Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Grateful Living

I'm so excited to announce that yours truly is now a regular contributor to Molly Alexander's
Grateful Living blog.





There are several different contributors, but Molly's mission for these posts is simply this

Friends sharing together, doing our best to define grateful living as:

Seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Finding the small blessings in the big storms.

Waking up, breathing in, and recognizing that each day is a gift.

Seeing the glass as half-full.

Stepping off the treadmill of life and standing still for a moment to stop and smell the roses.

Looking beyond faults and recognizing the good in others.

Being thankful for what you have and not worrying away all your time wishing for what you don't.


This,
and so much more,
 is what grateful living is all about.


Please join us as we share pieces and parts of our personal experiences with you as we do our best to walk on the sunny side of the street.

I hope you'll become a regular reader and find those splashes of grace and dashes of joy!
Christie

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Creative Spark Winter 2015 Reveal

I do love being a part of the Znet Design team. We get to play with beautiful beads, and this challenge was no exception.

When I need inspiration for a certain season, I love to look at my friend Deni's pictures on Instagram ( @Denesiachristine) and once again, she didn't disappoint. The theme for this challenge was ice, something in short supply here in Florida, unless you look in my freezer! I was a little stumped when I received my beads.

 They were beautiful, but how on earth did I translate them into icy pieces? So, after picking out a couple of lovely pictures from Instagram, I went with a Tropical Ice inspiration.

Tahitian Ice was my first venture.  I used cultured sea glass beads in that beautiful Sea Foam Green,
added a strand of freshwater pearls and a strand of crystal rondelles, and wire crocheted 4 different strands with some silver colored non tarnish wire, then twisted them all together for a set that I call Tahitian Ice.
                                 
 
The next project was a pair of earrings using Cultured Sea Glass sand dollar pendants, and keeping with the Tropical Ice theme,  I used some crystal teardrops and sterling plated beads, ending up with Snowy Shells. I love Deni's picture of this bird sitting in the midst of a snowy backdrop, and used that sprig of icy leaves as my inspiration.

Next up was Frozen Flowers. I wanted to use the lovely cultured sea glass rondelle beads in Peridot. This design went through a couple of versions before I found this pendant in my stash from a stained glass store in Tallahassee. It's a piece of English china that Susan of Glasswork by Susan  repurposed into a pendant. Paired with copper chain ,copper spaces. and some antique bronze wire it blossomed
into a complete set.

This picture was my inspiration
 
The final offering is a pair of earrings using cultured sea glass diamond pendants in Periwinkle Changes.

  Hope had suggested the black ice idea, and so armed with some annealed steel wire from my friendly Ace Hardware store, Periwinkle Points were born. As you can see from the picture of all the beads I received, there were plenty of gorgeous options to choose from, but most will have to wait for another day.  

Here's the link to the Winter Edition of Creative Spark- there's lots of gorgeous beads and designs waiting to be seen inside, so I hope you'll take a moment and look