…taking a bit of a blogging break, but I’ll be back! if you want to be notified when I start posting again, be sure to find the little “subscribe” widget in the sidebar, which will let you subscribe using a variety of blog readers or even email. I’ve been mostly on “maternity leave” from my [...]

Tested two more kinds of pens: the new sharpie writing pen (not permanent, didn’t work well) and some metallic permanent markers called colorsharp from a company called SRX, which worked great. I’ll update with pictures soon!

I’ve found two things that write/draw well on shrink plastic: colored pencils and permanent markers. My favorite thing to use is an ultra fine point sharpie in black – it writes so thin that after shrinking, it looks (to me anyway) as if I’d used a black ball point pen. I love how much detail [...]

I’m becoming something of an expert on making jewelry from shrink plastic…. no, really. I’ve made some things with shrinky dinks that I actually think are beautiful – worth wearing, displaying, and showing off. It isn’t a perfect material though – through trial and error, I’ve discovered that certain drawing/marking materials stick to it really [...]

I think I’ve proved to myself that beautiful jewelry can be made from materials like plastic and paper. The pieces shown above combine elements made from paper, resin, and shrink plastic. They are embellished with ink, colored pencils, scrapbooking eyelets, and more.

Thanks to Bob of Jewelry 24/7 for featuring one of my pieces along with several other gorgeous handmade pieces of amethyst jewelry on his daily jewelry feature.

Notice the distressed/aged look of one of the ball chains in the photo above? I thought I’d share how you can make one for yourself. It’s really easy, but it takes time. Step 1: get some cheap ball chains. I got mine at the craft store in the scrapbooking section. Step 2: leave the chain [...]

Over on my other blog, where I talk about pretty much anything other than jewelry that I’m into, I’ve been writing lots about mixed media. One really fun way to get started with mixed media art is doing an art journal – where you basically experiment with whatever media you can stick to or use [...]

Expect to see greens, coral-y oranges, bright purple, gray, and a neutral rosy shade in stores this fall – they are all in the Pantone fall 2010 color report! Now I’m wondering what I have in my bead stash that will work so I can make myself some great jewelry to go with the clothes [...]

I made this all-jewelry set on polyvore, so fun!