Design Classes

I'm happy to announce that I've enrolled in several fashion design classes at my local community college starting in September :D very excited stay tuned to see what crazy antics ensue!!!

Backordered

So I'm happy to announce that a bunch of components to the spring artbeads.com upcycling challenge that I had on backorder FINALLY came in! I can FINALLY finish my upcycling project!!!

EDIT

or not. . . my box that I kept all my upcycling stuff in has gone missing :/ I'm very frustrated. . . I'm afraid it might've gotten thrown out b/c of my mom "straightening" things up and not knowing what's what. . . I'll keep looking but idk what's gonna happen -___-

Too Long/ Luck of the Irish Keychain

gah. . . it's been too long. . . I really need to update this more. Please, believe me, my silence doesn't mean I'm not creating. I am, I just can't post anything >.<

I am a member on deviantart.com and like facebook, DA also has groups. One of the groups that I've gotten involved w/recently is called ArtCrossing. I'm having a blast w/it. Basically you make a profile then you get assigned a profile. You make a gift based on the profile you've received and mail it to that person. It's like a chain letter but w/gifts.

I've been having a lot of fun w/it. It's a lot easier to create when you're doing it for a specific person and you don't have the pressure of giving them their money's worth. The only problem is, the addresses I've been given have been wrong :/ so my packages keep being returned to me. I can't post pics of the gifts I've made til the recipient receives them which is really annoying and it's driving me crazy b/c I'm really super proud of some of the stuff I've been doing of late and I really feel that w/everything going on in my personal life that it's been therapeutic to my creative juices.

I've gotten into making funky key chains like this one:

I love the visual dynamic that clusters create while at the same time being so elegant and intricate and hey, lets be honest, there's no "right" way or "wrong" way to create these clusters so you can really do w/e you want w/them.

In this case, 4 mm olivine czech druk beads frolick gayly amongst a series of cascading shamrocks (removed from a series of very unfortunate St. Patty's Day souvenirs) highlighting the playful and friendly nature that us Irish tend to have.

This keychain is a great way to accentuate your car or house keys w/o adding the bulk that lanyards tend to have and the lovely tinkling noise that the beads make clacking against each other is sure to remind you of the giggles of the wee folk frolicking out amongst the heather.

The Products:

4mm czech glass druk beads

in olivine were provided

to me by artbeads.com free of charge.

I am part of their blogging project

and have not been paid for my use or

opinion of the above product(s).

Bubbles in the Frog Pond

I've really been getting into cascading and cluster jewelry. I really like clusters of bright colours but not over the top. I like functional as well as fashionable and this adorable little copper frog's been sitting in my box for months now.

I need to stop ordering druk beads too, I keep ordering them to use and keep getting them w/my art beads projects and I've completely and utterly failed at keeping track of what colours I have and what colours I need!

Anyways, this little guy's hung on an 18-inch copper chain surrounded by 4 and 6mm czech glass druk beads in rosaline, smoke topaz, topaz, light amethyst, dark green, olivine, and light yellow. I kept getting the chain twisted lol, I must've rearranged those druk beads a dozen times. It's a great time killer sitting at the pool at 6 AM on a Saturday morning XD

The bead products:

4 & 6mm czech glass druk beads

in rosaline, smoke topaz, topaz, light amethyst,

dark green, olivine, and light yellow were provided

to me by artbeads.com free of charge.

I am part of their blogging project

and have not been paid for my use or

opinion of the above product(s).

Cameo Ring

okay, so I don't normally make rings but I wanted to do something different. There wasn't a whole lot of rocket science involved in this one, just a 13 x 18mm resin cameo, some E6000 epoxy, and a silver plated brass ring setting . The setting's adjustable but I had some issues making it any bigger than a 9 or smaller than a 7 but it's pretty, it's simple, and it's understated and elegant :)

Apologies for My Long Absence

My apologies for being absent and neglecting my blog. I've been creating, I just haven't been online much. I work three jobs and in addition to that I've been dealing w/a lot of family drama (unexpected deaths and the dissolution of my parents marriage among other things), but I'm not dead.

I've been busy. I've got a facebook page now LA Felice Pesce Designs and my own website, as well as my own etsy page, I've got some listings but nothing's sold yet :( I'm working on getting my projects in order and updated. I'm also teaching jewelry classes w/a group of middle schoolers which is pretty cool.

Stay tuned, I promise there's more stuff coming soon. Feel free to check out the above links where you can see some of what I have yet to post here.

Summer Fun: Catch of the Day

Eesh it's been a while. . . I've been so busy w/work that the majourity of my projects got put on hold but I'm getting them done. I've got some pretty exciting news too. A friend of mine, having seen the necklace that this post is about, commissioned me to do a similar piece for his mother!!! Another friend of mine wants me to do some jewelry for him too but he hasn't decided what he wants yet lol.

Now, lets get down to business, this was my artbeads.com summer themed project. We had to create a piece that was symbolic of "Summer Fun" to us. Well, for me, summer was always a beach vacation, swim team, picnics at the lake. My summers always revolved around water and being in the water, so I tried to keep that in mind when figuring out this design.

I knew I wanted a nautical design, and I knew I wanted it to be somewhat classical/vintage in appearance- dated but timeless, simple and elegant. Originally I was going to do something similar to my Poseidon design but I just wasn't feeling such a heavy design for such dainty beads and charms so I ended up going in a whole 'nother direction completely.

I started by making long sections of chain w/my 4mm glass druk beads in light amethyst, smoke topaz, rosaline, dark green, and light sapphire. I love my czech glass beads, and I especially love the druk beads, however, I wish I had gotten them in a bigger size, maybe 6 or 8mm b/c as pretty as the colours are, I found that these beads are so small, unless you string a bunch of them together, the colour pales and it's very hard to distinguish one from another, they tend to wash out on their own.

After I had created these long double chains (pictured above), I used several 3" long lengths of bright silver chain to create the full length of the necklace and connected them to the ship's wheel pendant which is by Jollee's Jewel's (available at Michael's). To the bottom of the large pendant I attached the antique pewter anchor and sail boat charms (Captain Ahab, anyone?).

I still felt like the necklace needed something. After all, there's more to the beach then sailboats and ships wheels. One of my favourite activities, even now as a grown up, is getting up w/the morning low tide to hunt for shells. I mean, it's nearly impossible to go to the beach and NOT find any sea shells- even at the lake I find all sorts of snail shells and other fresh water mollusks and lets face it, sometimes sea shells are just too tempting to walk away from!!!

And that temptation proved too great, I just had to include those sea shells in this summer themed piece. I finished the piece w/two large TierraCast Antique Silver spindle shell charms and two small TierraCast Antique Silver spindle shell charms. I attached them in such a way that they drape down the wearer's chest w/o getting in the way or catching on anything.

The finished product is roughly 22" from clasp to pendant and, while not exactly something that a tween or teen would wear is a lovely and elegant piece that can be dressed up or dressed down and definitely celebrates the calm, peace, and tranquility of the beach, as well as the romanticism associated w/a life at sea and exotic places.

Stay tuned for the accompanying charm bracelet as well :D

The bead products:

4 mm czech glass druk beads

in light amethyst, smoke topaz,

rosaline, dark green, and light sapphire,

antique pewter sailboat and anchor

charms, and the TierraCast antique silver

spindle shell charms were provided

to me by artbeads.com free of charge.

I am part of their blogging project

and have not been paid for my use or

opinion of the above product(s).