silver

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Decisions….Decisions….

Hello!!
A few weeks ago I was inspired to make a necklace I had seen on the Fusion Beads Inspiration page.  You can find the link here.  They call it “Garden of Love Necklace”.
I have been searching for new techniques, ways to incorporate fiber and fabric into my jewelry and possibly less expensive options for my customers.
This technique uses the Diva Cord Maker, which I love and will be using again and again!
So now I have this awesome cord made for a necklace, but I can’t decide what type of pendant to use.


Since I finished the cord I have had tons of ideas.  Here are a few of them…..(just a few!)


For several days I just kept pulling different pieces to try and help me make a decision.


Above is a bezeled piece of antique pottery off of the beach.


In this above picture is a lavender glass glob that I thought about making into a pendant like the green one to the right.  The green on would be too small for this cord.


There was this bird toggle that I made out of silver which could be a toggle and a pendant, all in one.


Or I could use one of my glass pendants.  I even pulled out my stained glass, from YEARS ago and thought about making a copper foiled heart that was pink on one side and lavender on the other.


Finally, there is this fine silver flower pendant that I made.
And yes, there were more ideas.  I was literally paralyzed with ideas.
I THINK I have made a decision……but what do you think?
I’d love to hear your feedback.
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Sweet Heart Earrings ~ Pay it Forward February

{Have you ever heard about a situation and it just breaks your heart and you feel like you HAVE TO do something about it?A few months back I met a lady, Lovely Reckley, and she told me how she goes to four different schools in Abaco and feeds 85+ children that would have otherwise had no lunch. For some of these kids, this is the only meal of the day.Lovely even takes food to some of them when school is out.That really broke my heart. I mean, I know there are kids all over the world that are starving, but when I realized there were children right under my nose it killed me. I kept wondering what I could do. I thought about offering to help cook, but cooking for so many mouths really overwhelmed me. Then I realized what a COMMITMENT this awesome woman had made to these children…..EVERYDAY!!!At Christmas, instead of giving gifts I gave a donation to her organization (and to our Humane Society) instead of buying things that people really didn’t need.But it kept tugging at my heart. So, I decided for the month of February I would post several heart themed items to my blog. They would be for sale, and I would give 25% of the cost of the item to Lovely, to help with her costs.I may post an item everyday or I may post several items a week…..I am really not sure, but 25% will go to “Feed the Children” in Abaco, Bahamas.I CANNOT imagine going without food, or only having one meal a day that I had to rely on someone else to bring to me, and these children shouldn’t have to deal with this either, so please help!}

Happy Friday!
I am starting to feel a little more human today after this spell of laryngitis. Still coughing and feeling fatigued, but my voice is slowly coming back!
Today’s item for Feed the Children Abaco are these Sweet Heart Earrings.


Textured fine silver discs with a heart cut-out, have whimsical glass fuchsia headpin dangles.  The ear wires are made from fine silver also, and the earrings hang about an inch and a quarter from the ear wires.


You can find these earrings in my Etsy shop….{HERE}.
Or you can go to my Bahama Dawn Facebook page and leave me a message….{HERE}.
They are $40, and 25% goes to Feed the Children Abaco.


Thanks for stopping by!
Do something creative & have a great weekend!
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Thank You & Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!
Like most people I am trying to figure out where 2011 went!! It was a whirlwind. A fun and exciting one though! Thank you to everyone who reads my blog, buys my creations, supports me at my shows, and encourages me along the way.
You have been with me through my new vegan journey and at my first vegan Christmas dinner last year!  This year was the second!


You cheered me on to finish UFO’s, and there are some that still aren’t done and some new ones for 2012!
I shared recipes with you from my vegan journey and I hope they were helpful to you. You encouraged me when I came up with new ideas and had art shows to attend.
You read my posts in February as I did a Creative Everyday Challenge. That was a great challenge and one I need to do again!


You have listened to my dog stories and looked at my agility trial pictures.


Watched me struggle and enjoy swaps. The last part of 2011 I didn’t do any swaps but will be getting involved again in 2012….i missed some of those gals (and guys!)


In May I thought my life was slowing down, but that wasn’t so, things got really busy around the house, and I really slacked off from my blogging. But during that time my husband and I have been working on a classroom for me to start teaching quilting again, we built a guest cottage and a storage shed and dealt with Hurricane Irene.


You also cheered me on with my Paint Party Fridays, which I also miss and want to start doing again. Bead Table Wednesdays were fun and kept me motivated.
You listened to my stories about my online classes and encouraged me with my new lampworking skills.


So thank you, thank you, thank you!  Thank you for your ear (or your eyes since you are reading!), and I hope you will continue to follow my creative journey into 2012.

In 2012 I want to keep creating and get all these new ideas out of my head!
Of course finish some more UFO’s; do more pottery {i have a potter’s wheel again ~ woohoo!}, continue to improve my lampworking skills, make more jewelry components from ceramic clay and do lots more work with Precious Metal Clay. I just love that stuff and when I work with it I always ask myself why I don’t work with it more!

Here are a few new pieces that I finished today…..

The textured circles on these earrings were made from Precious Metal Clay, and have my glass headpins hanging from them.


Potcake Necklace…….

Potcakes are our local mixed breed and there are many strays.  When I make these pendants I give $20 to help the animals of Abaco.


Have a happy, healthy, exciting and creative 2012!

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Experimenting……

Over the last few months I have been experimenting with some new materials, trying out new ideas, taking some online classes.
I am not doing any Fall shows like I normally do.  Instead I thought I would have an open house in December with lots of new items.
Here are some sneak peeks from classes I have taken and some new products I have tried out.
This heart charm was from an online class I took at Beaducation, in PMC. 
I had worked with PMC (Precious Metal Clay) before but hadn’t really pushed myself to make anything like this.  It is 2 hearts joined with copper spacers and brass hex nuts, then riveted.

The class gave me a lot of confidence with the PMC and some great ideas for new pieces.
I put the piece in Liver of Sulphur to age it, and then was sorry I did since before that the metals were bright and there was a lot more contrast.
I am still happy with it!

I have also been playing around with some enameling.

Those are some of the first beads I made.  I am using Barbara Lewis‘ kit and book, “Painting with Fire”  and it has been very helpful.
Yesterday I got into a bit of an earring making spell.
Here are two pairs….I cant show you everything….need to save some for the open house!

I love the enamel earrings, below.  They remind me of the ocean.

I’ll pop back in soon to show you some more experiments and some new things!
Have a great week!
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Bead Table Wednesday ~ sea glass bracelet

Been busy, busy, busy with orders and fun stuff going on around the house so I havent been posting a whole lot lately.  Actually the *stuff going on around the house* has taken over my life!
Right now, in between everything else, I am trying to finish up the bracelet that I started a few weeks ago.

I still need to add a clasp, secure the sea glass in the bezels and then do a final polishing.


I love all these sea glass colors so much and can’t wait for it to be finished.
Soon!!!
Check out all the other Bead Table Wednesday posts this week and be inspired!

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Bead Table Wednesday ~ work in progress from the classroom

This week I am in the middle of taking a local jewelry class. It is named Sea Glass Class, but it is so much more than that!
Here I am polishing away at my work station….

I have been making jewelry for several years now, and after doing more metal and wire work I wanted to learn how to cut more of my own original pieces from sheet silver and copper. So, about a year ago, I bought a jeweler’s saw which is a hand saw with a very fine blade that breaks very easily. I tried and tried to get that saw to work and just couldn’t! In my frustration I put (threw) the saw aside and out of sight!
Well, the first day of this class we had to use one! After a brief description and demo we were all sitting at our workstations, saw in hand, and I got it to work!! I was over the moon!!! If I didn’t learn another thing this week I would have still been happy!
I had to go home, find my saw and apologize to it!
Here are some bails that I made from sheet silver using the saw….
On one bail I soldered on a small turtle pendant that the instructor of the class made.
These two pieces still need polishing up which I will do tomorrow.
I have also had a chance in this class to use a dual fuel torch for soldering which has made things so much easier…..once you get use to the heat!
I have been using a butane torch and having problems with it lately and it was all because there was not enough heat.
Here are a few more pieces I am working on in class.
I love these pastel colors together. Still trying to decide what to make out of these….a bracelet….a pendant…..a necklace…..any ideas?
I would love to hear your opinions!
Be sure and check out what others have on their bead tables this Wednesday over at the Flickr group, Bead Table Wednesday.
Watch out world…..here I come with my jeweler’s saw!

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BTW ~ Boho Bliss Class

I went missing in action for a while there because of having no internet at home.  It was off for 2 weeks!!!  So glad it is back on, but now I am playing catch-up!
One of the many things I am catching up on are the online classes I am enrolled in.
Boho Bliss is a jewelry class I am taking and loving learning different techniques with metals.
Deryn is the creator and teacher of this class and I love her jewelry style.  She offers a few other classes as well which I am looking forward to taking.
Boho Bliss is all about earrings, and these are my hoops from the first week ~
Made from a plain piece of copper (or silver) wire!
They are meant to be plain hoops, but I am in a frenzy of making those glass headpins so I have also been adorning everything with them!
Here are some plain silver ones that I did some decorative stamping on for texture ~
Over the next few weeks we will be adding more to these hoops as Deryn teaches us more techniques.  I can’t wait to learn more about metal and come back and share my pieces with you!
What is on your bead table this Wednesday?
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What’s Old is New Again

Happy Wednesday!
I am finally getting to the posting of my “What’s Old is New Again” blog challenge from Artbeads.
This set of elements gave me some challenges, which led to a bit of a creative block.
I am finally happy to show you my pieces.
The first piece I made was a necklace using the antique silver plated pewter heart pendant, rolo gunmetal chain, a sterling silver key charm, and resin azalea flowers.
I really love working with rolo chain, it is actually one of my favorite chains. In the past I have used the sterling silver, but this gunmetal one is great also and looks awesome mixed with the sterling silver.
In this piece I also included some white beads from a necklace that was once my grandmothers, some of my pink glass headpins and some silver chain.
The pink flower beads that are attached to the silver chain I doubled on a silver headpins along with the white vintage beads and glass headpins that I made.


The photo in the bezel is of my grandfather with a silver key charm and a Bahamian coat of arms from an old stamp set in resin.
I finished the back of the necklace with some soft pink, silk ribbon.
This necklace needed a pair of earrings to go with it, and this is what I came up with.
They are very light and fun.
I added single pink resin flowers on the rolo chain. There are three strands in different lengths and at the top one of my handmade glass headpins.
Also from Artbeads I got the cutest metal bicycle pendant and made this casual necklace from this piece, also complimented with some of my grandmother’s beads.
I love the mixture of metals in this piece. It is going to be great with jeans and a casual shirt.
Artbeads has a variety of these metal pendants with other themes and they make a quick, cute pendant on a necklace.
So here is where my real challenge came in……
I got some large transparent resin roses from Artbeads as well, and when they arrived there was no hole to string them or attach them. (if I would have read the description properly I would have known this before hand)
I tried to attach them to silver rings with epoxy and they didn’t hold.
Then it hit me …… add it to a mixed media piece!!
What took me so long to come up with that?!?!?!
I love how this turned out and I was sorry I didn’t have anymore resin flowers to add to more mixed media pieces.
Here is a close up of the flowers. The rabbits look like they are feeding amongst the flowers.
After making this piece I thought the flowers would make great additions to an art quilt. So I guess I will have to order some more!
Hope you are all having a wonderful week!



The Artbeads.com products in this post were provided as a promotional gift by Artbeads.com, as part of their Design Partner & Blogging program. I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion – good or bad. My comments and opinions about these products are my honest, personal opinion and I have not been paid for any endorsement.
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Creative Project #21 ~ my inspiration for RAW

A few posts back I told you about a group I had joined on Flickr, called RAW (Ring A Week).  The challenge in this group is to make a new ring every week. Today the group is having a blog carnival.  At the bottom of this post you can see a list of participants and click on their blogs to see what inspired them to join this group.  You won’t be disappointed by the wonderful work you find!
I have been making jewelry for years, but until a year ago would just give it away as gifts.  I started metal smithing a little over a year ago, and it has been an interesting journey.

At first I was pretty intimidated to post any of my work into this group since the ring pictures in the group are over the top!  Then I thought this would push me to try new things especially since rings are probably my least favorite thing to make.
So I joined RAW hoping it would inspire me to try new techniques and get over my fear of making rings.
I make my rings out of fine silver, fused glass, sea glass, antique pottery shards, lamp worked beads.  Something I am working towards is making rings out of Precious Metal Clay.
For the ring above I made a silver bezel, filled it with tiny pieces of sea glass and shells, then filled it with resin.
Here are a few with my lamp worked pieces and wire wrapping.
All last night I had an idea in my head for a ring which was a combination of metal smithing and a flame worked bead.
I set out this morning to try it out.  I made the silver band but I could not get the part on the top that would hold the bead to work.  So I bezeled a piece of antique pottery to make use of the band.
I like the the square pottery on the round silver.
Sometimes the pottery pieces can be tricky to work with.  It can chip easily and the pieces are sometimes rounded from the plate or bowl they have come from.
Be sure and check out all the jewelry artists that are participating in this blog carnival.
Here is a list of them:

Marcie Abney – http://www.labellajoya.blogspot.com
Joanne Harrill – www.jojobell.com
Thomasin Durgin – www.metalriot.blogspot.com
Amy Nicole – www.rubymtnbeads.blogspot.com
Janice – www.doxallodesigns.blogspot.com
Aleksandra Micic – www.micicart.blogspot.com
Lana Chu – www.ginkgoglass.wordpress.com
Evelyn Markasky – www.markasky.blogspot.com
Kerry Alice-Twigs and Heather – www.twigsandheather.blogspot.com
Lorena Angulo- blog.lorenaangulo.com/
Kate Jones– www.katejonesdesign.blogspot.com
Maria Apostolou- www.createjewelry.gr/blog
Sarah Small – www.bysalla.blogspot.com
Rebecca Bogan – www.Adobesol.com/blog
Elaine Luther – www.CreativeTextureTools.com/news
Rebekah Timlin Meddles – www.lunasadesigns.blogspot.com
Laura M (Zoeowyn) – http://www.zoeowyn.blogspot.com/
Kimberly (bahamadawn) – www.bahamadawn.blogspot.com
Erin Austin – www.metalmusing.blogspot.com
Catherine Witherell – www.happydayart.typepad.com
Michele Grady- www.michelegradydesigns.blogspot.com
Joan Furilla – jfurilla.wordpress.com/
Kathryn Cole- www.kathryncolejewelry.blogspot.com 
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Creative Project #13 ~ Artbeads Winter Enchantment Challenge

As you know from previous posts I am an Artbeads Design Partner.  The challenge that was recently sent to us was “Winter Enchantment”.
Down south, in the tropics, we don’t see snow and cold is in the 40’s if we are lucky!
On cool, crisp days all the colors seem brighter and more vibrant.  The ocean beams and the trees are screaming green because it is a comfortable temperature for them.
I went with a blue, green and silver color palette.
The design was simplistic with sterling silver chain, a sterling silver toggle, some sterling coiled wire and my lamp worked beads. This toggle was perfect because it looks like a branch from the trees who’s color I was trying to capture.
There are so many neat toggles at Artbeads that it was difficult to decide which one I wanted to use.
I am calling this necklace and earring set “Winter Colors”.
I am so in love with the diamond cut rollo chain that I got from Artbeads that I have already ordered more.  It is on sale right now so hurry over and stock up!
These earrings are so light that you cannot even feel them on.
The bead just floats below your ear.
I went a little crazy adding beads to the toggle, but I was having so much fun with the beads being the perfect color and adding the coiled sterling silver wire for some fun and texture, that it was difficult to stop.
This design is a lot simpler than I normally do, but it seems that the designs I have in my head to do now are headed in that direction.  We’ll see what happens!
Hope your weekend has been fantastic!


The Artbeads.com products in this post were provided as a promotional gift by Artbeads.com, as part of their Design Partner & Blogging program.  I have been asked to review these products and give my honest opinion – good or bad.  My comments and opinions about these products are my honest, personal opinion and I have not been paid for any endorsement.