Snow Day Crafting

We are closed at the shop today. Our entire town is blanketed in at least one inch of snow/ice. For us, here in NC, this means that we are frozen, literally. We'll thaw out later this week, but for today at least we are all staying home to do whatever we love to do on snowy days.  For my family, that meant getting up super early to go outside and watch our dogs skitter along the surface of the icy back yard. Children who need dragged out of bed on a 'regular' morning are happy to pop up, breakfasted and dressed and ready to go outside on a snow day. Now we are back in, warming up and moving on to crafts and games and books. Maybe a bit more of the first.  Below I've got three great projects you can probably make with beads and materials you have at home...

my three favorite projects to make on a snowed-in day-

Slide Knot Bracelet You can make this! Use some of your favorite beads and (if you have it) waxed linen. No linen? Try leather cording, Conso thread or even rayon gimp. This project is from one of my favorite designers, Erin Siegel, click here to see the instructions and more ideas from Erin.  Dangly Earrings These use jump rings and left-long head pins. You have those parts...mix it up with seed beads and some of your favorite larger beads. Watch a how-to video here.  Wire Wrapped Bangle This just requires beads and wire. 20 gauge, 18 gauge, whatever you have. Full instructions can be downloaded right here, and this looks best with a mix of beads.

Do you have Bohemian Style?

We had a lot of fun putting together fiber and finding kits for our friend Erin Siegel and Interweave publishers. The kits are being included in a book (and ebook!) bundle they are offering this month. Each kit contains a wonderful, hand-selected assortment of findings and fibers that will get you off to a great start with the projects and ideas in the books. This grouping would make a really nice gift for a beader you know, or for yourself if you'd like some new ideas for gifts and holiday jewelry.

New Tutorial From Erin Siegel - Confetti Hoop Earrings

These Confetti Hoop Earrings are a sweet, colorful way to wear wrapped wire. The Magatama drop beads move nicely on the wire wraps, so there is a bit of a gypsy feel to these. Of course, the easy-to-follow directions from Erin Siegel are right here, just click!

Kit and Project - The Guitar and Bass Bangle

Create a leather tassel, easy-peasy, with this bangle bracelet project. 

This free tutorial is inspired by our new e-book, Punk Chic Jewelry, written by Erin Siegel. Check out the link in the sidebar for a peek inside the book. Click the picture to download a free copy of the tutorial, or purchase a kit.

Create a tassel necklace with neon accent beads

We have a new tutorial up on the site I know you'll love. The Neon Pop Tassel Necklace is a perfect way to add a trendy touch to your wardrobe. These tiny tassels, designed by Erin Siegel, are fun to make; you'll want to add them to everything!

See the full tutorial here.

Punk Chic Jewelry

For the last many months I have had the incredible pleasure to work on a new project with the talented Erin Siegel. Punk Chic Jewelry is the first in what I hope will be many new ebooks from Ornamentea. 

Erin first approached me with the idea of collaborating on a book last year. We knew it needed to be something different, something that wasn't just a rehash of the same projects or ideas we'd seen before. Erin's previous project, Bohemian Inspired Jewelry with Lorelei Eurto, was very popular, but Erin wanted to move in a new direction. I knew I wanted the book to have a fashion-magazine feel, with model shots that made you really feel the energy of the projects. After lots of talking (can we actually do a book ourselves? should we?do we know how to do this?) we decided to take the plunge. 

The first, and toughest, decision was which platform to publish on. While there are a zillion (I think that may be the actual number) e-publishing platforms, my research kept coming back to Amazon. While I'm not a fan of Amazon - I have long regarded it as a local-bookstore-killer, in this case it seemed to be our best choice. We wanted the book to be available anywhere in the world, and to be available on all e-readers, desktop computers, phones and tablet computers. Amazon was the winner. I carefully, carefully read and reread the protocols for prepping a book to publish on the KDP Publishing platform (that's the official name) and I struggled to decipher the royalty splits and payment options. Caitlin and I looked at the 'How to prep your files' information and it seemed super easy to understand. 

Erin was in a punk-rock mood, and the designs she kept coming up with for the book had such a hard (and not-at-all boho!) feel to them. In the meantime, fashion designer (and Ornamentea-alumni!) Hannah Goff was sharing pictures from a collection shoot she did with a 'preppy punk' look that I thought worked perfectly with Erin's jewelry. Suddenly, the full concept was hatched! As Erin designed jewelry, Caitlin and I worked on the title, the fonts, the images. Hannah sent us fashion images we loved, including the one shot of model Anastasia Tsyrulnyk that featured a direct stare we adored. That shot was destined to end up on the cover. We obsessed about font colors and layout angles. Long chats about exact font placement, shades of pink and layered images, happened every afternoon. 

As the projects arrived at the shop, we realized what a talent Erin posesses. Her projects came to use carefully wrapped, in bi-weekly batches, the images and directions so beautifully prepared that my editing hand grew bored. Each box opened here at Ornamentea generated high-pitched, excited voices. The jewelry projects seemed like a perfect mesh with the amazing fashion photos we had from Hannah Goff and photographer, JC Cerilla. 

We wanted the projects to have kits available, but decided right away that they would be limited edition kits. We also decided to release them in two groups. This keeps us sane. We wanted the book to be about crazy punk style, not make us into crazy punks. 

Of course, every project, especially a 'first' project like this book, has to hit some bumps. After many, many hours of work designing a graphic-intense book, Caitlin realized that our book files didn't play well with the Kindle publishing platform. Yes, we had gleefully ignored the message from KDP to 'keep layered graphics to a minimum.' Uh-oh. Many punk elements were removed-you could say the book was graphically tamed-to create something readable on all e-readers and tablets. At first, Caitlin and I were a bit crushed, but the newer, cleaner version is actually more user-friendly. Projects and images are lined up and easy to follow. Since most of the people buying the book will probably want to make the projects, I think that's a good thing! 

Today we finally hit the 'publish' button and waited...and waited...and waited for Amazon to show us our book. When it finally happened Caitlin, Kristen, Erin and I were so relieved. Whew. 

I wonder what's next?

These are two of the projects from the book...click here to have a peek inside (thanks, Amazon!)

Color Chain necklace from Erin Siegel

create this collar-style necklace with our enameled chain to add a pop of color to your wardrobe

this project was created for Ornamentea by Erin Siegel

click the picture to see the details

the chain sale price is valid through 5/7/14

Glistening Garland by Erin Siegel

This pretty project by designer Erin Siegel is in the Winter issue of Jewelry Stringing, from Interweave. The pretty pink cover of the magazine is a nice segue to this lovely project. Erin uses our Silver Twigs Toggle set to finish this necklace. My favorite part about the necklace? The sweet story Erin tells about when she made it. Read that here.

Check out the full instructions in this issue of Jewelry Stringing.

See some of Erin's Tutorials for Ornamentea right here. 

Gilded Gold Tassel Earrings and Necklace DIY

Our newest project from Erin Siegel. We love this elegant, dressy set. Click here for the free project instructions. 

You should pin this on Pinterest, you know you love it!

Chevron Necklace How-To with Erin Siegel

This new tutorial from Erin Siegel is very on-trend. That's a fashiony way of saying it looks like something to wear NOW. I'd put it with a linen tunic or maybe one of those long, flowy sundresses in white.

And sandals...

Can you tell I really am wishing for warm weather?

Check out the full tutorial here.

Visit Erin's blog for more of her work here. She is a co-author of this best-selling jewelry book.

If you'd like to get tutorials like the emailed directly to you, just subscribe to my Dispatch right here.

New Tutorial - Dainty Spring Necklace

This sweet necklace is a great way to add a bit of sparkle to your almost-spring wardrobe. Designed for us by Erin Siegel, these combine sparkly crystals and bits of silk ribbon with the ease of waxed linen. Very nice!

Click here for the full instructions.

Knotted Bead Bracelet DIY - The Silver Branches Bracelet

This project from Erin Siegel is so wintery-perfect. Icy silver beads float on waxed linen cording and that branch toggle just completes the forest flavor. This is a perfect addition to your stack!

Click on the above image to download the tutorial right now.

New Tutorial - Bodhi Day Wrapped Linen Necklace

We've just released another free project from contributing designer Erin Siegel and I love it. This wrapped-linen band is graphic and pretty. I can imagine making several really long ones to wear at once over a simple black tee.

Erin's necklace honors Bodhi day, celebrated on December 8th as the day Buddha attained enlightenment while sitting under a bodhi tree. This would make a great gift for the yogini in your life...or for yourself!

Namaste!

New Tutorial and a New Designer - The Knotted Friendship Bracelet

This Knotted Friendshop Bracelet Tutorial was created just for Ornamentea by Erin Siegel. Erin is one of the authors of a favorite book here, and we love her easy-to-wear designs. She is going to be doing projects for us every month and we can't wait to see what she cooks up.

It's funny, I have designed about 90% of our projects for, well, for-EVER. When I decided to find some designers to add to the styles represented here I immediately thought of Erin's work. Her designs are so on-trend and yet still so approachable. I look at them and think 'I'd wear that' and 'I'd wear that, too!' She was super excited to create for us and I was just as excited. It was kinda like two 12-year-olds finding out they had the same gym class. I almost cried when I saw the first project. Friendship bracelets, so perfect for the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

Anyhow, you should visit Erin's blog and see what she's up to. You can also shop for her designs on her etsy shop. Yes, this bracelet is available to purchase, which is good if you are too busy braiding your hair for gym class to make one.