The Turquoise Bead Embroidered Cuff is completed at last!

To see more of my bead embroidered cuffs, stop by Divella Delights!

Felted Bangle Instructions

These bracelets are a lot of fun and all you need is some wool yarn, a couple of beads and some wire. Great for necklaces too! It makes a wonderful project for those scraps you have in your yarn collection.
You can buy the kit from Generations Lampwork with some stunning lampwork cones. It comes with everything you need.First you need to make the bracelet part. For this you will need 2 double pointed needles and some yarn. All you do for this part is make an I-cord. You can find great instructions for that with photos at Stitch Diva. I make a long I-cord, felt it then cut it into several pieces. Just remember that when you felt you are going to lose about 25%.
After the piece if felted and DRY, you can begin to put your bracelet together.
You will need 2 pieces of 20 gauge wire of your choice, 2 cones and your chosen beads. For a roll on bracelet keep in mind that you need to make it larger than your standard because it has to fit over your hand. Measure your hand around the widest part with you thumb on the inside of your palm.
Put the wire through the I-cord at least 1/4 inch from the end. Make a loop and wrap 3 times. Put the cone on and pull tight, make another loop and wrap 3 times. Set this aside while you put your cone on the other end.
After you have both your cones on slide your beads onto the wire and put through the loop on the other side, wrap and Voila!

　I wish I would have thought to write the instrustions before I put these together so I had photos to share with you along the way. I will be knittig some more up today so I should have soem photos in a couple of days.

Handmade Hats

CONGRATULATIONS to Yunji who won the monthly drawing for December! It was a special year-end drawing gift of this complete hat and scarf set a ($61.00 value).
Now it is nearly time for the January drawing so make sure your name is on the e-mail list so you have a chance at a gift from the gallery of jewelry and fiber creations of Divella Delights. All you have to do is go to Divella Delights and scroll down to the bottom of the home page and sign up. I promise not to inundate your inbox with e-mails, I usually send out one a month unless I am running a special sale.
There are some new designs at Divella Delights beginning with these sets. They sold as fast as I made them so more are coming. I also have a few designs tucked away in my head that will be coming very soon.
I will be slowing down on the winter hats and focusing on some for Spring and Summer made with cotton and silk fibers. As always, you can always place a special order which is why my sold items remain listed. Keep in mind that I cannot duplicate a hat exactly as I do not keep track of the fibers I use. Besides, you don’t want to see your hat on someone else!
I have just placed my "Beads for Blogs" order with Artbeads.com so I will have a very special item coming up in the next week. I can’t tell you about it yet, as it will be a gift for someone special. You will want to check back and see it though. For those of you who make your own jewelry you will want to see this idea. For those of you who purchase your jewelry and jewelry as gifts you won’t want to miss this one either!
Divella Delights also has a special "Under $25.00" section where you can get a very special handmade hat, scarf or piece of jewelry at a wonderful reduction in price.
I had better get back to my studio and get to work! See you in a week or so with some exciting new designs!

I have been having much too much fun!
The folks at Artbeads have featured me on their Facebook page, which I think was really sweet of them. We have been making great designs together and will continue to do so from time to time. I enjoyed designing that one so much I made another, pictured here.
In addition to the jewelry I am making now I am having a wonderful time playing with my hats. The red one I just finished I love and I want to do more like this. I will wait and see how it is received first because in retail you just never know. There have been things I have made that I thought were just fabulous but they did not sell well. It is indeed a tough business.
When I am finished with my contract at the State offices here I am hoping to take a trip and do some marketing…not my forte to be certain but I have to get my designs out there. The jewelry store here does extremely well for me and is surely my bread and butter throughout the year. I need 3 more just like them and I can stay home and work and not have to look for other work to fill in the gaps. Wish me well! Stop by Divell Delights and drop me a line in my guestbook

This necklace features a faceted Swarovski Teardrop in Topaz wire wrapped tornado style with 14K gold filled wire. Genuine Red Aventurine, Turquoise and more Swarovski crystals surround it to a length of 16 inches. The clasp is one of my wire wrapped ( again in 14K gold filled wire) and has a turquoise and a Swarovski. I cannot take credit for the photo...when I put the necklace in the box it just did this!

WOUND AND WIRED

Judy, a Portland, Maine artisan by night and a librarian by day has a true knack for twisting things up in a fabulous way. Pictured here are 3 of the items from her Etsy shop located at http://www.judyb.etsy.com/. She works primarily in sterling silver and occasionally incorporates semi precious stones such as the blue one pictured here with turquoise. Pounding the evenings away she creates beautiful and truly unique pieces of jewelry including earrings, bracelets, rings and necklaces. Hers is a style I have not seen anywhere else which makes me love it all the more. You can check out her profile but she does not have much to say about herself, with talent like this I guess not much is needed!

Made to match

My daughter was up in Maine visiting me last week and she needed to find a dress for an early afternoon wedding she was attending the following week. We went to Kohls and she found this dress but really had no jewelry to go with it. Lucky she has me for a mom I guess. I got to work, selected a bunch of beads and created this free-form peyote stitch necklace with earrings in Turquoise and genuine pearls in yellow and black to match the pearls on the necklace. I am sure she will hear " Wow, that necklace looks like it was made just for that dress". It was fun and a challenge with those colors, I usually work in more muted tones so this was a reach for me, lots of fun though especially because it was made for someone I love so much!

PEYOTE STITCH JEWELRY

Free Form peyote is a blast! The brown bracelet I worked up first and had so much fun with it I asked my daughter who was visiting to pick out 3 colors of my size 8 beads and the pink and aqua bracelet one came out of that. We went shopping later that day to find her a dress for an early afternoon wedding she was going to so I made her a necklace and earrings to match. The length on the bracelets are a bit tricky, if you make one be sure you don't make it too big...much easier to make it longer then to shorten! They are not really all that difficult, but do take a fair amount of time. Just begin with 2 or 3 rows of regular peyote stitch and then go wild. I have seen tutorials that suggest you make it 1/2 inch larger than your wrist but I would not recommend it. That is what I did with the brown one and it turned out 1/2 inch to large...go figure. On the clasp, these are the first ones I have made this way (on the bracelets) and I have some adjustments to make to them but I like the continuity using the beaded toggle. I think this would be a great project to dive into if one has a artist block. It gets the creative juices flowing.