***REVEAL*** Pine Ridge Treasures Evening Elegance Challenge and Blog Hop

Hellooo lovelies! Here we are at the end of January already! Scary stuff, hey? It's going too fast. 

Anyhoo, the beautiful Lisa over at A Grateful Artist is running yet another awesome blog hop and challenge this month and this is my reveal post. Now, it's been CRAZY around here lately; the kids have had their six week summer break, and I must admit to being very lazy, not creating every day, and basically slacking off. I need to stop that. However, I did manage to pull a couple of pieces together. I'll come back and edit this post when I have photos of all of them, please consider this a "work in progress" post. 

The theme for this hop was "Evening Elegance" so when I received my package of goodies from Lisa, I wasn't disappointed. Lots of faceted crystal and glass, and in some of my favourite colours too: red, black, silver and clear. Gorgeous stuff. Here it is before I made a massive mess of my workbench. Again. 

Pretty yummy, right? 

I did battle a little bit with this challenge; I've been trying really, super hard to move forwards into wire weaving and stuff rather than sticking with stringing, and it threw me for a loop (which I think is another reason for the reluctance/difficulty starting the designing process). I did come up with a little somethin' somethin' though :) This is piece one:

I did run into a few issues with this bracelet. I found that the gorgeous red and black bicones were just too little to go onto the 20g sterling silver filled wire, so I strung them onto the 26g wire and wrapped them onto the bracelet instead. Also, trying to get a bracelet shaped into an oval shape without an oval shaped bracelet mandrel isn't as easy as you'd think, but it's pretty close. I'm learning very slowly to be kind to myself. Wire work is still new to me, and I must remember to stop beating myself up when things aren't "perfect." 

That's all for right now; as I said I'll edit this post with my other stuff tomorrow or Monday with my other pieces. In the meantime, go check out these other fabulously talented ladies and see what they came up with!! 

With love, 

Jacqui 

Your hostess: Lisa Lodge, A Grateful Artist

Carolyn Lawson, Carolyn's Creations

Kim Dworak, Cianci Blue

Shaiha Williams, Shaiha’s Ramblings

Becky Pancake, Becky Pancake Bead Designs

Beti Horvath, Stringing Fool Jewelry

Therese Frank, Therese's Treasures

Veralynne Malone, Designed by Vera

Marde Lowe, Fancimardesigns