win a pair of beaded dangle earrings

As I promised on Thursday, I've got a special treat for you... I'm holding the first-ever Creative Bride contest! The lucky winner will win this set of earrings - the same ones I created to demonstrate this tutorial:
To enter, just leave a comment on this post, explaining *why you deserve to win the earrings*!

The rules:

• One entry per person please.
• Leave a valid email address so I can contact you if you're the winner (it won't be shared)
• The contest will run from now until May 31st.
  
• I reserve the right to delete entries not fulfilling the entry requirements (ei - don't leave a comment just saying "thanks")
  

Thanks for entering and good luck!

Artsy bloggers round-up

Quilts in Times of Disasters

Quilters often turn to quiltmaking in times of stress, crisis and disaster. Mary Emma Allen, of Quilting and Patchwork, mentions a scene in one of her books about quilting during the Civil War.

Cornstarch clay- can it look like turquoise?
Noreen Crone-Findlay is working on a new doll. She’s spun the yarn to weave the body, and sculpted the head from cornstarch clay. She painted it to look like carved turquoise.

Creative Scarecrows book review
Yard people aren’t just for the fall. Check out this book for inspiration.

Keeping a Knitting Journal
Links to free knitting journal page downloads to keep your knitting organised.

Layers Upon Layers
Cyndi got a new tool — a forstner bit — and couldn’t wait to come up with a project to use it…

Make your own wedding earrings
The Creative Bride has created an easy tutorial to make these feminine dangle earrings.

Tangled Thread’s final De-Stash challenge check in
Chloe has put together a list of her favorite De-Stash challenge projects from the past six weeks.

Tea Tag Bookmark
A simple reuse project for tea lovers.

What Did I Accomplish This WeeK?
Did you ever come to the end of a week and ask yourself, “What in the world did I do all week? Eileen muses on her week.

image source: Stock.Xchg

Friday photo inspiration

AshleyJosh_1300, originally uploaded by Shindig Photos.

I thought that today's Friday Photo Inspiration should be all about outdoor weddings. After all, it's starting to warm up enough that your guests won't get frostbite :-)

Friday photo inspiration

outdoor wedding, originally uploaded by m.a.mueller.

Friday photo inspiration

down the aisle, originally uploaded by cdiblasio.

tutorial: easy dangle earrings, part two

Ready to start creating? I gave you a list of supplies yesterday - got them all? Just as a reminder, this is an original design so please don't copy the pattern - feel free to email the link though :-)

To begin, you'll need to trim six headpins to three different lengths - like this:
Each earring needs three headpins, each one with an approximate difference of 1/4". I'm using 2" headpins, so I trimmed to first two to a length of 1-3/4". The second pair is 1-1/2" long and the short pair of headpins are 1-1/4" long. You can also adjust the lengths if you prefer shorter or longer earring dangles as well.

Place your beads onto the headpins - I needed to use seed beads at the end to stop the bigger focal beads from slipping off:
We now need to curl the top of the head pin into a complete circle like this:
Use your round nose pliers and gently curl the headpin to form the circle.

Use the needle nose pliers and crease the headpin at the bottom of the circle - the dangle will hang straighter that way:
Open up with the circle and slide the ear wire into it. Close the circle again, so the earring looks like this:
Now repeat the step with the other earring. Each earring should have three headpins, each a different length.

Here's how the finished pair look:
The sky really is the limit with this simple design - you can use pearls, or crystals, or shiny glass beads...

tutorial: easy dangle earrings

Time for a new tutorial! Do you want to make your own jewelry for your wedding, but aren't sure where to start? This is an easy design (it's one of my more popular classes) to create a versatile pair of earrings in less than an hour. Just a reminder, this is an original design, so please don't use the photos or text - feel free to email the link though :-)


You'll need:

• needle-nose pliers
  
• round nose pliers
• bent nose pliers, or a second set of needle nose pliers
• wire snips (optional, lots of jewelry needle nose pliers have wire snips built in)
• head pins (I'm using plain ones for this project, but you can get head pins with fancy ends like rhinestones or little hearts)
• ear wires (use gold or sterling silver if your ears are sensitive
• six small focal beads
  
• optional: smaller "E" or seed beads if your focal beads have large holes.

I'll show you the first steps tomorrow :-)

Artsy bloggers round-up

Cover girl! Here’s my heart…..
Noreen Crone-Findlay designed, spool knitted and wove a wonderful heart. The art director at Harlequin Romances liked it so much that she bought one for the cover of a new Harlequin Romance. And now, they’re holding a contest so readers can win the heart. Here’s the link….

Digital Painting Tutorial
Artist Genece Hamby shares her pushing colour tutorial.

How to Attach Vintage Buttons to a Charm Bracelet
Antique buttons make special charm bracelets. Here’s how to attach the buttons without destroying their value as collectibles.

Inspiration Comes From the Strangest Things
Make a colorful background for your artwork.

Layers Upon Layers
Cyndi has a great magazine to give away…as a bribe!

Trails End Quilters of the 1870’s - My Quilting Heritage
Mary Emma, at Quilting and Patchwork, reminisces about her quilting heritage and urges you to discover yours.

Use t-shirts to create a recycled, reversible totebag
Chloe from Tangled Thread has created a tutorial for making an easy totebag using a t-shirt

Vintage Gift Tags
With your love of old magazines, create inexpensive, easy-to-make gift tags your friends will cherish.

Scrapbooking your wedding
The Creative Bride has been busy creating the first few pages of her wedding scrapbook.

image source: Stock.Xchg

Friday photo inspiration

amanda kaotik, originally uploaded by vingt_deux.

For this week's Friday Photo inspiration, I'm going with tattoos on brides. There is some spectacular artwork out there and I think that brides shouldn't be afraid to show it on their wedding day!

Friday photo inspiration

showing off the ink, originally uploaded by Ferrous Femur.

scrapbooking your wedding - part two

I showed you the first page of my wedding scrapbook yesterday - here's the next two pages:
My DH & myself used butterfly stickers to decorate the programs, but we ended up using two different kinds of stickers. What's a person to do? Put one of both programs into the scrapbook!

I was glad I saved some extra programs - they're a lovely reminded to have :-)

Again, I used really simple layouts and just added some butterfly stickers to these two pages as accents. If your invitation folds open, using multiple copies of it in your wedding scrapbook (like I did with my programs) can be a great way to show everything.

I'll post more pages as I create them :-)

scrapbooking your wedding

I've just recently started to put together a scrapbook for my wedding (yes, I know it's taken almost 8 months - I'm a busy person!) and am glad I saved things like extra wedding programs :-)
This is the first page of the scrapbook. I layered one of the invitations with an envelope (with one of the wax seals we used for hand-delivered invitations) I used an archival double-sided tape to attach everything to the paper. It's important to use archival materials, including paper, glue and even the scrapbook itself. You don't want to put all that time and effort into making something that's going to fall apart and discolour in a couple of years.

So far, I'm going with plain and simple embellishments - but of course I may change my mind too... I'll show you the next two pages tomorrow :-)

Artsy bloggers round-up

An “Elephant” Strategy to Quilting Business Success
In her new book, Karin Abarbanel provides a woman’s “go-for-it!” guide to developing a business…whether in quilting, crafts, or other areas.

Does Your Art Shock You?
If you are startled when you look at your art the next day, you are doing something right.

Eco projects to celebrate Earth Day
Noreen Crone-Findlay has been having a wonderful time reclaiming wood from a broken loom and a melted down old desk. She's made some very fine bag handles and some fab eco bracelets. Every Day is Earth Day, right?

In Search of Craft Balance
How to squeeze more time for your art into your busy days.

Junk Project: Orange Bird Feeder
Learn how to make a bird feeder from a used orange peeling.

Layers Upon Layers
A clock-junkie shares what to do with those annoying AOL cds…

Make Artistic Stickers for Your Journal
Links to an easy tutorial for making your own artistic stickers.

Things You’d Never Imagine From Beer Cans, Gloves and Chairs
Explore the beautiful work of junk artist Paul Villinski.

Hand-sewing special projects
I've been working with my mum to create a series of hand-sewn runners to commemorate my grandmother.

image source: Stock.Xchg

Friday photo inspiration

Bridemaids' flowers, originally uploaded by BabyDinosaur.

Friday photo inspiration

Wedding Bouquet, originally uploaded by audra little.

Friday photo inspiration

A twist on the classic..., originally uploaded by morgan_iscool.

It's starting to feel like spring in my neck of the woods - the tulips are finally poking through the soil!

In honor of the promise of new flowers, today's Friday Photo Inspiration is all flowers.

tutorial: embroidered blessing ribbons

I showed you one of the "blessing ribbons" I created for my wedding in the last post. Essentially, I programmed a message into my sewing machine (an older computerized sewing machine with embroidery features) and stitched it onto lengths of grosgrain ribbon.

I also created some test ribbons using strips of duppioni silk:
The green is grosgrain ribbon and the blues are silk. I embroidered my brother and his fiancee's names and the date of their wedding onto a white ribbon, which then got wrapped around their guest book:
It's hard to make out the writing in this photo, but the embroidery is a lovely, subtle way to mark something with dates and names.

If you don't have a machine capable of embroidering letters, why not hand embroider ribbon? You could even paint it on as well! I'm making a series of these to include in my wedding album and scrapbook.

embroidered blessing ribbons

I wanted a subtle way to include names, dates and even little messages into projects I made for my wedding, as well as my brother's wedding (two weddings in three months - it was a busy summer!)

I came up with embroidering "blessing ribbons" using my computerized embroidery machine. In my next post I'll show you how I created them and how you can use them in your own wedding preparations!

the wedding dress for the really creative bride on a really tight budget

Are you short on cash but long on time and creativity? This talented Craftster has put together an impressive wedding dress for $10... from dollar store shower curtains and ribbon!

Artsy bloggers round-up

Creative ways to use up your stash - dyeing fabric

Tangled Thread shows how to re-work a piece of fabric that she no longer likes - by dyeing it.

Jennifer Chiviarini’s New Book - The Winding Ways Quilt
For those who enjoy the Elm Creek Quilters’ series, a new novel was just released.

Layers Upon Layers
Have a good time just playing with paper strips! Sometimes the results are amazing, sometimes they’re just plain fun!

Some Things You Can – and Can’t! – Do with Your Graphic Software
Eileen at The Artful Crafter talks about how you can use computer software design programs to create customized and unique designs without violating copyright.

Tiny and easy to make Worry Dolls
Oooh… there seems to be so much to worry about these days. Why not take a brief holiday from worrying and make some enchanting little Worry Dolls for yourself and your friends. Noreen will show you how.

Your Treasure Map
Links to an exercise for creating your personal treasure map.

Friday photo inspiration

It's lovely to be back! For a special treat, this week's Friday Photo Inspiration is from my own wedding :-) I just got the "official" photos back and wanted to share a few with my lovely readers.
I created the centrepieces using vintage silver trays, glass vases, tea lights & holders and coloured glass pebbles. Cost? Approximately $8 per table - and they looked awesome! Several family members helped track down the trays - mostly from second hand stores :-)

The wedding cakes, surrounded by origami butterflies. The cakes were decorated with fabric ribbon, stencilled icing butterflies and little sugar flowers to match the real flowers. My bouquet, that I created the morning of the wedding - it was easy to do and ended up costing a quarter of the price of getting the bouquets made by a florist. It's definitely worthwhile doing a test run first though!

I'm back!

Sorry about the delay folks, it took awhile to get the technical issues sorted out! Okay, here's the scoop - you can reach The Creative Bride at:

http://thecreativebrideblog.com

or the original Blogspot address:

http://thecreativebride.blogspot.com

But for some reason, www.thecreativebrideblog.com doesn't work...

Go figure!

I'll be back tomorrow with some yummy photos :-)