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 :-)