2/22/2018

Oldies but Goodies - Mardi Gras

When our challenge mistress announced Mardi Gras as the topic for the latest Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, I was somewhat at a loss what to enter.
Here in Germany we celebrate what is called Fasching, Fasnet, Fastnacht, Fassenacht, Karneval - and I figured it would not be quite the same as Mardi Gras as it's not even the same in all of Germany. So I asked what kind of vibe they were asking for and got the reply "Mardi Gras is just colorful, especially green, purple, and gold - masks, beads, French influence".
Colorful, now that I could do.

Today's selection is a very small one, but I hope you will love it nonetheless :-)


1 and 5 Cat's Wire
2 and 3 MC Stoneworks
4 RioRita

2/08/2018

Oldies but Goodies - Minty fresh

Like many other people I love the taste and scent of mint. Isn't it amazing how you see something mint colored and your brain automatically connects it with this fresh feeling?
Today I'm bringing you some items from the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge and hope they'll make you feel good! :-)


1 Cat's Wire
2 MC Stoneworks
3 The Crafty Chimp
4 RioRita
5 Jewelry Art by Dawn

2/02/2018

Tackle that stash or Creating new (old) stash

Years ago the "Pfingstmarkt" in Wäschenbeuren was a regular date in our annual calendar. This market takes place on Pentecost (Monday which is also a holiday here) each year, in a village about six miles from my hometown.
One part of it is a flea and antique market, the other is a typical market with anything from local honey, hand knitted socks, herbal teas, aprons, t-shirts, ingenious vegetable graters, and of course there are also food stalls to keep people going. I haven't been there for years, mainly for lack of transportation because it's a bit of a hassle with buses on holidays.

When I was younger, I wasn't a fan of jasper. I usually saw it in the form of tumbled rocks that I didn't have any use for, and on top of that jasper doesn't sparkle. I loved gemstones and still do today.
I grew older and (hopefully ;-)) a little wiser, though, and learned to appreciate the beauty of other stones, no matter if they were translucent or opaque. And eventually I got myself a tumbled leopard jasper rock from a jewelry stand at the Pfingstmarkt, one of those that also had one of those big boxes with a variety of rocks in it. I still didn't have any real use for it, and afterwards I wouldn't have been able to say why I wanted to have it except that it had jumped out at me, but I always felt that this was the rock that started to make me change my view of jasper.


After I started making jewelry, I made a few attempts to use the rock. Nothing really convinced me, though. This was not a small stone, it needed some big design, and I was better at incorporating tiny beads in my pieces. I crocheted or knitted more than one bezel for the jasper, but nothing worked.

This brings me to my topic of creating new/old stash.
Lately I have been ripping up some old pieces. A few had never even been listed anywhere because I was not completely sure about them myself, and I felt kind of a relief when I ripped them up and put the cabs or beads back into my stash. One of them was the jasper.
You have no idea how often this particular rock had come back to haunt me. Some pieces sleep in a drawer and some of those I even forget I ever had. The jasper, however, always ended up somewhere where I found it again.
And now I think I finally found its destination after, oh, probably about 20 years - and I'm happy with it. Miracles do happen.

2/01/2018

Oldies but Goodies - Berry colors

I'll spare you the stories today ... let's just go pick some "berries".
Berry colors were the topic for this week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, and berry colors we got! Obviously my subconscious mind was so influenced that I actually got myself some frozen (after all it's winter here) berries with the next grocery shopping ;-)
Hopefully you'll find today's selection just as yummy as I did.


1 and 7 MC Stoneworks
2 and 8 The Crafty Chimp
3 and 5 RioRita
4 and 6 Cat's Wire