I Wish...

...there was a way I could do cottage industry and earn enough extra money at it to offset the costs of living so far from my job.

My crochet...

My jewelry...

And candles...

Or candles like these...these are not originals that I did, but I can do this...

In the long term, I want to purchase and refinish and resell furniture like this...and once we move into this house I'll have the room to do it...this is not an original; I got this from another site, to show as an example of what I have in mind...this would look so sweet in a little girl's bedroom...

I would love to do all this at home and earn money at it. I am not sure how I can do that and earn enough money to put some bucks back, possibly for a new car in a couple of years, gas back and forth to worth, etc...

Competition on Etsy is very, very stiff. I'd have to just create, somehow, a business of my own and get the word out there some other way...must do research....

New Jewelry!

OK so I got to making jewelry this weekend, using some of the paper beads I'd made.

First, my "Miami Fiesta" earrings:

I also have a Miami Fiesta bracelet:

This bracelet also happens to match a pair of earrings I made from a Fanta soda can:

These are my AZ Heat earrings:

And there's my Mermaid Dream bracelet:

I do have earrings to go with it but I haven't photos of them just yet.

I also made some music note earrings, and I have an idea for a matching bracelet:

I think I'm having entirely too much fun with this.

Paper Bead Jewelry

Well, I made some more paper bead jewelry over the weekend. It's fairly simple but nice. Have a look....

First is the bracelet with the "bacon beads." LOL! My friend Shannon thought the hand painted paper beads looked like bacon.

Then there's this blue one...I kinda like the colors on it, and I have to admit I was a bit hesitant about including the little white howlite beads...but maybe it actually works...

Then I took these beads and made cluster earrings with them...I was going to try and do a ladder bracelet with them but I haven't yet worked out how to do that...

And there's this fairly simple monochromatic bracelet...

And of course there's my nice pastel bracelet:

I rather like doing jewelry with paper beads. Especially when you paint your own paper and can choose whatever color you want on the beads.

One thing I learned when putting these together - USE WHAT YOU HAVE. I'm not wealthy and buying things like Beadalon and toggle clasps is a rare thing for me, so I have to improvise and use whatever materials I have on hand to put it all together. And sometimes it works out quite well! Don't be afraid to improvise. As Mike Sellick of the Crochet Crowd put it: "It's YOUR art!" Make it your own - your own look, your own style. There is no other style in the world like it, so let it shine!

Paper Bead Madness, Part Deux

OK I've gone completely paper bead happy.

First, I think I got a better photo of this bracelet here:

Here's some unglazed paper beads I made yesterday, hand-painted in watercolors.

This first batch seems very Arizona or desert to me so I think of them as Arizona Heat:

These look very aquatic to me so I think of them as Mermaid Garden:

These colors remind me of the bright, festive colors of Miami, so I call them Miami Fiesta:

All 3 groups of unglazed beads:

Now, I think I've learned something. It's all well and good to hand paint the paper before cutting and rolling it into beads, but (at least with the watercolors I'm using) the dry paint rubs off onto my fingers. This creates a slight smear when I apply the white glue to fix the wrapped bead in place. 

So I have some plans to avoid this problem. :)

I did make some other aquatic-looking beads and I glazed them last night. I don't have a photo of them yet but I must say this: I was pleasantly surprised to see that when the Mod Podge was applied, the paint didn't blend. The colors remained crisp, exactly as they appeared when I had completed painting the paper and it had dried. I just have to remember not to cut and roll the painted paper.