New beaded ornaments.

These star spheres are an adaptation of the pendant I made. Many hours went into these.

I also bought a bunch of large beads that are netted with thread and came up with this design for one of them.

So many ideas are running through my head for Christmas ornaments and jewelry, it's hard to sleep at night.

Blue Ice Star Sphere

My site is working normally again and I have uploaded a new set. It wasn't intentional but this does make one think of a certain movie.

Technology Troubles

It seems like a week doesn't go by where I'm not wondering why something isn't working. Printers, scanner, website, iPhone.... the list goes on.

This time it's my website. I recently had to change hosting and had everything uploaded and working properly but suddenly it won't work with www in the links. I still wanted to do an update so I have started to remove the wwws from a couple of pages but I am also waiting for a response from my host to find another way to fix this. After all, many people are used to typing www with an address so I still want it to work either way.

On the upside, I sold the three painted ornaments I previously posted. And today I added three different ones to the holiday page on my site.

Mini Painted Christmas Ornaments

These three little Christmas ornaments have just been added to my site on the Holiday and Decor page. They are 2x2" acrylic paintings bordered by copper tape and embellished with glass beads. They may look familiar to some of my friends because I had previously posted them on my personal Facebook page.

Halloween and Resin

Here are some recent resin pieces I did for Halloween. One pair of earrings and a brooch with candy sprinkles inside and beaded around, and a simple pair of glitter candy corns.

I also tried one of the Mod Podge molds to see how they would work with resin. They work fine and come out easily, but have a very dull finish. A clear gloss spray on top helps. I used nail polish and acrylic paint to colour them, except for the middle one which just has glitter in it.

Painted Key Rack

I purchased a wooden key rack and wanted to decorate it. I decided to try something that I thought about a long time ago using metallic paints and outlining with black pens. The design was inspired by some decoupage paper.

This was fun to do and I think I want to more like it on some wooden plaques. The wood really seems to bring out the sparkle in the paint.

Light Green and White Jewelry

Just added a necklace and earring set plus another pair of earrings to my site. All in pale green and white. This is one of those projects that just came together. Both the light green seed beads and the round faceted beads came in mixed packs where I didn't know what I would get. And they just happened to go nicely with the pendant I had.

First Resin Casting

I've been wanting to try this for a long time and finally did recently using Easy Cast resin and the usual jewelry mold. Some of them turned out pretty good (top two rows), and some are okay (next two rows), and a few got big bubbles. I learned that planning is very important. And don't mix or pour too much resin. And that rhinestones will flatten in resin.

I already have some more on the go, and always looking for things that can be put into resin, or that I can pour resin into.

Two Russian spiral bracelets.

I have been making jewelry over the summer, just haven't been getting around to posting it. One of the techniques I have been using a lot is the Russian spiral. It comes together pretty quickly and makes a nice flexible rope. Here are two bracelets that I added to my site today.

Rubies on Ice

I have more jewelry to post but so little time to do anything indoors, like this computer stuff. But I got photos of my latest jewelry ready and posted this one today. I liked this bracelet so much I made myself one as well.

http://www.mkmcreations.com/rubiesonicebraceletandearrings.html

Good news!

The Ukrainian store in Dauphin, Manitoba has purchased some of my Ukrainian themed jewelry. These are the items I sold, the triangle pendants are now on chains.

Carved Bowl painting

I decided to take out my acrylics again and paint this picture from I photo I took at the Negrych Homestead museum. This was in the men's bunkhouse. The scene outside the window was so overexposed in my photo that it was nearly all white, so I had to improvise on that.

http://www.mkmcreations.com/forsale.html


I haven't been doing as much beading lately, too busy with gardening and stuff. But I did just finish a bracelet and started on a matching pair of earrings. I hope to get them posted soon.

Pearl and Gold Jewelry

Well, not real pearls and gold but glass pearls, white luster seed beads, and silver lined amber seed beads. The amber beads really shine like a metallic bead without the worry of the finish wearing off. I also made myself a set, I really like the Victorian look of it.

http://www.mkmcreations.com/jewelry.html

Rose Mini - Time lapse acrylic painting

More Flower Earrings and a Bracelet

I got a couple more colours of Preciosa twin beads and made more of these flower earrings. I really like the pair I made for myself in red, they are quite light.

The inspiration for this bracelet came from the button I happened to find which was very close in colour to the large beads. This bracelet is quite weighty but I think it would be fun to wear, like big chunks of ice around your wrist.

My Dragons

Many years ago I painted a couple of dragons on the computer and then decided to make an illustrated book with them. I haven't worked on it very regularly though, so it still is not done. And then I had a big setback when my computer crashed in the fall.  I was behind on backing things up and lost a few pages.

Over the last few months I have been redoing what I lost, and reviewing the previous pages I had finished, discovering changes that had not been backed up and had to be done again. I'm finally caught up and I got one more page done. I plan on doing four more pages for the book. For anyone not familiar with digital painting, you might think it is fast and easy, but it is not. The way I paint these pictures takes a long time so I hope to get the last four pages done by fall. Plus, I like to take my acrylics out once in a while too.

Here are a few crops for a peek at what I have been doing:

Purple, Purple, and Red

You might have noticed that I like purple. Here are two more items I have added to my website.

I also like red, and the Cellini spiral stitch. Making a bracelet takes a very long time but earrings are much quicker. I hope to do more, but with the weather warming up I'm already finding less time for beading.

Ice and Rose

I added two new bracelets to my site today, both featuring interesting buttons I found. All the button collecting I used to do is paying off now as they make really pretty clasps for bracelets.

http://www.mkmcreations.com/icebracelet.html

 http://www.mkmcreations.com/whiteroselatticebracelet.html

Purple Flower Triangles

I just posted this new set to my site:

And these earrings:

I have more jewelry made, just need to get pictures taken.

New Bracelets

Today I added three spiral bracelets to my website. These are fun for experimenting with different colour combinations and beads.

Both my son and I think these curved tubes look like macaroni. He wanted me to make something with them and I came up with this stretch bracelet.

I gave him a few of them too. He strings some beads and I tie them in a loop and then he hangs them on door knobs. He's only three but has a good way of looking at things. Whenever he hangs up a decoration he says it's a new house.

Spring is coming

It may not seem like it but spring will be here soon. Time to start some flower seeds and bring out some spring decorations. And for many it's time to think about Easter, but even if you don't celebrate it you can still enjoy the colourful aspects of it... pretty flowers and painted eggs. And you can add a little spring decoration to yourself with this Spring Chicks Necklace.

I also added three pairs of earrings to my site, including these beaded ball earrings which make me think of little flowers.

More Flower Earrings.

I tried a couple more versions of the flower earrings using the Preciosa twin beads. These are posted on my site.
http://www.mkmcreations.com/jewelry.html