Bling Ring Frenzy

Yesterday I cleared off the paperwork from my studio desk and rewarded myself last night with making a few bling rings!

3 Rings done and one on the bead mat laid out. I use chain-nose, round-nose and cutter pairs of pliers to make the rings. I buy the ring blanks and ball end headpins from Fire Mountain Gems (each ring blank has 2 rows with 5 loops each). I buy the glittery Chinese crystals (8mm rondelle) from Annie's Beads online as well as at Beads on the Avenue store in Delray Beach. The top ring on the right also uses 8mm bicone beads together with the 8mm rondelles. I am so intensely focused when making these rings, that after making each one I have to get up and stretch everything in my body!!!

Here are bags of crystal combinations laid out with their corresponding ring colors (silver, gold, antique silver or gold) with accent beads that are put on the ball end headpin first to keep the headpin from slipping right through the large hole of the crystals. This is how I plan ahead to make it easy to whip up a ring or two when I have a little spare time and feel like making something.

Here is my desk layout with a bar, hanging cups and hanging hooks from IKEA. The artwork is mine! I keep the flip up OttLite plugged in and ready to go at all times.

 Each hanging cup has ring making supplies: left has ring blanks and ball tipped headpins, center has 6mm filler crystals (to add variety to the rings) and a pair of tweezers, and the right has 8mm crystal strands and a measuring tape.

 Here you can see how I am able to hang crystal strands that have loops on the end on the hooks and, my favorite part, tools are easily perched along the bar to keep them readily available!

Happy CREATING! :)     Tristina

Building A New Studio Office

Thank goodness for Friends and Family! Today my friend Higia came over to help move books, papers, furniture, odds and ends out of my jammed home office. Then my father and mother came over; mother to watch the kids for me and father to put together the IKEA bought Billy Bookshelves and Mickey Desk. All this in an effort to turn my home office into a beautifully organized home studio office!

Here are pictures of my dad and me working on the desk...notice the big blank wall behind me. Watch the transformation of that wall and 2 corners into a desk and many bookshelves for my extensive art, jewelry and fabric book collection!

I'll show you a picture of the 'library' wall when all is up and bolted in, hopefully on Sunday! I'm looking forward to having a home for the boxes and boxes of books that are now in my dining room while this construction is taking place. Isn't it true that sometimes things have to get messy and chaotic before order and ease sets in?

Happy Reading!   Tristina :)