Bridal Wedding Colours 2013 - The Colour Purple

I like making bridal jewellery, I think it's because I like pearls and pearls are one of the popular choices for brides, when choosing their bridal jewellery.

The days when brides only chose white, ivory or pink for their bridal colours, have well and truly gone. This year the most popular bridal colours are purple, mint green, gold, silver, red and navy blue.

My favourite colour is the colour purple, so I thought I'd show you the purple coloured wedding items in my shop.

Here is a purple bridal set, consisting of a bracelet and earrings, made using purple glass pearl beads and rhinestone beads.

 

Another design, this time, this time I used a ivory pearl to compliment the purple pearl and gold plated earwires

For the necklace, I've added a gold plated chain.

 

 

This is the bridal comb I made last week.

These wedding pieces don't have to be just worn for a wedding. I think with jewellery, there are no rules, I've worn pearls with a pair of jeans, you can mix and match, do what you want to do, find your own style.

If your still looking for ideas about your what colours to choose for your wedding jewellery, do take a look at my website at www.michelleshandcraftedjewellery.com, where  I have traditional bridal colours and the most popular bridal colours of 2013.

Which glass is mine?

Have you ever been out at a some sort of function, such as a party and you've put your glass down for a minute and then gone back to retrieve it and then you can't remember which one was yours, as the table is full of glasses? Well I've done that quite a few times and each time I've just shrugged my shoulders and gone off and got another glass. That is both time-consuming and a waste of a drink.

There is no need to do that anymore, the answer is a wine glass charm. I know some of you out there are saying, 'a wine glass what???' Wine glass charms make it easy to identify which glass is yours at a gathering. They usually have a charm, dangling from a silver ring and decorated with beautiful beads and all you do is unhook the loop and wrap it around the base of your wine glass. Each one is different, so you'll always remember, which glass is yours. I've been adding some new wine glass sets to my website.

This set, can be for an engagement party.

A couple of girlie themed wine glass charms, for a hen night or a girls night out.

Also a couple of sets of baby themed wine glass charms, for either a christening or a baby shower. 

I also have a range of wedding wine glass charms, that can also be used as wedding favours, for the bride and groom and the wedding party.

To see my range of wine glass charms, please visit my website at www.michelleshandcrafted.etsy.com

What else you can do with an avocado, apart from eat it?

I bought some avocados last week to make a healthy smoothie, like the one I saw in a magazine. I blended all the ingredients together, then sat down to drink it, it tasted better than I thought and I was looking forward to drinking the next one. Well that thought was short lived, I started to feel queasy and ill. It got to the point that I had to lie down and take some medication. After a couple of hours I started to feel better, don't get me wrong, I've eaten avocados before, these ones had ripened perfectly, but for some reason I felt so poorly, after drinking this smoothie, on that day.

I now had to decide what to do with the remaining three avocados. I hate wasting food, so I was not going to throw them away. I got onto the internet and had a look to see what else you can do with an avocado. Then I thought. what about a hair or beauty treatment? I do like using natural products and I was in luck. After browsing various websites, I decided to try and make a avocado and honey facemask, as I'd not done a facemask for goodness knows how long. Also there was recipe for a avocado, honey and olive oil hair mask.

First I made the hair mask, using the following ingredients:

One ripe avocado

2 tablespoons of honey

2 tablespoons of olive oil

Everything was placed in a bowl and mashed and mixed up with a fork, till it was a smooth consistency. I applied it to my washed hair, it did feel strange, a little voice in my head was saying 'what are you doing, your putting food on your hair'. Once I smeared it all over from root to tip, I covered my head with a plastic cap, it had to stay on for 30 minutes.

Now for the facemask, I used:

1/2 a ripe avocado

1 tablespoon of honey

I mixed it all together and smoothed it on to my face, this needed to stay on for 15 minutes, my face soon started to feel tight and sticky.  After I rinsed it all off, I noticed how soft and smooth my skin felt.

After 30 minutes, I washed out the hair mask mixture, must say it took a while to do this, but afterwards, wow, my hair had never felt softer and shiner, I was stunned. I'd done other hair treatments before, but never had such a result like this one. The ingredients totally rehydrated my hair, it was amazing.

I will continue to use these ingredients on my hair and face, the results speak for itself. All the ingredients are natural, with no harsh chemicals and are inexpensive. Avocados contain nearly 20 vitamins and minerals, including potassium and is rich in vitamin A, E and D.

Honey is gentle on the skin, a good choice if you have sensitive skin. It is also a natural humectant, which means it attracts and retains moisture. Both these ingredients are good for nourishing and moisturizing dry skin and hair.

Olive oil adds moisture to your scalp if you have a dry scalp, it also softens dry frizzy hair and helps to promote hair growth. I'm already use olive oil in my hair and I've noticed how it's improved the condition of my hair.

Right, I'm off to see what else I can conjure up in my kitchen.

It was worth the wait

At the beginning of each week, I usually start thinking about what I want to write about in my blog. Usually I'll be jotting down notes and drafting sections of it, then by Wednesday it's generally coming together, then on Thursday, I'll do any needed amendments, then if I'm happy, I'll publish it.

Well last week, I must say was a struggle for me, it's like I had 'bloggers block' or writer's block, or whatever you want to call it.  Nothing I did would give me any clues as to what I wanted to write about.

I've only been blogging for nearly a year now and initially I found it hard work to sit down write about a subject. Now it's easier, I try to blog once a week and I do enjoy it, my problem is that sometimes I 'overthink' things and I should really just relax about blogging and try not to stress out about it, if it's late, it's late, it's not as if  I'm giving in homework, is it?

At the end of last week, I was staring at my laptop trying to conjure something to blog about, so I thought, leave it and come back to it later on. I went off to look at my supplies to see if I needed to order any stock and I came across some lamp work beads that I'd bought back in 2011. I bought them because I thought  they were beautiful and unique and I've always admired jewellery makers who made lamp work beads, the designs are amazing. I did not have a project in mind for them, so I just put them away. I put them on the table and I played around with them and came up with a bracelet, that with simple, using bronze filigree beads, which complimented the green and gold colours, of the beads.

Here is the bracelet, just look at the detail on the beads.

 

 

 

 

I still had enough beads, also to make a pair of earrings.

 

So if your struggling for something to blog about, leave it and go off and do something else, an idea will come to you, when your not expecting it.  I ended up making some new jewellery, when I was not expecting to. Also if your blog is a few days late, nevermind, not everything always goes to plan, just take it's it comes, not worth stressing about .

 

To see some more of my handmade jewellery, please visit www.michelleshandcraftedjewellery.com 



Bird's Nest Necklace

Thought I'd do a short and sweet blog today and show you all the bird's nest necklace that I have made. I love wire work jewellery and I'd seen several of these necklaces around. I had some left over hot pink coloured 8 mm glass pearl beads, in my spare bead stash, then I picked out some 0.6mm silver plated wire. Threaded on the beads, then twisted the wire around the beads in a circular motion, I continued to do this, until I was happy with the fullness of the wrapping.

The end of the wire was tucked into the back, 2 jump rings were attached to the top of the wrapped wire, then a silver plated 18 inch chain was added and there you have it, my first bird's nest necklace.

 

 

 

Here is a close up of the wrapped beads.

 

 

Now I'm not sure whether to pop it into one of my shops, or keep it for myself, what do you think?

  

 



One size fits all.

Hi,
Hope you all had a lovely Easter, I stuck to my plan and only ate a couple of creme eggs, yes I know booooorrring,  but I just did not feel like munching my way through a mountain of eggs, like I seem to do year after year.   

I did however make a coupIe of bracelets over the weekend and thought I'd share some handy tips about them with you, especially if your looking to buy a bracelet for a gift. If you don't know the lucky persons wrist size, then maybe a memory wire bracelet, could solve your problem.

Memory wire bracelets are bracelets that are made with a strong wire that retains it's shape and is a 'one size fits all' type of bracelet. All you have to do is loop it around the wrist and it curls into bracelet sized coils and you can have any number of coils.

This is a silver crystal memory wire bracelet that I made at the weekend, this one has 4 coils and is made with silver czech glass pearl beads and purple and silver faceted crystal beads.

This one has 6 coils and has a vast selection of beads in different shapes sizes and colours, too many to mention. 

 

Another good point about memory wire bracelets, is that if the person your buying the gift for, has a problem with opening and closing clasps, there are no clasps to worry about on any of these bracelets.

 

 

If you would like to see the other memory wire bracelets that I have made, do pop over to my website at www.michelleshandcraftedjewellery.com

 

 

Quotes that inspire me.

There is a quote that I like to say to myself when I need to give myself a kick up the bum. You know how it, when you feel like your in a rut and you don't know how to get out of it. The quote is, 'If you keep doing the same thing, you will keep having the same results'. I can't remember where I came across this quote, but I have applied it to different sections of my life and I can say, by tweeking and changing the way I do certain things, it has resulted in different outcomes, it has often been useful in my personal and business life.

I have a Pinterest account and I've created a board, after coming across several inspirational quotes. My board is called 'Loving this Quote' and it contains several quotes that I have liked so much that I have repinned them.

This quote encourages you to make a decision and  not stand still.

 


This one encourages you to take control of your life and not let someone else do it for you.


This is one of my favorites, we are all special and we are all unique.



I like to refer to my quotes on days when I get a creative or writers block or feeling blah, after all we are all humans and we can all have off days.

If  you would like to see what else is on my Pinterest boards click on the link www.pinterest.com/michelleshand

Do you have a quote that inspires you?