Some Brooches and Fire Chakra Colours

Fire Colours Chakra Bracelet with silver trim

So here is the bracelet that Blogger and my images file was playing games with yesterday!

We all need a little fire on these cold winter days, something to warm us up and create a spark.

These beads are all made on a transparent base which brings light to the colours.  Red, orange and yellow represent the first three chakras - the base chakra is red - low and slow, reflecting our base security - home comforts.  The sacral chakra is orange - big and pulsing - that represents our passion and creativity and the the solar plexus (surprise!) is yellow - shining like a shield at our mid section.  This represents our strength of will, our self protection - our adrenal system.

To if you've been feeling a bit lack-lustre and need a shot of energy this may give you a lift!

Oh, and $180 becomes $136 in the website sale!

Large Transparent & Dove Grey & Red Lace Brooch

For something completely different, this transparent gray based bead is overlaid with soft dove gray, then highlighted with bright red in a lace pattern.   

Perfect for your winter coat or jacket. $75 becomes just $60 using the 20% discount via the Website Sale!

 

Medium Black and White Lace Bead Brooch

Black and white is always good in winter - pop this on your favourite cardi and you're dressed!  

$65 becomes $52 this month.

 

Large Dark Ivory & Turquoise Round Dotty Brooch

Add a "pop" of ivory and turquoise to your teal with this organic looking brooch. 

$75 becomes $60!

 

Small Round Light & Dark Pink Flow Brooch

I love a bit of pink - it's so girly and feminine and soft. 

This little brooch reduces from $55 to $44 in the sale!

Small Round True Red Raku Brooch

And finally a shot of Red Raku - just a little one, though!

This style goes on almost anything with its lovely organic colour - there's a little bit of blue, beige, brown, black...and $55 becomes only $44 in the sale.

And let me know if you need any help choosing - perhaps you would like to see another photo or talk it over - I'm happy to help - email me or give me a call.

This Week 6th July 2012

How was your week?  It seems that Mother Nature has been busy creating havoc in lots of parts of the world, with storms and bushfires in the United States and floods in Australia.  I hope you were all safe.

1.   Just apropos of nothing I got an envelope full of love and glitter from one of my sisters!  A hug in the post!  Photographing the envelope, complete with its stamp made me think how little we use the regular postal service these days, but how very special it is to get really personal mail.  I have made a “note to self” (a regular occurrence) to send more personal mail!

2.      I’m excited about the Website Sale – I’m offering 20% discount on absolutely everything on my website – it’s been fun to hear from old friends and new.  You have until the end of the month to shop, but it’s probably a good idea to get in before the pieces you have your eye on are gone.

      A little reminder of how to do it...Just sign up for my email newsletter on the "News" page , then select your pieces, proceed to the checkout and enter BUYBEADS in the discount code box.  Simple!

3.     I’ve finished some lovely work this week – I made the Chakra Lotus Flower Necklace and bracelets that I showed you earlier in the week, and I have finished a red and grey necklace for someone and am in the middle of the design process of another two necklaces for people – one orange and red and the other of brown based CanCans.  This is when I think I have the best job in the world!

 .4.  There has been the most amazing full moon this week.  I love a full moon – I know that some people find them unsettling, but I feel enlivened and in touch with the elements when the moon shows all her glory.

5.   I had a small brainstorming session this week with the fabulous local artist, Robin Slow.  I just love his work – he paints using kokowai (paints mixed from ground local stone used in traditional Maori art), soot and acrylic paint and his beautiful earthy toned artworks have a distinctly Maori flavor. 

Here’s a little taster, but if you want to see more go to www.kokowaiartist.co.nz

I’ve been looking at symbols, talismans and amulets lately and thinking about the things that are of my world and that I understand.  I learnt so much in that short time!

This is the symbol for Aroha - the Maori word for love

6.    The poinsettia plant that grows outside our bedroom window is flowering madly, despite being hacked down at ground level last summer because it scratches against the wall when it blows around.  It was planted as a pot plant after Christmas one year and just grew and grew, till now it becomes a large shrub every year.  I’m not a big fan of them, but how can you not love something so vigorous?

Inspired by Liv Lane's Bliss List.

Juicy New Chakra Lotus Flowers - and the Website Sale

Chakra Lotus Flowers Necklace Whole Chakra Colours with Silver Trim

Do you remember those beads I showed you hanging around my jewellers bench a week or so ago?

I got them finished, took their portraits and here they are.

I had a hankering to make a really strong but transparent set of Chakra Lotus Flowers - the colours are mostly the deeper tones and the base colours and spacers go this way too.  I wanted to anchor this piece with silver rather than crystal to make it really robust looking - a statement of colour.

The bracelet is the same.  The beads in both pieces are not that large - it's really just a good pop of positive colour!

Chakra Lotus Flowers Bracelet Whole Chakra Colours with Silver Trim

The fantastic news for you is that these new works are included in the Website Sale, so if you order them online you can get 20 percent off the price.  That means that you get $70 off the necklace, bringing the price down to $280, and $36 off the bracelet, bringing that down to $146!

Turquoise Chakra Lotus Flowers Bracelet

I've also been toying with the idea of using natural gemstones and was drawn to turquoise.  This bracelet is based on aqua blue glass (blue being the colour representing the fifth chakra), making this a piece based on communications of all kinds.  It still has the chakra colours represented, this time including both heart chakra colours, green (for healing)  and pink (for love).

There is another Fire Colours Chakra Bracelet to come, but I'm struggling with the images today and Blogger is making things difficult!  That leaves me something to show you tomorrow!

This Week 30th June 2012

I'm enjoying this new habit of rounding up the week - looking through it and picking out the best bits, and this week has surely had some high spots!
1.  I'm enjoying finishing some work that's been hanging around waiting for my final design decisions - these chakra lotus flowers are almost there - just the clasps and final sizing adjustments to be made and they will be ready to have their portraits taken and enter the world.

There's a Turquoise based Chakra Lotus Flowers Bracelet here and one entirely in "Fire" colours

2.  There's something very luxurious about being able to tidy up - laying things out, touching them and dreaming of what they might become.  I've always had a love of touchstones and amulets - perhaps that's where this drifting and sifting might take me?  I find the sight of a tray of ordered glass so seductive!

Where are the hot colours?  On the bench being used!

3.  I've really enjoyed going down the Pinterest rabbit hole this week, following this train of thought that's been lurking.  I'm always quite happy with my own company and have enjoyed the clear mind space to play...

Enjoying being a hermit this week

4.  On the other hand, I loved our Matariki/midwinter feast at Ratanui Lodge last Saturday night.  The beautiful group of women I walk with in the mornings and their partners got together for an evening of delicious food, scrummy wines, elegant surroundings, superb service and the very  best of company.  Thanks guys, you do it so well!

The Lodge is full of the most elegant antiques

This was the dessert table - for after we had eaten our rich little Christmas puddings!

 

5.  It's wonderful to have all my walking friends home from their travels and a treat to hear the stories they brought back.

I hope your week has been wonderful too!  Spare five minutes to think about the best bits - it makes the world a happier place.

This Week 16th June 2012

We're being bears this week and hibernating - there's been snow on the hills and a first for me, I had ice on the windscreen of my car this morning.  Yeah, I know, all you tough southerners and folk from cold winter climates are telling me to harden up!  Winter in Golden Bay is very mild and the beaches are looking truly spectacular!

I've had a great week - there's lots of creative juice flowing in the studio and into my journals.
1.  I was really inspired by a blog that I visited from Liv Lane's Weekly Little Bliss List Links (and for the life of me I can't remember where, the blogger's name or her blog name - apologies), who had entered a challenge to decorate one index card every day.  It got me thinking so I pulled out a wee notebook sent to me by my dear friend Kim and decided that I would fill in a page every day - just to remind myself to pick up a pen, paintbrush, whatever...and ink the page.  I'm enjoying the process...

2.  I bought myself a little treat this week from Healthpost - Royal Honey Nectar Moisturising Facelift.  This magic potion is made in a tiny area I lived in for 3 years called Tapawera - right up the top of the Motueka River Valley.  It's been developed by the local beekeper from bee venom and is apparently Botox in a jar.  Kate is reported to have used the Face Mask in preparation for THE wedding.  Anyhow, it's really nice to use - feels pretty natural and I can really feel my skin tighten up.  I put my normal moisturiser on over it.  However, no-one's commented that I look twenty years younger...yet :).

3.  We have a new venture in Golden Bay called Village Milk .  A local farmer is selling milk from his cows via a vending machine at his gate.  It's A2 unpasteurized - that means that the cows naturally produce milk with certain beneficial fats - they're checked fastidiously so the milk can be guaranteed healthy and can therefore be sold unpasteurized.  Read up more on their site if you're interested in the science of it - it's fascinating. It seems that lots of local people are as into authentic consumption as we are - it has become so popular that we often find a small queue at the vending machine.  It's lovely to see our alternative little community helping one another out with the technology of it too!  I met a friend there last night who recommended V8 juice bottles as the perfect receptacle - even better than the bottles available in the bottle vending machine - as we have.

Wild bird seed and dripping

Melt the dripping and add the seed.  Pour into plastic containers (so you can run a knife around them to release the pudding)

Put them out in the garden and watch the birds come from far and wide - it can take a little while for them to realise that it's there.

4.  I've been making "birdie puddings" this week.  I make them every year at this time for the poor wee birds who have so little to eat right now.  I figure it's my way of making up for the occasional victim of the fur babies.

5.  The Toy Boy - who has braved ice and snow to take the toys to The Nelson Market this morning - made me up a fresh batch of bead boards this week.  I'm so lucky to have his help with the little finishing touches.  Now all I have to do is stamp them all!

6.  This week I've been playing with red, black and grey - I  have three necklaces on the go in these colours and some pink Swarovski pearls combined with some silver and a transparent glass heart...and I've been working on a new version of the Chakra Beads...the studio is the cosiest place in town!

How about you?  Have you had a good week?  How about making a (mental or actual) list of six things that warmed your week...

They TOOK what they NEEDED

In the TAKE what you NEED poster, I found the best toy I've had in a long time!

It's been a real pleasure watching people first discover the poster, then noticing that more and more - and eventually all - of the tabs have been removed.

It was interesting to notice that "FREEDOM" was the first tab to go.

I wonder what that means?  Financial, spiritual, emotional...?  I guess it means something different to all of us.

The last tabs to go were PEACE and HEALING, then the very last was BEAUTY, which I thought was rather nice. It seems that our "takers" this week were more interested in their spiritual well-being than their physical appearance.  How very Golden Bay!

Now, I must tell you that I haven't owned up to doing this to anyone locally, and if you come into the shop and front up to me I will tell that I couldn't say who was responsible.  I will deny all knowledge 'cos half of the fun is anonymity!

A nice guy came in and while he was browsing the beads we chatted a little, as we do.  He did ask if I had made the sign and I just looked dumb (not hard - there you go - I said it before you did!). 

He said how cool he thought it was and showed me his tab - how sweet!

I think I'm addicted to this now, and I'll make another one soon.

Do you have any ideas of new "gifts" to use?

Oh, by the way, here's that new necklace and bracelet I was working on for the Stitchbird's new shop in Wellington.  Peacock Colours Chakra Lotus Flowers...

That Purple Patch

Well, I had a week of finishing things off finally, and it feels so good to have 

1. New work in the cabinets, and

2. A clean(er) and tidy(er) workbench

3. A flash of purple around - I'm not sure why, but it was missing.

So...TaDa! Here are the Purple Tiger Beads in a necklace

and a bead... Large Purple Violet Tiger Heart Pendant

The Amethyst Purple Chakra Lotus Flowers necklace turned out like this

the bracelet and earrings like this...

Purple is one of those colours that is different in everyone's opinion - and it's really hard to achieve a real royal purple in glass. In the Tiger Beads I've achieved it by layering glass, finishing off with a gorgeous thick transparent layer. They're really quite vibrant.

The Amethyst colour is one that the makers of glass call purple, but to me it is much more pink that that. This is the colour of amethyst gemstones with lots of shades which give texture to the pieces.

In the Chakra System purple and violet represent the higher, lighter, faster Sixth and Seventh Chakras of the third eye (intuition) and the crown (connection to the Universe).

Perhaps this is why I have been connected to a website which delivers daily inspiration?

www.tut.com/theclub/

I've just begun to receive a morning message...something positive and encouraging to ponder within for a day.

This was my thought for today...

"An end result, imagined clearly and acted upon with expectation, Lesley, will always force the circumstances necessary to bring about its own manifestation, no matter how unpredictable, unlikely, or even impossible those circumstances may have previously seemed.

Like clockwork,
    The Universe"

Happy New Year

Gong Xi Fa Cai!
I wonder what the Year of the Dragon will bring?  Health, happiness and good fortune to you all I hope.
It's been a busy old time here in Takaka with lots of summer visitors, but never so busy that there's not a place to enjoy a relaxing cuppa in the shade.
The workroom is warm (sometimes a little too warm!)and buzzing and I've really enjoyed catching up with a few of you.
I seem to be having a "purple patch" at the moment, playing with purples, amethysts and blues - mostly started by the blue/purple chakra lotus flowers necklace still sitting on my bench waiting to be completed!  There's a green cherry blossoms necklace in there, too and a purple Tiger Beads necklace and the beginnings of an amethyst chakra lotus flowers necklace too...along with some other bits and pieces that are awaiting the perfect accompaniements!

And there's a tray of red and black beads that need attention...are we hooking into a theme here?  Do I actually need to complete some works?

I'll leave you with a little treasure that I found on the beach this morning

Aren't they precious?  I'm guessing that the croquembouche was made by an adult?