Fabric Flower Crazy!

Ok so a few months ago I bought a great tutorial from aSundayGirl on Etsy.com on how to make fun fabric flowers. Since then I have become fabric flower crazy! I started out making just a few and made necklaces out of them. I priced them and put four out for sale. The day I put them out I sold three of them! I have been busy since then trying to get more flowers made so that I can made more necklaces. I have my assembly worked out pretty good. I take one afternoon and cut out all my circles, iron them, and then pin them together. Then I put all my pinned pieces in a bag and while we are at the ballgames. Then once all flowers are made then I take one day and put all of them together for necklaces, pendants, or hair clips. I love these flowers!

Ring

A lot of my favorite blogs are doing 365 Blogs where you blog about a certain topic for a full year. One of the blogs is a blog about rings. The lady is making a ring for everyday of the year.  Those of you who know me know that I am obsessed with rigns. I love them with a passion. In my opinion a girl can never have enough rings. In honor of her blog I wanted to show you a pic of my favorite ring. I used an 18mm Rivoli and peyote encased it then embellished it with 3 and 4mm bicones. This is a statement ring and I wear it all the time!

Nutella...where have you been all my life?

I can't believe that in 30 years I have never tasted Nutella! Real Housewives of NJ star Carolyn Manzo posted a Nutella pizza recipe on her blog today. It looked pretty darn good so I went to the grocery store tonight and purchased the ingredients. I made the pizza for a dessert tonight and let me tell you....this pizza was amazing and....I discovered that I love Nutella! To see the recipe check out carolyns blog at http://www.carolinemanzo.com/blog/

Enjoy!

New Projects I'm working on

Last week when my grandmother was in the hospital I started working on a few projects. These cute pink and green earrings were originally a bracelet pattern that I found in the April/May 2010 BeadWork Magazine. I started on the component for the bracelet and when I got it finished it just didn't phase me. There was no pizazz in my eyes! So I started doing a little bit of embellishment and was much happier with the results.  I still think that I may go back and add a few tweaks in the next pair I do but I was happy with the way these turned out.

 I also started working on a kit that I purchased from Nikia Angel two years ago at Bead and Button called Guivevere. The necklace had these cute triangle components that you were supposed to make and connect together to make a necklace. When I got a few of the components finished I realized that she didn't give me enough of a certain bead to finish the necklace. I started working trying to figure out something I could make with the components. What I ended up with was the earring on the right.  After I got it finished I didn't like it. I didn't know if it was the colors from the kit or the shape of the earring. Thus, I went to work on the second one yesterday (the one on the left) and I was much happier! Both are cute but the oblong shape suited my fancy. I am going to get busy in the next few days writing a pattern for the earrings.

I have had a few emails lately about people, patterns, and copy rights. A lot of people have been coming to me and asking "When you make something and you change a few things about the pattern when can you call it your design?" I really wish I had an answer for you but its a really bad gray area! My friend Pauline told me that her silversmithing teacher told them that if you change 20% of the pattern then it can be considered something that you came up with. My feelings are that if you make something from someone Else's pattern and you want to make it yours then it needs to look completely different from theirs. When someone looks at the two pieces side by side yours should not look exactly the same or the same with just a few simple changes. Take the earrings above for example. The original components are triangle shapes. If I were to make a triangle component and put it next to the earring on the right then you could see the shape and see that the earring is simply two of the components sewn together with a few embellishments. If I made one and put it against the earring on the left then you would have a harder time seeing the triangle. Even though I have made a piece completely different from Nikias design I will still contact her and ask her blessing I guess you would say to write the pattern. This is just common courtesy to the original designer.

When I do my videos online I try to do projects that I have come up with or that are free patterns that can be found anywhere. If I want to teach a pattern that I have found of someone Else's then I will contact the designer for permission. Some say yes and are glad to. In that case I always give credit to the designer and always put on the video where people can find there projects or designs. On the other hand, if the designer says no then I put the pattern to rest. I never want to do anything that would jeopardize my videos or the beading world. I don't however need to get permission to do videos or certain techniques such as Peyote Stitch. The reason being is that this is simply a technique and trying to give credit to the person who came up with Peyote Stitch is impossible. It is the same with other projects such as some rings that I do. They have been around for so long and have been adapted so many times that it would be hard for me to give credit to a designer because trying to find that information would be like me trying to find a dinosaur. Some things just aren't going to happen.

These are simply my feelings on copyright and if you have any other comments or suggestions please be sure to leave them!

Finished!

I finally got the bracelet finished today! I was a happy girl. Now onto the next project!

Can't believe I'm finally getting to this!

Like most beaders I like to hoard my beads and in my case I like to hoard kits.  I have went to the Bead and Button show for the last two years and have had an absolute blast! This year I decided not to go and in hindsight it was a good decision as my grandmother had a stroke the day I would have been set to leave.  Anyways, I was feeling down and out about not going this year so I decided to look at my kit stash. The last two years I have bought tons of kits at the show. I don't even want to know how much money I have put into these kits! I looked through and pulled out this great kit that I purchased from the Wire Lace Company.  It is called the Flight of Fancy bracelet. I started on it and have been working on it on and off this week while visiting my grandmother.  This is what I have done thus far and I only have about 2 steps left to finish and I will be done. I had the length made and then I had to re-adjust it since I have lost so much weight. I can't wait to get this kit finished so I can wear the bracelet! Alas the kit will have to wait until tomorrow night or Wednesday night before it gets finished because I have to get some glue from the shop to finish the last step. I will post pics of the final piece as soon as I finish.

As I said above, I was totally bummed out that I didn't get to go to the Bead and Button Show this year. It did give me time, however, to set a few goals for myself before the next show. First, I am going to get my directions written better for a ring that I came up with and I am going to submit it teach at next years show.

Secondly, I am going to work this coming year to get published in a major beading magazine. Last year I was published in Bead Trends and the sheer excitment of looking in a magazine and seeing my name above a project was far more than I could stand. To push myself though I need to come up with new goodies and work to get published. I am no longer contest just being Kelly the store owner. I want to be Kelly the store owner and published designer! Its all a matter of getting the right thing in the right persons hands and thats exactly what I'm going to work on doing!