Archive for the ‘contest challenge’ Category

…From Balanced. I know, I have had them for a couple of weeks now. However waiting for a bit of sunshine in this part of the world to take pictures takes like forever. So in the end, I decided to stuck them on the kitchen counter, juggling between a rubbish camera and a non existing light lol.

Here they are…Thank you Rach for giving me the opportunity to challenge myself : I have never used copper before and I’ve been meaning to give it a go for ages, so that’s great !

 Beaded bead, round quartz beads, resin lentils

 Stone beads

 swarovski and czeck crystals, handcrafted pendant

Handmade copper toggle

See here the bead selection I sent to Rachel and you can actually check out what other BSP goers have sent here on Flicker

Bead Soup Party reveal on the 26th February!! Stay tuned…

Thanks to Lori from www.PrettyThingsBlog.com and www.LoriAnderson.net who is the brain behind the Bead Soup Party Swap (please click on the link below right to know more about it ) I am now in the game and have been assigned a partner. And guess what?? I have been assigned to a fellow Etsy Ireland Team jewelry artist : Rachel from www.balancedcrafts.com. She is so talented, it’s a pleasure to work alongside Rach. In fact I’ve already done so during the ATC Etsy Ireland swap!

Here are the lovelies I sent Rach…Straight from my own stash. The focal is from one of my favorite lampwork artist, but each single lampwork bead here has been lovingly handmade by an artisan. Great quality and care. Love the colours. There’s more pictures (and really well taken) by Rachel here.

The toggle is sterling silver and I added amethyst swarovski crystals…Just as well I remembered to take pictures before I sent off the beads,  only minutes before heading to the post office!

Peach fresh pearlwater and copper earrings by balanced

Rachel’s boutique on Etsy here, go have a look at her jewellery and profile!

Everyone who loves jewelry welcome! This swap is hosted by Lori Anderson and This year’s Bead Soup Party was huge! Over 100 participants from all over the world. Click here to see what I came up with for the last bead soup swap…

Please click on pic to go and check out my treasury ^_^

A new challenge for the Etsy Ireland team has arised. Rach from Balanced is the one behind the operation: All the participants who desire to make a treasury can do so for the next 4 days. It should feature 8-10 fellow team members and not include one of our items. Voting will be done via a poll widget on friday 15 Oct  here and the winner will be announced next Wednesday, Oct. 20. All the participant treasuries can be found here. The winner will receive a a little feature post here on the blog AND their Etsy Mini listed in the sidebar for one whole week!

The theme is Comfort…My chosen colour combo here is what I find comfy. I don’t know why I just do! Hope you like it, there’s nice items and shops there that are worth looking at

Oh! and a great tip I found (maybe you already knew about it) but I couldn’t ‘catch’ treasuries pictures. What I needed was a screenshot and I found a website for it http://www.thumbalizr.com/ where you can thumb your pages! Brillant!

I am so proud of it!(If I may say so) Even though I love sewing, I only know how to quilt…So when I accepted this Victorian cuff bracelet swap challenge, I knew I had to step up a bit. And it worked (well I hope it did). There’s a lot of first times that went into creating this cuff:

-first time making a ruffle

-first time actually making a button

-first time making a rouleau loop

-first time sewing lace…

and so on! But first things first, here’s how I started. A wee bit of inspiration was essential. Browsing through Etsy and so on. And looking at my humble fabric stash. What was suitable for a victorian inspired cuff??

lots of beiges, roses, champagne ribbon, Marie-Antoinette? (not very english but why not)

Lace of course! And I was thinking of incorporating this portrait in the cuff. Adding a diamantes to it and sealing it with resin… Didn’t in the end. I loved it the way it was. Less is more as they say… (Funny I say that a lot, could be my motto lol). I know there’s a lot of women that love ‘overcrowded’ jewellery. I prefer simple sophistication.

A little bit of Janome magic!

My label…

and done! it looks even better when worn. I do hope my partner Angela will be happy with it. As it wasn’t the same wrist size as mine, I made it to her measure and truly hope if fits properly! I wast emailing her and apparently she started hers this week too. So stay tuned to see what she made me. Can’t wait!

The aim was kinda to challenge ourselves, share our love of craft, getting to know ourselves better within the team and to get people to look at our work and blogs. So I wish you happy blogging, Have a great time browsing through all the participant’s pictures and please don’t forget to leave comments and to follow the blogs!

I was personnally swapping with Tanya, Brigitte and Aine (at first, there was an uneven number of participants and then Brigitte wanted to make an extra card) . But I chose not to mention which cards will go to whom, just because even if it is a reveal today, they’ll still have an effect of surprise

This one is called: ‘Think outside the box’ and is made with mixed media collage

Funny, you can see me photographying reflected in the enveloppe! I Had to make the most of the sunny day!

Nex is ‘Alice Revisited’ I drew Alice and made her stand out from the card (even though you can’t really see it here on the pic)

I love the fine silver ‘embroidery’ print on the enveloppe

And last but not least ‘Vintage frame,New baby’ made with a drawing of mine of mama and baby owl and mixed media collage

It’s a shame you can’t really see it but there is a see through plastic ’window’ (which appears blurry due to the sun) and the gold frame is really cool and the enveloppe print reminded me of a forest…

And here are my new little babies, fabric flower brooches that I will be added to my packages…

Not easy to take decent pictures but I do hope you enjoyed the post, my blog and the challenge idea. If this challenge has made you think you wished you had participated, do not despair, ask any of the girls if you could do a swap with you…why not??!  Hope you can go and visit the other blogs…

 Loads of smiles,

♥Virginie♥

Actually in TWO boxes. As promised, I managed to take a couple of pictures of the Petite Bead boxes I received. We all had to handmake the box or get a vintage box. The content would include a selection of beads with a focal, 5 unique beads and 20  matching beads no smaller than 4mm…Basically, unique beads you wouldn’t come accross in your local craft shop. Here they are and don’t forget to look at the PREVIOUS POST to look at the boxes I made …

From Cassandra www.myartfuladventures.blogspot.com :

and from Bryanna www.thecanaryscupcake.blogspot.com :

Thank you to the 2 lovely ladies I swaped with and Thank you for looking ^_^

I’m just back from France where I’ve spent 2 weeks with my family. It was great and I must say I’m a bit homesick at the minute but I’m sure it’ll pass . Dylan has started to  walk over there and he’s not 12 months yet!! Walking, crawling with his bum up lol by the end of next week he’ll be walking like a pro. Unfortunately, Dylan got back home with a cold and a rash…We thought he had developed chicken pox or roseola but the GP said it could be just a simple rash and cold…this morning we discovered more spots…But then, the teething, difference in temperature between ireland and France and different routine/food/travelling….Could be it.

So all that to say that I haven’t been able to take photos of the two boxes I received from Cassandra and Bryanna…I’ll try to post pics of them tomorrow if Baby’s better…But I already had taken pics of the boxes I sent, so without wasting anymore time, first a big thank you to you two girls and especially Cassandra for organizing the whole swap. I definitely have a taste for it now! If you (dear reader) know of a cute swap happening soon please let me know ^_^

Anyway, so here they are, first for Bryanna : Marie-Antoinette theme

I absolutely loved making these 2 boxes  using new collage and resin encasing techniques…They are my very first altered boxes! I’m a beginner you know…

I wanted to go for different handmade beads that I usually go for. (As you probably know, I mostly work with high quality artisan lampwork beads) So that was a challenge for me and I opted for  handcrocheted beads… They match fabulously the handmade and silver Rose pendant I got from www.dottyral.etsy.com She’s a brillant artist!

I handmade the card (oups forgot to take a pic) to match the box and sent it out lovingly packaged!

And then for Cassandra : A ‘Chic Parisienne’ theme

I simply went for black, silver and sparkly crystal…So hard to catch with the camera! I promise it looks even better in reality

Vintage crysal brooch and vintage chandelier crystals are the components…With mini handcrafted pink see through lampwork beads and big silver cotton handcrocheted beads. All handmade or vintage!

Card made by me to match and off the package went to Cassandra. You can go to her page here to see what the other participants have made…

Also, if you’d like to swap boxes or ATC with me or know of an other challenging swap, please let me know!

I’m actually organising an ATC swap, reveal first week of September…

Thanks for looking and hope you enjoy the blog , ^_^, Virginie

Today, I’m revealing the name of the participants and who they will be trading with! (before the official post on the Ireland team blog tomorrow…Naughty ) 
(Please click on banners for links to blogs. Didn’t get a blog address for all the participants, if by any chance I have forgotten one, please let me know!)

Bee http://www.beeliciouscrafts.etsy.com/ + Beth http://www.magpieandbutton.etsy.com/

Ruth http://www.nicedaydesigns.etsy.com/ + Mary http://www.myrasimon.etsy.com/

Carrie http://www.cherryblossomtatoo.etsy.com/ + Suzie http://www.littlewhitedog.etsy.com/

Tanya http://www.tanymac.etsy.com/ + Virginie http://www.vivibijoux.etsy.com/

Rachel http://www.balanced.etsy.com/ + Fiona http://www.patchworkdelights.etsy.com/

Linda http://www.clickdecourcyni.etsy.com/ + Jessamyn http://www.homespunireland.etsy.com/

Aine http://www.missaine.etsy.com/ + Virginie (uneven number, sorry!) http://www.vivibijoux.etsy.com/

Brigitte from http://www.purlsofcolours.etsy.com/ is kindly designing an official widget for the swap so that the team and the participants can display them on their blogs. It should be available soon here.

Meanwhile, anyone who would like to help spreading the word about this challenge and the team is more than welcome to pick it up and stick it on web sites and personal blogs!

My button is to grab too, don’t hesitate, it’s free and pretty!!

                                                                             Here it is at last! I must say that I quite like the result… I would specially like to thank my BSP partner, Sonja for sending me such an array of colourful beads.  At first I was like ‘Oh,my, goodness.I don’t even know where to start’ .You see, the way I work is like I start with a couple of beads or a colour palette. And then, I just let it take me to wherever the creativity will take me. And I add as I go. So even though it was a personal challenge , I gladly welcomed it and dearly enjoyed it :)

I wouldn’t be what you call a ‘necklace person’  but I just had to go for it!  It is not a complex looking piece and yet is sophisticated (Well, I’d like to think so anyway). I hope the photos will speak volumes… Please after you have a wee look at my finished pieces, don’t forget to participate to my first ever giveaway on this new blog…I’d love it if you could participate, it’s quick and easy. See post below…

 Now,  Have a look. I hope you do like it…:)

Not making the most of such a gorgeous day (which doesn’t happen often in Ireland) would have been a crime and so it was decided that the pics would be taken outdoors

 I hope you like the earrings as much as I do. I used the cord from the kit to make the tiny bows. Was tricky! I’m afaid I’ having a bit of a bow fever at the moment :) Everything’s got to come with bows! lol The glass pearls have been wire wrapped and match the center or the necklace where I added jump rings to ‘cap’ the pearls on each side.

Thanks for looking!  If you like the blog, don’t hesitate to follow, I love comments and do post eye candy regularly (I promise :))

And have a look at the giveaway!

Smiles, Virginie ^_^