Making a bead chocker

In the winter I really like to wear large pieces of jewerly as they fit better against wool sweaters and so forth. I tend to wear turtlenecks and scarfs as I do tend to freeze a lot.
When I was younger, my mother had a chocker necklace in black. I really liked it, and now I decided to try my hand at making this type of a chocker, with black beads.

Then, for a bit of color, I added a glass pendant with a lot of color against a black backdrop. The beads are braided, but I do not know what the technique is called. It makes for very firm and at the same time elegant knots.

Leather and metall

I tend to wear glass bead necklaces and also beaded bracelets. However, I was inspired by a couple of pin interests to see what the combination of leather and metall could do. So I made two bracelet that both focus on combining these two materials, but in slightly different ways.

The first one just has several bronze coloured rings as decoration. I have threaded the leather cord in these rings.
The second has silver spiders as decoration, however, I tend tried to keep the rest of the bracelet very plain. I liked the look of the metall agains the leather.

You can see this and other pieces I have made in my online store/blogg http://www.designbyconstance.no (in Norwegian)

Painting on different glasses

I have never been really good at drawing, it is mostly stick-figures and silhouettes and so forth. However, I do like the painting processes. I like to make colours blend and give a new expression or perhaps a feeling. For many years, I resisted the idee of painting as I could not paint in the "normal" way, my paintings are not lifelike nor are the great abstracts. But I recently started painting on glass, and it is fun to blend different colours and not make a picture, bur rather just decoration. I am sort of just letting the paintbrush move. I did buy a couple of small bottles. I don't know what I will use them for, but they are fun to paint on. Other than that I am using empty jam jars or the like. My part in recycling!

So here are a few of the ones that I am finished with, at least for now:

This has both blue and purple lines and a purple ribbon. I love candle holders, a bit too much at times perhaps, but still. This is what it looks like when I have a small light in it. 

Below is a bottle that I have just made a couple of flower like decoration on. It is a rather small bottle, but it is decorative. 

This is the same bottle, but here I have made green vines up and mixed three different greens. So I have painted on this bottle several times (you may have seen the bottle in its early stages in another description that I have made on my blog)

 Here I am trying to be a bit more lifelike. It is difficult to see in a picture I think, but each of the sides of this jar has a different tree on it and a different season. So on one side there is a tree with it's leaves falling off, in another there branches are bare, than in one there is snow all around and so forth. It was great fun to make, but I do not know what to do with it, yet.

Painting on glass

I am experimenting a bit with painting on glass. It is fun as the colours blend differently than if you are doing it on paper. In addition I can use old jam jars and make them attractive again instead of just throwing them away. Here I have tried to keep to the same colour scheme, green with purple (I do love purple) and just changing the shape of the flowers a bit. However, I am not trying for any particular flower, I am just having fun with different shapes.

My husband wanted to make apple cider this summer, we have several large apple trees in the garden. So I bought a couple of bottles for this purpose. However, it didn't quite work out as planned, although we did learn a lot. So I have decided to just have a bit of fun with the bottles. Here I have experimented a bit with just shapes. The blue is sort of the ocean or water. I am not terribly happy with it. I do want to  do something more with this.

It is perhaps a bit difficult to see in a picture. But I have mixed two different blues. I think I will have to do something more here, perhaps add some other colours? I don't really know.

Here I have tried to give an impression of growing vines. I am going to add a bit more green and perhaps some more details, but overall I am very happy with this result.

Advent og kos

Det er mye kos nå i adventsperioden, synes nå jeg.  Dette året så har jeg klart å bli ferdig med de fleste julegavene tidlig, mye fordi jeg har gitt bort mye selvlaget. Så da har det ikke vært så mye snakk om å gå å tråkke i butikker, men mer å skulle finne den perfekte gaven for forskjellige venner og familie.
Jeg har storkost meg med å bli ferdig med forskjellige smykker, bare stoppet innimellom av endel tekniske problemer. Bl.a. har min høyt elskede iphone blitt svært ustabil plutselig. Plutselig så får jeg ikke koblet den på WiFi, og dermed får jeg ikke overført bilder eller annet.
Svært irriterende, spesielt når jeg er så inderlig avhengig av å være tilgjengelig pr telefon og per sms.

En ny iPhone er jo ikke akkurat billig, så jeg må bare prøve å finne ut hva som er galt og hvor mye det vil koste å reparere den. Alltid moro, men det får vente til over jul.
Nå skal jeg bare kose meg med familien.

Jeg fikk gjort ferdig noen prosjekter da….