New Contest Enter Here

I am starting a new contest to find out what inspires other people.
The prize will be a 25$ gift card to Michaels
You must be 18 or older to enter and each comment gets one entry. For this contest I will be asking that only US entries only.The odds of winning depend on the number of people entering.

All you need to do to enter is answer the question in a comment below:
What inspires you to create arts or crafts?

The winner will be randomly picked from those who post comments on this page.

The contest starts at 12AM 11/28/2015 and ends at 12AM 12/18/15.




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I seem to be in a cheerful mood. Everything I have made this week is bright and colorful.
Very unusual for me. There must be some way to get out of this and slide back toward the dark and brooding side of my personality.
Check these out they are enough to make you run for insulin.

I have been playing around with using inspiration photos to design jewelry pieces around. I knew if I did this I would be making things that probably would not appeal to a large audience but it would be more me.
So this is one of the photos I took in New Orleans and I fell in love with the color and texture of it. The first design is a simple pair of earrings that I torch fired the beads in a mottled teal/green.
I hung them from chain kind of the same way the plants are dangling off the balcony.
I am working on a few more designs using that photo to bounce off of but they are more complicated.

I have also been using my enamels in a more painterly fashion even when using it in powered form.
this next photo is of a necklace I put together with an enameled focal that was meant to look like an abstract painting.

I can see a lot of promise in both the abstract and the New Orleans themes.

I have started enameling jewelry items again. I love enameling but I do prefer the torch firing to kiln firing. I am hoping to get used to it because the results are more consistent with the kiln.
I did the two below and I just love the horse.
The second one is a necklace focal. I love that it looks like and abstract painting
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Christmas Coupon Codes

Use coupon code CHRISTMAS2015 to get 15% of any item in my ETSY shop.
Use the link to the left or find my shop by name on ETSY.
Look for silververtexdesign on Etsy.
Get 20% off your second purchase the code will appear when you pay for the first item.
It is a wonderful life........

Discovering Old Treasures

Well I have been back on ETSY for a month and on Ebay for a week and I forgot how hard it was to create, photograph, list then create, photograph and list over and over again.
If I could just do the creating and skip the last two steps I would be a happy camper.

But pulling out some of the stuff I made just before I had to go back to work in the real world has got me itching to get out in the studio and rifle through my printed tin stash.

We had a trip to New Orleans last weekend. The weather turned out to be a lot better than we were warned it would be and in fact a lot worse at home than we expected. While we were enjoying a light drizzle in New Orleans they were having torrential rain and tornado activity here in La Porte.
I took a lot of photos for inspiration while I was there:

We found the silver guy(girl?) getting ready to perform.

And I found this building that is going to be my main inspiration to the jewelry I am working on now.

The colors and textures of this building are incredible. I was told it is the backdrop for a lot of wedding photos but I haven't found out what the name of it is yet.I love the soft washed out colors next to the peachy/orange tone of the building next to it.


I also worked on some jewelry this week and listed it on ETSY in my SilverVertexDesign shop there.

The last two or three weeks I have been listing and creating, listing and creating and creating and listing.......
I have started back on ETSY and also on EBAY.
It is very hard to find the time to get the listings done since I am still working full time but I am really enjoying the challenge. The creating is not so hard. I have such an incredible stash of beads I have collected over the years and also findings and metal that I can make a million different combinations with the choices I have and still find more options to work with.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/254902687/boho-earrings-dangle-drop-style-green?ref=shop_home_active_1

 

 These are my ETSY listings.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/254766235/earrings-flirty-reclaimed-tin-red-and?ref=shop_home_active_2

https://www.etsy.com/listing/254869790/earrings-dangle-drop-type-with-and?ref=listing-shop-header-2

Having Fun with My New Bead Stash

I am having so much fun with all the new beads and finding I got from the Houston Gem and Jewelry show last weekend.

The stone beads are the most fun but I also like the glass pearls and shaped glass beads I picked up.
I wish I had got more floral beads but there are always regrets when you get home.

Houston Gem and Jewelry Show 2015 ...My Haul

We just got back from the Houston Gem and Jewelry show and I got quite the haul. The photos are not too good since I used my phone but you can see I got quite a lot.
There are stone beads for the designs I have been working on and I also found some unique beads that when I saw them designs for jewelry just popped in my head.
I already made some earrings with the golden orange stick beads in the top right of the first photo.
All day tomorrow I am going to work on jewelry so I will post the results.

New Work to list on ETSY

I am back to listing items on ETSY again.I opened a new shop and hope to get it going strong by the end of the year.
Here are a few of the items I have made this past month.

I have started back making simple earrings to get my creative juices flowing again.
I will make more complicated stuff later on when I am nearer to retiring. I am working on getting my studio set up to work in metals again.
This is my new shop.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/SilverVertexDesign?ref=hdr_shop_menu

I came up with the name from a lot of different angles.
Silver: what I like to work in and the color my hair is turning.
Vertex: I was born in Vermont and have migrated to Texas so my work is a mix of influences and it honors both where I come from and where I am. Vertex is where two lines come together in a point.
And I chose Design instead of jewelry because who know where the creative urge will take me.

This is what my latest project looked before I started it. Only mine on mine the veneer was cracked peeling and in places totally gone. Yes I forgot to take the before picture again...LOL

Now I turned it into a bench. It sits in my kitchen under the window.

I used a soft yellow chalk paint and stained over that with a light brown wiping it back on the highlights. It is a much prettier bench than it was a table.

I finished my second  house project of the year. This was a 10 dollar chair that I bought from a garage sale. It was badly repaired where it had once had arms and was perfect for me to practice on. I sanded it all down and then filled in the holes with wood putty.
I used chalk paint for both layers I put on it.
 I painted it the light teal and then used Vaseline to make a resist in a few of the areas to let the teal paint show through. This was mostly on the edges and the legs where the wear would be heaviest. Then I used  off white chalk paint over.  Then I stained it with a light walnut gel stain and buffed it so in places the stain came out dark in the recesses and light where the wear would be. I then covered the cracked faded leather seat in a cream bird print.
I was going for the rustic "hey look what I just found in the back of grandmas barn" look and I think I nailed it. Maybe a little too rustic but for 10 bucks and 3.25 in paint and fabric it will do.

Chalk Painting Adventures

I have been away from this blog and crafting for too long.

For three years I have been working so many hours at my day job and because the nature of my job means I can and do get called in at all hours so I really never relaxed enough to be creative once I got home.

In the last few months I have tried to force myself to get creative by devising some Christmas projects and trying to give myself deadlines. Of course that did not work.
You cannot force yourself to create. Or at least I can't. I did not finish the projects, felt guilty and it only put more pressure on me at work and at home.

So I tried another approach. As long as I am working I do not have any pressure to create work that sells. I did that for years  loved it and I probably will go back to it some day but I do not need to make a penny off it right now.
So I am going to concentrate on taking classes and making things for myself.
I started this past weekend by attending a chalk painting class at Alter'd in Deer Park Texas.
In the class we learned about chalk painting furniture. Here is the link if you are in the area check out the store it has awesome furniture and items. Mandi was an awesome instructor.
http://altard.com/workshops/

We learned about chalk paint, stains and how to finish a piece. You leave the workshop with a link to some eBooks' so you don't even have to take notes in class.

So I am updating a few small pieces I have around the house to practice.
My first project of the weekend was painting my front door. It was my attempt to make sure every night when I get home from work I have a choice...vegetate and fret or do something creative and
fun.

Lets hope it works........

My next project was a small cupboard I bought years ago at a garage sale for 5 bucks. I wish I had taken a before photo but it looked similar to this one but it was brown not white.

And now with one coat of a pale teal, a white stencil design and an over stain with a dark brown it looks like this.

I am going to add a clear stain over the top to protect the finish or a dark wax.
Mandi our instructor told us she does not like wax but I think I might try it on this piece because it will not be in a high traffic area and I don't mind rewaxing once in a while.

I have a few more pieces of furniture I am going to refinish in the next month and I will post them here.

Did I mention that I love, love chalk paint? I cant believe I was able to cover those painted apples and the dark wood on this in one coat.