And the winner is....

Oh  my gosh, I'm so excited!! CATHY, you are the winner!

Cathy wrote: "I am inspired by my girls - they have such a huge curiosity for everything. They fascinate me!"

I couldn't agree more! My kids are truly an inspiration for me as well.  They look at things with such innocence and it's amazing what creative minds that children have.

They are all little artists in their own special way! 

And guess what else? It's Cathy's birthday today!

Congratulations and Happy Birthday Cathy!! 

Don't worry, I have your address...I will be sending out your necklace tomorrow! :)

Thanks so much to everyone for submitting some wonderful answers! I'm so honored that you took the time to comment and be part of this with me! 

I hope you can take away something from everyone else's comments and find a new way to inspire yourself to create something fabulous!

Another heat wave's headed our way...

Talking about the weather when you live in New England is almost inevitable. There's so much inconsistency that it makes me crazy at times! We had a heat wave last week, and it's working it's way back this week. Today we have pouring rain and thunderstorms. When it's humid outside, I like to be INSIDE with the air conditioner on. Yesterday I sat in my office with my Diet Coke, my friend Allyson (and Miss Reese, of course) and my CD player going and I HAULED on bracelets!! 

I made two custom orders, here's a look at one of them made with Jenelle's FABULOUS focals!

I can get more of these beautiful focals from Jenelle too if anyone is interested in a similar style. Available for custom order, just email me! 

Next are three bracelets that I made with Jena Fulcher's AWESOME beads! I decided that I could make one really funky wrapped charm bracelet or share the wealth. Each is similar but different in it's own special way. Here are some preliminary photos, to be retaken outside once the sun shines!

This one is called "Sublime Key Lime"

Here's the sister to this one "Sublime Key Lime II" (until I can think of something better)

And the last is called "Blue Hawaiian"

These will be listed up on Etsy tomorrow, once I get some outside pictures which will truly show off the sparkle in these awesome bracelets! 

I'm in the mood to move on to more fall colors now... so the other bracelet that I made will be posted tomorrow because the picture is too blurry. LOL! I'm a perfectionist! Can you tell? ;) It is made with some beautiful earthy colored Kazuri Beads and Swarovski Crystals.
Last chance to enter for the giveaway!! Get those comments in and check back tomorrow night to see if you've won! 

I tried something new, and you can win it!

Sometimes I see things flashing by me, either on the TV or on someone walking by on the street or in the store and I think to myself..."that's really cool, I'd like to try that". Sometimes I jot it down, or draw myself a picture of the way I'd like to try to design it myself and make it my own. Sometimes I rip pictures of colors, flowers, food and fabrics out of magazines and pin them up on the inspiration board in my office. I have them organized by season. Then I refer back to them when I'm stuck for an idea. I'm constantly inspired by the things around me. Flowers, paint swatches, food, the ocean. I pull color schemes and ideas from these things, and I find myself naming my pieces after them as well.

As far as designs, I subscribe to only two magazines. Step by Step Wire, and Bead and Button. Love to flip through them and teach myself a new technique. Sometimes  I go to the bookstore and look through Bead Trends and Stringing. Those are my other two favorites. There are so many different styles of jewelry and it's just so nice to see so many talented people all doing their own thing. 

I can't remember exactly where I saw something similar to this design I was thinking about in my head. I have that Wig Jig thing, and I never use it. I made this with my pliers. Ideally, to make this perfect for ME, I would add some of Jenelle's Lampwork Organic Seeds to this funky wrapped design, but for this practice run I used some really pretty Jade that I picked up at the Gem Show earlier this year. Then I wrapped the top and bottom loops with seed beads (which is my new favorite thing to do). 

I added a little drop charm to the bottom as well and strung it on a Steel Cable.

After I finished I reviewed it and made notes on how I can improve on it for the next time. It's not perfect but since it is really pretty, I thought that I could give it away!

Anyone think they would like to give it a good home? Here's what you have to do to enter to win it: 

1.  First you have to sign up to follow my Blog. I have over 400 followers on Facebook, but only 53 here so let's see if we can bump that up. (If you feel so inclined, you can also follow me on Twitter (MJMJD), and/or sign up to receive my newsletter - right here on the blog).

2.  Once you sign up to follow the blog, leave me a comment on this post telling me what your main source of inspiration is. You don't have to design jewelry, but I'm sure that people take inspiration from things for all sorts of different creative outlets. Tell me what your favorite is! I'm curious if people go about it the same way that I do and I'm sure there are many more ways that people use their creative minds out there. I'd love to hear your thoughts! You all inspire me too! :)

I'll assign all the comments a number and next Wednesday, July 14th at 6pm, I'll draw a winner at random and send you this cool necklace! (Free shipping for US residents only, please!). So go ahead, start commenting! :)

A Happy Fourth!

This is one of my favorite holiday's to celebrate. Good food, friends and FIREWORKS!! I've loved them for as long as I can remember. The big BOOM is my favorite part. I've taken some great firework pictures over the years but not this year. For the past few years, we've been enjoying my neighbors fireworks display (which he sets off in our yard). And this year, it just didn't do it for me. So next July 4th, I'm on a mission to see some good fireworks again! 

But the whole day wasn't bad... we went to my sister's house to swim for the day! The kids had a BLAST! 

Thanks to my sister for letting us enjoy this beautiful day poolside!

You should get in on this...

I've always wanted to participate in the Bead Soup Party, and I think I will the next time around! It's such a great opportunity to meet new people and share some great beads and pieces! 

Lori is giving away one of the pieces that she made with a gorgeous focal bead made by my friend Jen!

Of course I would love to win it myself, but you should definitely get in on the action! 

Here's her photo and a link to her blog!

http://lorianderson.blogspot.com/2010/06/jewelry-giveaway-you-know-you-want-this.html

I've been thinking of doing a little contest/giveaway myself, so this is a good push to make me think of something fun to do! Be on the lookout for that in the next couple of weeks! 

A little remodeling goes a long way!

So 9 years ago, we bought our lovely home. Added much love and put our own touches on it to make it ours. In our living room, my husband insisted on a nice white Berber carpet. It looked SO pretty when it went in!

(This is 2001, before anything was done to the living room, with the exception of paint and making the double door opening behind Meghan. That was a solid wall!)

Meghan was only 4 years old when we moved in! :) She looks so tiny to me!

The above photo's were the original, beautiful white carpet. At the time, there was only 1 child and three cats. We put in the French doors to keep out the 1 child and those 3 cats, because this was going to be the "Formal" living room. 

So much for that.

Fast forward 9 years... there are now three kids, and 4 cats (still two of the original, there was one in between that was killed by a speeding idiot driver outside, and now two new). That carpet was disgusting. I didn't want to even sit on it. 6 years ago I said to Clay, we should take that carpet out. His response...no way, the floor is not finished underneath, remember? 

Um, yes I do remember, I took very good photo documentation of it!! But one of the older cats started to use the corner of the carpet as a liter box and so alas, the once beautiful, now gross disgusting carpet was violently ripped out of the room a couple of weeks ago and taken to it's final resting place at the dump!

The un-level and un-insulated floor underneath was taken up and repaired by the amazing hubby!

There was a fireplace here at one point (the house is 100 years old, but we never saw it) that's the remainder of the chimmney. 

Now nice and level and toasty warm underneath, it's been FIXED the way it should have been a long time ago. 

And then there was new...

And the finished room... I like it so much better than the original way we did it! 

We have the same furniture, and some of the same pictures, but we changed the paint colors several times. I think I am finally content!! 

And on the seventh day, she rested... and went for a pedicure! ;)

Don't worry, Clay is sleeping in too.

Sunflowers are by far my favorite...

I love Sunflowers. Love them. We used to have them lining our fence here by the road and people would stop and admire them while driving by. They were really tall and BIG!! Then of course there were those idiots that would drive by and knock them down. We'd find the big flowers all smashed in the middle of the road. Shame on them. They aren't there anymore because we did some landscaping over there and never replanted them. I miss them. 

Last week I got some beads from the lovely Melissa Rediger. I love her beads! As soon as I saw these I knew what their fate would be. 

So I wrapped some loops and hammered them. Then I wrapped some Topaz, Smoky Quartz and Jonquil Swarovski Crystals around them. 

Then I came back around with the seed beads and added some Sunflower Charms.

I think these are my favorite earrings that I have made in my 6 years of Jewelry Designing. 

I can't wait to find another big field of sunflowers and just take pictures!

I made this pendant a couple of weeks ago and never had a chance to photograph it. I'm also having a hard time with a name. I see a little Argyle pattern in the glass, does anyone else? 

I'll be working on some more stuff tonight and tomorrow. My goal of 10 pairs of earrings got sidetracked when the Sunflower pair took me over 2 hours to create! I just didn't want to let my vision down. :) More to come!

It's here, It's here!!!

I could be talking about a multitude of things this week! First, Summer vacation is here! The kids celebrated their last day of school on Wednesday. HOORAY!!

They were so excited to be done for the year, and believe me...I think that I am more excited than they are!! No more running around like a maniac!

We did our errands today, and even went to the bookstore to get them each a book from their reading lists. I have some kids that are eager to get their summer packets done early. I am all for it! 

And the other thing that is here, well that is now in my possession
after the bookstore run today, is the July issue of Bead Trends!! 

I went over to check to see if it was out yet and there it was!! There were actually only two on the shelf, and there are usually many more copies so I'm not sure how long it's been out but one came home with ME!! :)

Here's my photo's of it that I submitted.

Whoooohoo!! I'm so excited! You can find my beautiful "Atlantic Meets Pacific" bracelet on pages 92-93. It looks gorgeous in the magazine, and it's such an honor to have had it chosen. 

That's the last publication for the time being, I'll be working on some other things soon in that respect but I'm back to focusing on creating new things to share with all of you! 

It's going to be a busy Summer, I can tell already. But I'm looking forward to hanging out with my kids, who both did excellent this year in school! Meghan made High Honors!! I'm so proud of both of them! They are at a great age now where they want to do fun things, so we're making our list of potential activities. Mini golf, Aquarium, Zoo, walking trails. I am even going to try to hit the track with Meg a few times a week to try to increase my walk to a jog or a slow run. She may want to try out for Track next year and so I don't think it will hurt either of us to go out there and do a little more than a fast paced walk. Wish me luck!

New things coming in the next couple of days!! The whirlwind is winding down, and so my creative brain can begin to work again! :)

Sun and Sea

What a wonderful thing to wake up to on this beautiful sunny Saturday morning!

My Beach Treasures Bracelet was included in this GORGEOUS treasury on Etsy called
Sun and Sea!

    Thank you so much to WhenLifeHandsULemons for including me!
I think I need a vacation now! :) 

                                             

It's Tuesday?

I get confused after a long weekend! I went to bed last night thinking it was Sunday, good thing I was taping my Monday night shows! Thanks to everyone who stopped by my Memorial Day Sale! I hope you enjoy your new pieces!

In the meantime, I've been cooking up some Summer fun this weekend! My stretchy rings were such a HUGE hit a couple weeks back, that I decided to branch out into Toe Rings! 

I LOVE Toe Rings!

These are stretchy as well and you can wear one or stack a few!
Mix and match your colors! There's So much variety, that really anything goes!

These are Ann's lovely toes! Her feet are nice and tan and she had a pedicure! Plus it's hard to take pictures of your own toes! LOL! These are just some examples of how you can stack them up. These are ours, so don't worry, you wont receive used ones. Your Toe rings will be custom made just for you! 

To see some color choices, visit my Facebook Page, and look for the "Rings" photo album!