Moxious Moss

Hey, haven't had a chance to write on here in a while, I guess this whole blogging escapade is getting off to a pretty slow start!  But the hectic Christmas preparations have caught up with me and I have had little time during the day to take photos, and you need daylight for good photos.  Especially if you're like me and your total lack of photo taking skills mean you need all the natural help you need.  We've been quite lucky to have plenty of sunshine around the last few days, and some absolutely stunning frost cover in the mornings.  Well, lucky if you don't count the constant biting cold!

I thought I would post up a couple of pieces I have made recently that have helped in quite severely depleting my favourite strand of beads; some cheap old 'rustic' moss agate rondelles I picked up on eBay for about £4.  They are very 'rustic' and not at all even, but I kinda love that.  I like the look of rustic, earthy jewellery.  Moss agate is one of my favourite stones, I love the rich green and the intricate organic looking inclusions often have me squinting at each individual little bead so I can marvel at their unique patterns.  Oh and I looooove rondelles, seriously, I need to stop buying them and make way for some other shaped beads!

Anyway enough waffle, here you go:

Woohoo, rubbish photography skills FTW!

This necklace is actually one of the first pieces I made when I recently picked up the pliers again, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.  My making frenzy was preceded by the usual bead buying frenzy, and the lovely ceramic pendant/ connector shown here is one I received as a thank you freebie from Bo Hulley Beads (thanks Bo!)  The dalmatian jasper rounds were the last few survivors of a sample pack I brought years ago.  I wanted to keep the design simple as it's really just a way to show off a fab pendant.  Oh, and to practice wrapped loops, hadn't done those in a while.  I'm sure it never used to take that long??!!

But seriously I LOVE these beads:

I don't love my messy wire-wrapping quite so much...

Second up is this bracelet I made last night:

The Leaf dangles on this are a bit wobbly.  I'm just going to call them 'rustic'.

This was basically an exercise in using brass wire.  I ordered some in recently as I've seen some absolutely brilliant pieces in brass and wanted to have a play.  From what I can tell it's slightly harder than copper, and err... it sounds more 'jingly'(?)  It's good to have another colour to play with wire-wise. I brought a few brass bead caps as well, they're from Smitten Beads who has a lovely selection.  The tulip cap dangles are very similar to the ones on my Challenge of Colour bracelet; I have a feeling those are going to crop up quite often in my work for a while as I love the look of them!  The rounds used in this bracelet are snowflake jasper and picture jasper.  Gotta love the earthy tones and intricate patterns jaspers display, they are my favourite beads to buy at the moment and I'm building up quite a collection. 

Hopefully I will have a chance to take more photos and blog again soon!