A Couple of Great Tutorials

I know, I know I said I would get my tutorial posted soon and I will but in the meantime I found a couple you might really enjoy. This first one is from Honestly ... WTF blog and is a great idea. Friendship Necklaces based upon the ever popular friendship bracelets from our youth....okay maybe not yours but mine. So if you loved those bracelets you will love these. Very bohemian if you ask me and something I would totally wear.

This next necklace is just up my alley and is made with leather scraps. It just so happens when I was in Portland last weekend I purchased some leather scraps from Scrap. What a great shop to get recycle goods for your art projects. Okay I digress, this is made from recycled leather scraps in the shape of leaves but you could cut the leather into whatever shape you like but the leaves work great. Check out Missie Krissie's tutorial...I may have to make me one of these with my scraps.

Do these two necklaces remind you of anything? I'm thinking it's the 60's and 70's all over again, now all we need is a little fringe. Oh right, I already did that tutorial...check it out HERE.

June Tutorial - Multi Strand Leather Necklace

Just in time. I didn't forget but we were out camping and I made the tutorial while sitting at my little kitchen table so the pictures aren't as great as normal. I've already made a couple of these and everyone loves it. I was at one of our local bead stores the other day and noticed that they had a picture/poster up about how leather necklaces and bracelets are in fashion right now. Who knew that I could be in fashion....LOL.

Don't forget about the giveaway. Only a few people have entered and it's for a $60.00 gift certificate. You have until Sunday at 9:00 pm PST. Here is the post. Oh, yes, BTW, our kitchen now has walls and a floor and cabinets will be installed on Tuesday.....woo hoo.

May Tutorial - Leather Loop Earrings

Well if you receive my newsletter you will know that I promised to get my May tutorials out on my blog this week. If you haven't read it and want to... here it is. http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=c6029baa40fd1321f00155764&id=cede576a91

Leather Loop Earrings

On to the tutorial. Here is what we will be making today. I've shown my gold leather necklace and earrings in another post and the tutorial for the making the leather necklaces were published in an April post HERE, so I needed a pair of earrings to go with my silver. These are so easy and lightweight to wear. You don't even feel like you are wearing long earrings, although by making them yourself you can adjust the length. These are inspired by a pair of earrings out of the Sundance Catalog HERE.

Supplies you will need:

• Earring findings (I used sterling silver lever backs)
• 1mm or .5mm leather cord
• silver crimp tubes with the loop
• misc. beads to dangle or if they have a large enough hole, slip onto the leather
• head pins if needed
• crimp pliers
• round nose pliers
• wire cutters
• needle nose pliers

Instructions:

1. Gather supplies as noted above
2. Measure two equal lengths of leather (mine were a little over 3")
3. Make wrapped loops on all the beads you want to dangle off the bottom of the leather loop using the head pins (Artbeads has a great tutorial)
4. Be sure to tuck in the wire tail after cutting your wire (see I need to do that to this one)
5. String all your beads on the leather to create your design
6. Make sure your cord or leather will fit inside the crimp tube
7. Insert one end of the cord into the crimp
8. Crimp the tube over the leather (be sure to not crimp too close to the loop as the loop will fall off....yes I learned this the hard way)
9. Crimp the other end of your leather with your beads in the center
10. Add your earring finding by opening the loop at the bottom and inserting the crimp loops. Never pull a jump ring or finding directly apart from each other, always twist apart gently until you have just enough room to insert your loops.

That's it, make your other earring to match or not....some of you may get really creative and I would love to see what you have done with these. 

Here is a picture of my completed gold and leather set, which by the way I am wearing today.

Unique and One of a Kind Gifts

I know that we all love to receive gifts that were picked out just for us for Birthday's, Anniversary's, Christmas, Mother's Day, etc. and are always wondering where those wonderful ideas come from. ArtFire has a special Gift page that lets you search for just those unique gifts. The item may be handmade or you could order something special from some of the vendors just for that occasion such as a wedding.

I do have an ArtFire shop as well as 1000 Markets and ETSY, but ArtFire is becoming one of the star selling sites in the handmade gift and unique gift market. If you would like to check out their unique gifts page, check it out HERE.

If you would like to check out some of my items for sale on ArtFire, please visit me at http://danasjewelrydesign.artfire.com/.

If you are into making items yourself and need supplies, then ArFire is also a good choice to check out. I found this fun shop and all it's curiosities. Geeminy Crickets has all kinds of old keys, pocket watch parts, vintage sheet music, papers and images to use for scrapbooking, collage or steampunk jewelry.

If you need a pattern or tutorial to make something yourself, HERE is the page on ArtFire that has a ton of vendors with their tried and true instructions. Yes, my gem tree tutorials are listed in this multitude of talented artists.

Check it out yourself and find a unique gift for that someone special in your life.