Wild Ponies ~ 52 Earrings: week 13

This week's theme is "twigs" and for my earrings I decided to use actual real twigs! I went for a southwestern style and decorated the twigs with hemp and seed beads and then I wired on a pair of my stamped pony coins. Perfect for this horse-loving girl!

My two horses:

My spirited girl, Lady

And my handsome and ever-gentle Strider

Lady chowing down on green grass in the early morning sunshine.

Steamy Strider—I love this photo of him!

And eating some more...

 Check out the Flickr pool here to see what everyone else mixed up for week thirteen.

See you next week with another pair!

Apple Blossoms ~ 52 Earrings: week 12

I love springtime! I'm always amazed at how green and colorful everything becomes after being so drab and brown for months. I could easily spend all day outdoors enjoying the beauty of the season!

For this week's earrings I picked an apple blossom, carefully made a mold with it, and cast some new earring drops in a light green/gold polymer clay. After they cured, I added a black patina and put them together with antique brass wire and two little carnelian coins.

Check out the Flickr pool here to see what everyone else mixed up for week twelve.

See you next week with another pair!

Winners!

Wow! You guys blew me away with that boatload of comments! I wish I had more beads to give away. I'm definitely going to do more giveaways soon. :-)

And now on to the important stuff that you all have been waiting for... We have three winners for the three sets of beads. Random.org kindly did the drawing for me...

"Sleepiness in the Woods" goes to kermie-girl!

"Sunshine and Rainbows" goes to MeridyM!

And "Pretty Ponies" goes to Moobie Grace!

Yay! Congratulations ladies! Please contact me with your mailing addresses and I'll get your beads in the mail!

Stay tuned for more giveaways!

Bead Table Wednesday ~ 3/21/12

It's painting day again! Actually, in my studio it's painting day almost every day! But today, instead of sleepy critters, I'm painting rainbow hearts and roses.

The colors are bright and splotchy right now. I call this the "ugly stage"!

Tomorrow they will look like this:

Ah! Much better! And after a photo shoot they will head to my shop...

Here are a few other things that are on my table today...

Beautiful ceramic beads from Gaea Cannaday. I won them in the Feb ABS Challenge. I don't have many art beads in my stash (that is something I plan on changing this year!) so I can't wait to play with these!

This lovely bracelet is from the uber talented Tania Spivey. She made it with the leftovers from her Bead Soup and then held a giveaway. I still can't believe I won!! It's an amazing thing to hold another artist's jewelry in my hands and to see all the love and attention to detail put into it. And what makes this bracelet even more special to me is the polymer focal Tania made. I love the cute little flowers she makes! And the little copper flower charm is so sweet too... one of her very first I think. Yep, I totally love this bracelet!

And lastly, but certainly not least, I have this necklace to show you...

My very first Lorelei Eurto necklace! If you don't know who Lorelei is, then you must go here to see the lovelies she makes. She's got asymmetry down to a science! This necklace is also a Bead Soup creation. And from the moment I first saw it I just had to have it. It's totally me, and brings to mind my very favorite time of year when the leaves glow bright and there's no sound but the soft patter as they lightly touch the ground. Lorelei was so sweet to swap it for some of my beads. (She makes awesome things with my beads!) She says she's not sure why she stamped the word "quiet" into the center of the wire wheel... I don't think any other word would have suited it... I love it!

...and that's all for now! Thank you Gaea, Tania, and Lorelei for my new treasures!

And thanks to you all for stopping by on this Happy Bead Table Wednesday!

Come back tomorrow for the announcement of the giveaway winners! :-)

First Day of Spring!

It's time to get out and enjoy the sights of spring! I'd almost forgotten it was spring-time—with the temperatures what they've been, you'd think we'd skipped right to summer! But the flowers know what season it really is and are putting on quite a show, so I happily spent a little extra time appreciating the gorgeousness this morning.

Enjoy!

Little Pepper is enjoying the beautiful warm weather too!

And don't forget about my bead giveaway and sale! They both end at 11:59pm EST tonight.

You could win one of these!

Go here for more sale details and to enter my giveaway!


Happy First Day of Spring everyone!!

 

Great Grandma's Buttons ~ 52 Earrings: week 11

*** Enter my bead giveaway here! :-) ***

When Anke upped the challenge for the 52 Earrings group this week to using Spring as our theme for our next earrings, I knew right away I wanted to make a pair of earrings to coordinate with my Butterfly Dreams necklace I made for the Bead Soup Party.

Butterfly Dreams

I started out by sculpting a few flower designs, but all of them met the same end... and were smushed. I just wasn't in the sculpting mood. I dug through my box of molds and found one I had made a long time ago, but had never used. It was a simple flower button. And what made it even better was it was a mold from one of my Great Grandma's buttons. In my button stash I found two mother-of-pearl buttons that were also her's. How perfect! First the necklace made with her butterfly buttons (that I'd been hording for ages!) and now more buttons to make coordinating earrings! I cast my new buttons in a dark pink clay and gave them each a shabby white patina. And then I paired them up with the mother-of-pearl buttons, peacock pearls, and antique brass.

And here they are!

Cute and spring-y and the perfect pair of earrings to wear with my necklace!

Check out the Flickr pool here to see what everyone else mixed up for week eleven.

See you next week with another pair!

Giveaway!!

Hi all! It's giveaway time!! I've got three assortments of beads up for grabs for three winners... and yes, this giveaway is open to everyone—international bead lovers too.

Sleepiness in the Woods

Sunshine and Rainbows

Pretty Ponies

To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment. And you get extra points by leaving additional comments for doing one or all of these:

 becoming a follower of Tree Wings Studio, posting about the giveaway on your blog, sharing it on facebook, and tweeting it on twitter.

 Be sure to leave ONE comment for EACH thing you do.

* This giveaway is now closed. Thanks so much for entering! *
Winners will be announced on the 22nd.

Wired Triangles ~ 52 Earrings: week 10

It's funny sometimes how ideas can seem so easy until the real work begins! These earrings are fairly simple, but judging by the bits of wire and various beads strewn all over my table... not to mention all the time spent getting the wire wrapping just so... whew! these earrings were quite a work out! They had started out in silver wire, with very different beads, but these colors seemed so perfect together, so I stuck with them. I can't wait to wear them out! They're made up of blue czech glass, antique brass spacers and bead caps, honey extruded polymer rounds, and bronze wire. I think maybe I really have a thing about wire wrapping... can you tell? ;-)

Check out the Flickr pool here to see what everyone else mixed up for week ten.

See you next week with another pair!

Thank you lots!

A big HUGE thank you to every one of you for all the fabulous, uplifting, and just plain-old-super-nice comments! You guys are totally awesome!! I had so much fun with my first bead soup party... I'm definitely marking my calendar for the next one!

And yes, I'm one of the ones still hopping. If I haven't gotten to your blog yet, I will. I want to see everything!

I have a special giveaway coming up later next week. Three lucky winners will get some handmade beads made by me, so stay tuned. :-)

Bead Soup Reveal!

It's time for the reveal!! Pam Hurst sent me a fantastic assortment of beads... all very, very different from what I normally use and at first I had a lot of ideas of what I wanted to make, but one, by one I decided against them and to say I was stumped would be an understatement. Silver is not an easy metal for me! And all the beads together had such a nice classic look that I'm not used to. Pam really couldn't have done a better job choosing what to send me!!

Finally, after many retries, I settled on an idea I had thrown out at the very beginning and tried for a western style using the pendant and clasp.

When I think of silver, my first thought is of horses, and my second is of turquoise. Pam included some lovely faceted smokey topaz, so I went with orange instead of turquoise. I do love orange. :-)

I added some braided micro suede around the pendant—I wanted to frame it and really show it off. It's oh-so dainty and pretty and I didn't want the large pony beads to overpower the design. From there I strung silver beads, wooden beads, the smokey topaz, black onyx, and two faceted carnelians.

The little ponies are my newest style of pony beads. I sculpted them in ivory polymer clay and decorated them with an orange inlay.

And finally I ended the necklace with the sterling toggle and some red aventurine chips.


After successfully finishing the pony necklace, I still had quite a few beads left and the creative juices were really flowing, so I happily dove into another necklace design...

This time I went in a totally different direction, a little closer to my comfort zone using antique brass, but to keep with the idea of trying new things, I chose to go asymmetrical... I think this is only the second time I've tried it.

I used the labradorite and jasper from Pam and added in some frosted glass and agates.

The abalone butterflies came from my Great Grandma's bead stash years ago and have been sitting in my bead box waiting for something special so they could come out of hiding. They are just perfect with the labradorites! I embellished them each with brass bead caps and a Swarovski crystal bicone from Pam.

And for the closure, I used seed beads and a frosted agate capped with brass.



And so, I used a little of everything (except the coral, but I have plans for that coming up very soon) and really did step out of my comfort zone and I discovered that stepping out once in a while really can be so enjoyable!

Thank you all for stopping by! Thank you Pam for the most fabulous soup! And thank you most of all to awesome Lori for pulling this all together!! It has been so much fun!

And just to say thanks once more, I'm running a special in my shop starting today and continuing through March 17th 20th.

Take 10% off your entire purchase!

And now, I'm off to start hopping!

Hostess, Lori Anderson

Special Book Sneak Peeks, Cindy Wimmer

1.  Adlinah Kamsir (Singapore) and Hajer Waheed (Kingdom of Bahrain)

2. Adrienn Lukacs (Hungary) and Agata Grygiel (Poland)

3.  Agi Kiss (Hungary) and Carolien Muller-Genger (the Netherlands)

4.  Agnes Asztalos (Hungary) and B.R. Kuhlman

5.  Alesha Conklin and Becki Mendivil

6.  Alice Peterson and Carol Dillman

7.  Alicia Marinache (Canada) and Dita Basu

8.  Amanda Dittloff and Brandy Thomason McNair

9.  Amanda Tibbetts and Andrea Trank

10.  Amy Freeland and Kay Mallery 

11.  Andra Weber and Christine Murrow

12.  Ann Sherwood and Diane Welte

13.  Barbara Bechtel and Kerry Bogert

14.  Barbara Lewis and Cat Pruitt

15.  Bonnie Coursolle (Canada) and Fay Wolfenden (Canada)

16.  Carmel McGinley (Australia) and Tracy Stillman (Australia)

17.  Cassie Donlen and Deryn Mentock

18.  Cathie Carroll and Janel Dudley

19.  Cece Cormier and Morwyn Mullins

20.  Charlene Jacka and Christina Hickman

21.  Cheryl Brown (Canada) and Diana Ptaszynski

22.  Christina Stofmeel (the Netherlands) and Eva Kovacs (Hungary)

23.  Christine Damm and Deb Brooks

24.  Cilla Watkins (Canada) and Elaine Robitaille (Canada)

25.  Sabrina Straub (Switzerland) and Kathy Combs

26.  Cindy Cima Edwards and Eleanor Burian-Mohr

27.  Cory Celaya and Rhea Freitieg

28.  Courtney Breul and Dana Hickey

29.  Cynthia Abner and Jennifer Boreck

30.  Cynthia Tucker and Jean Peter

31.  Debbie Goering and Heidi Post

32.  Dee Elgie (UK) and Joanne Lockwood (UK)

33.  Dian Hierschel (Germany) and Eniko Fabian (Austria)

34.  Diane Cook and Lyn Foley

35.  Donna Bohler and Lisa Lodge

36.  Donna Millard and Kiersten Giles

37.  Doris Stumpf (Germany) and Eszter Czibulyas (Hungary)

38.  Elisabeth Auld and Eva Sherman

39.  Elke Leonhardt-Rath (Germany) and Marjolein Trewavas (UK)

40.  Ema Kilroy and Laurie Keefe-Cecere

41.  Erika Nooteboom (the Netherlands) and Giorgia Rossini (Italy)

42.  Erin Grant and Jean Wells

43.  Evelyn Duberry (Canada) and Gaea Cannaday

44.  Genea Crivello-Knable and Heather Powers

45.  Ginger Bishop (military, Okinawa) and Martina Nagele (Germany)

46.  Heidi Kingman and Lori Greenberg

47.  Helen Kemp and Lisa Wangeman

48.  Helene Goldberg (Australia) and Karen Vincent

49.  Jamie Hogsett and Jeannie Dukic

50.  Jeanette Ryan and Jelveh Jaferian

51.  Jennifer Cameron and Tania Spivey

52.  Jennifer Justman and Kari Carrigan

53.  Jennifer Tough and Lorelei Eurto

54.  Joanna Matuszczyk (Poland) and Julianna Kis (Hungary)

55.  Joanne Tinley (UK) and Michaela Pabeschitz (Austria)

56.  Julie Anne Leggett and Kelley Fogle

57.  Karen Hess and Linda Landig

58.  Karyn Bonfiglio and Kathleen Lange Klik

59.  Kashmira Patel and Kat White

60.  Kat Barron Miller and Kelly Morgan

61.  Kathy Lindemer and Rose Binoya

62.  Krafty Max and Sandra Miller

63.  Kristen Latimer and Pam Ferrari

64.  Kristie Roeder and Lea Avroch

65.  Kristina Johansson (Sweden) and Penny Neville (Canada)

66.  Krisztina Erlaki-Toth (Hungary) and Nicole Keller (Germany)

67.  Lara Lutrick and Lisa Suver

68.  Laura DeMoya and Lisa Hanna

69.  Libby Leuchtman and Melanie Brooks

70.  Linda Koch and Rosemarie Cowit

71.  Lisa Chapman and Menka Gupta

 72.  Lisa Liddy and Marion Simmons

73.  Lori Anderson and Marcie Abney

74.  Lori Bowring-Michaud and Mary Govaars

75.  Lori Dorrington and Maria Rosa Sharrow

76.  Lori Finney (Canada) and Marie-Noel Voyer-Cramp (Canada)

77.  Lynn Bennett and Mandi Ainsworth

78.  Marta Kaczerowska (Poland) and Milla Starchik (Canada)

79.  Mary Harding and Shannon LeVart

80.  Mary Jane Dodd and Stacey Curry

81.  Melinda Orr and Molly Alexander

82.  Melissa Meman and Michelle Escano-Caballaro

83.  Michelle Jensen and Sandra Young (Canada)

84.  Nan Emmett and Nicole Valentine-Rimmer (Canada)

85.  Nancy Boylan and Suzette Bentley

86.  Natasha Lutes and Patti Vanderbloemen

87.  Pam Hurst and Rebekah Payne

88.  Patty Miller and Sara Rhoades

89.  Rebecca Anderson (UK) and Lori Anderson

90.  Rebecca Sirevaag and Sharon Driscoll

91.  Rochelle Brisson and Shannon Chomanczuk

92.  Rosa Maria Cuevas (Mexico) and Tejae Floyde

93.  Sabine Dittrich (Germany) and Sally Russick

94.  Sandi Volpe and Sarah/Saturday Sequins

95.  Shanti Johnson and Tracy Mok (Canada)

96.  Skylar Brez and Theresa Buchle

97.  Sonya Stille and Traci Zeller (Canada)

98.  Stefanie Teufel (Germany) and Tania Hagen (New Zealand)

99.  Stephanie LaRosa and Vonna Maslanka

100.  Terri Wlaschin and Wendy Blum

Flowers in Red ~ 52 Earrings: week 9

We're just a short while from the Bead Soup Party reveal (yay!!), so this week's earrings are another quick pair. They're made up of new red flower links, spotted blue and black ceramic, antique brass spacers and caps, and red rondelles.

Check out the Flickr pool here to see what everyone else mixed up for week nine.

See you next week with another pair!