Cassandra, or maybe you'll want to order your own!  Visit moo.com for great prices on custom packages for your business, whatever it may be!

Winter Enchantment with Artbeads.com!

Welcome to another Artbeads.com creation!

Our latest project is called "Winter Enchantment", to design a piece inspired by what we love about winter.  I have to be honest and say that the only reason I like snow and winter are for sentimental reasons; around Christmas and New Years, the snow makes those lights outside glow at night.  Other than that, it's cold, wet and gets in your boots and makes you uncomfortable the rest of the day.  There is one inspiration I did turn to, however, to feel the 'enchantment' of the winter season, and that was to The Group of Seven, a famous group of painters who pioneered Canadian landscape art when many artists thought at the time it to be "unpaintable or unworthy of painting."  Their works of art are now part of a rich, artistic culture and these images serve as iconography to our picturesque beauty of Canadian wilderness.
  
I remember a field trip in grade school to the McMichael Art Gallery in Kleinburg, ON, where nearly 6000 pieces of art by the Group of Seven are housed and displayed.  I loved these paintings, and seeing the beauty of my country through the eyes of artists such as these men and women make me proud to be a Canadian ... thus, by default, enjoying the 'enchantment of winter'.  No?  My choice inspiration for this project is one of my favourites, Mount Lefroy by Lawren Harris.  I had also found a lovely pendant that I thought echoed the styles of many of the Group's works.

 

Bead Soup Blog Party: THE BIG REVEAL SEQUEL!

Hello!  I'm so glad you could make it back!

Well, the laptop's still an expensive paperweight, so here I am on hubby's computer once more.  I took advantage of the beautiful sunny weather we had yesterday and put together a new photo shoot of my Bead Soup pieces, made with the beads lovingly chosen by Sue at Hello Gorgeous Design, my Bead Soup Partner for this round.  Y'know, I really like how these photos turned out - so much, that I had already replaced the photos on the 'prequel' post.  Check out this post to see what Sue had sent me and previously revealed pieces, and let's get to these beauties!

Desert Heart necklace.  This one was just waiting to happen, because I had this gold heart pendant for so long, waiting for the right inspiration.  I had purchased it as a necklace in a department clearance section a few months ago, and there was something about the odd symmetry of the heart shape itself.  The pendant was strung through a simple gold rope chain without any other embellishments; I would imagine it being worn in a 'multistrand' look with a few other pieces.  Well, the chain's still around here somewhere, and I'm sure I'll use that for something else, but I immediately saw everything come together as soon as these lemon honey jade nuggets and polished flourite in burnt orange were unwrapped from the tissue paper.  The clasp is left at the side of the necklace for easy access, the loop handmade from a brass headpin.  The gold tone bead holding the clasp is repurposed from a vintage necklace I bought at a thrift store.  The small fire agate bead that hangs inside the heart and faceted carnelian nugget are both from my own stash; gemstones bought from Earthworks, one of my favourite local bead stores.  Antiqued brass findings are used in the whole piece, adding to the aura of warmth the stones give in energy and colour.  Warm earth tones have always been a favourite of mine to use, and I was very lucky to have such a generous partner to spoil me with these delightful gems.  I'm going through a severe separation anxiety with this one, I love how this turned out so much.