To Each Their Own

At this very moment, I am sitting in my living room, there is a fire roaring in the woodburner, the kids are outside together playing nicely, and yeehaw, my laptop is working again!! Do you hear the choir of angels signing and feel that sense of everything being right the world? LOL, no? Me neither... but it is a good day.

I have so much to tell you all about! I feel like my blog is suddenly an old friend I haven't seen in ages and I need to catch up with. There is today's topic, stuff around the house, news about the book, new jewelry I have been working on, and hmmm... what else? Oh, we have the Fall Walk this weekend, and the boys won their first football game in three years last weekend!! Hopefully I can get to everything over the next few days. Don't let me forget anything.

Today's post is the one I have been most excited to share. I was working on it the afternoon that my computer's ac adapter died. It left me with half my photos on my laptop and the other half trapped on my camera memory. I got to work on my very first round robin!! What is a round robin you ask? In this case, it is a jewelry exchange between a group of friends that has each lady working on each piece. The result is one of a kind keepsakes that have been created with wonderful energy and enthusiasm. They are truly special things.

A few weeks back, the lovely Lorelei had a random drawing for participants to be in a round robin. Now, I wasn't picked for it, so I sent Lorelei an email telling her to please rig the results next time so that I get to be involved. LOL. She responded with an invitation to participate in a separate exchange. Of course I wanted to take part!! The little birdies tweet tweeting together on this project are wonderful. There is Lorelei Eurto (d'uh, I told you it was her idea), Mary Jane Dodd, Barbe Saint John, and little ole me.

We started by each creating a necklace "start"... a few inches of a little sumthin' sumthin' to fire the imaginations of the next person in line. You can see the start of my necklace HERE on Lorelei's blog. Everyone mailed their starts to Lorelei, and she added to each. From there, she sent all the necklaces to me... and I added to each.

This is what I recieved from Lorelei:



And here is what it looked like when it left my studio:



I added a pretty pair of egg shaped lampwork beads on vintaj brass colored wire from Parawire. I think the beads (one transparent purple, one toupe-ish) pick up the subtle purples in that darling pendant she started with. I really held back. I had to remind myself that there are two more ladies that need to add to this and I have to leave them something to work with.

This is what I started with for Mary Jane's necklace:



And here it is after:



For this one I added a simple rustic ring of glass for an accent to the clasp. I used a sterling silver link that mixes up the metals in this but pulls out silver in that tiny HINT charm in the pendant. I also put a tiny disc on the back side of the button that Lorelei added.

This is the piece from Barbe:



And here is how I sent it out:



I totally think Barbe can pull off the big lampwork disc I added to the beaded side of this necklace. Her handmade pendant totally followed me all around the room. It had her eye on me making sure I did a good job. LOL. On the opposite side of the chain, I used some red jump rings to trap a small red glass ring. I think it is super funky and super fabulous!!

I can not wait to see my necklace when it comes back to me in a few weeks. I sent all of these off to Mary Jane the other day, once she addes to things, they will travel on to Barbe. I have begged and pleaded via email to get someone to add a pendant to mine!! LOL, I am shameless. I can't wait to see what they pick for me. This was such a fun and inspiring project and I really want to do it again!!

Who's game?