Weddings: Fall, Y'all!

Though Bead Up has been MIA on the blog scene, she's been making up for it by being equally and steadily busy making custom creations! (And I do apologize for being blog MIA - it's not you, it's me)! I hope to fill you in little by little with recaps of some custom pieces and wedding ensembles -- here's the first of hopefully many!
You know how in Project Runway the contestants are often given a client-based challenge, but afterwards chastised for not incorporating enough of their own "voice" into the final design? I will admit, this is often the case when I create wedding jewelry - I do what the bride asks and often tone down the Bead Up flair so as to keep it wedding respectable. 
But when my dear friend and sorority sister Regan asked that I not only make her wedding jewelry, but also consulted for my Bead Up design itself, I knew this would be a different kind of wedding job :) Regan started with the basics: she planned to wear a white wedding dress but wanted to accessorize with dark greys and charcoals with a bracelet, earrings, and a broach. After a few more series of questions, we agreed that making a dangly charm-crystal bracelet of sorts would be great, but an exaggerated one would be even better! Though as for the broach - she was leading that all up to me! Lastly, she asked for some matching dangle earrings - but not dainty bridal... funky bridal! LOVE IT. So, after showing Regan some hues of crystals and findings, we agreed on these: 

I have never purchased so many crystals for one piece of jewelry in my life! You can also see the materials I bought for the broach at the 3 o'clock of the photo. I am not going to lie - I had never made a broach before, but I love a good challenge. So I finally found a random pin holder thing, and along with some unique oversized Swarovski crystals and floral wire, I twisted and tied up this:

 And when I applied the base to the form, we had this:

Next was making the charm dangle bracelet. I wire wrapped over 200 Swarovski crystals and, one-by-one, bound them to a gun-metal chain. I loved how the crystals reflected the sunlight!  

After 200 rounds of measuring, clipping, wire wrapping, applying, and arranging, we had this bracelet!

 I sent Regan a photo of the earrings as seen above, though we both agreed that they needed a little "umph!" So...!

Regan's was the first wedding I was able to physically attend this year (that whole moving across the country thing got in the way of traveling across the country again)... and best of all - she got married in the exact same Garden Court where my hubs and I married nearly three years ago! It was a great "homecoming!" As for the jewelry, the trio was the perfect finishing touch to the already perfectly beautiful bride!

http://www.angiewilsonphotography.com/

She and Matt looked so chic and modernly romantic!

And though I had a hard time initially conceptualizing the dark grey accents to this wedding outfit... 

That not only did it match the men's color pallet...

But it even matched Regan's shoes! PERFECT combo!

http://www.angiewilsonphotography.com/ 

Oh, and let's not forget the Bridesmaids (and many of my other sorority sisters)!

...which were a combination of some gold leaf charms from LA's jewelry district and small orange crystals (which included a clip-on version, too!). 

...which, I must say, went very well with the orange fall leaf theme. Who would have known it would have gone so well with the dark grey?  

And when I wasn't helping with the jewelry at the wedding, I was busy taking photos of the guests at the photo booth! Regan's wedding was so well planned and Bead Up is still thrilled to have been a part of it. Thank you for including me, Matt and Regan - you are loved! 

Fall Line = COMPLETE!

I have been a bad, bad blogger. Please accept my apologies for suddenly vanishing into thin air over the past week! After my jewelry party (more on that later!), I came down with a fierce cold and missed a WHOLE week of work! With all that's been on my plate at work, in addition to not having any additional pictures of the party to share, I have had no time or energy to blog! Please forgive me. ::hug:: Great, now that we've made up we can move on. There is so much I want to share about the success that was the jewelry party with you, but I am still waiting on pictures from my impromptu photographer and don't want to spill all the beans without pictures to accompany! So if you don't mind hanging tight for a few more days I would be most grateful! With the left over energy of the party's success, I have gone out on a limb and signed up for 3 other shows. The first is a "Christmas Boutique" at a local Lutheran church here in town - and it's this Saturday! I don't know anything much about this show other than it's a collection of artisans and crafters setting up booths in a church fellowship hall (which is the type of thing I grew up attending!). I have been told that I will have a table and my name on a program, but other than that, I am going into this rather blindly! I haven't stressed out about the event because I have alot of products left over from the jewelry party with tags still in place on each item. It could be a success or a huge flop - but since I already have the products ready to go, might as well try to sell more! The hubs is able to join me for the whole of the event, which means that any last minute need will be met easily and with enthusiastic help. I plan to also work on a few pieces while at the show - I have from other jewelry makers that doing so has helped sales and custom orders at the event. 15% of my proceeds will go back to the church. Meanwhile, while preparing for the jewelry show, I made all sorts of new items to premier at the party. Of course not everything sold, so I have added them to my Etsy site, concluding my Fall Line! Take a look! (click on any picture to go to it's corresponding Etsy page)...

I can't wait to get back into the loop with you all! Thanks for your patience!

Do It Yourself: ARTSY Jewelry Displays

For awhile now I have been saying to my Hubs, "Wouldn't it be great if I could figure a way to create a clothes-pin line kind of effect to hang some of my necklaces on?" We wracked and wracked our brain as to how to exactly do this - do we create some kind of upstanding beam that can hold the two ends of a wire? Do I nail holes in the wall? Do I gut a large frame? Do I hang them from a few table lamps? Hubs and I walked around Lowe's aimlessly a few weekends ago with a pad of paper and my sketching pen at hand - though had no idea how to even begin this crazy project. Finally we left Lowe's disappointed that nothing had sparked our creativity and that we would have to find another way to display the dozens of necklaces I had already mounted on business cards for the party. Next, while walking around Michael's, I found the cutest little clothes pins that would have been perfect for the project. Having already given up on it, we walked through the painting section of the store and had a revelation: use the back of a large canvas! I already had a simple wooden easel that I bought from IKEA years ago at home and that has been aching to be used... so it seemed perfect! Here's how we created our latest jewelry holding device!...

So we started with my trusty (and inexpensive!) IKEA easel, a 2x2' piece of plywood ($10), and a package of 2 2x3' plain white mounted canvases ($8 at Michael's)... you might recognize the dowels from last week's T-stand project where we put Oriental Trading Company to shame.

We then mounted the canvases against the piece of plywood so they don't fall over (especially once stocked with products!). We nailed it from the back so as to best preserve the canvas itself in case I ever want to paint on it (which, one day, will happen!).

We measured the height of each business card (3") and figured they each needed at least an inch of wiggle room for the mini-clothes pin. I then took some cheap floral wire I've had sitting around for decades and wrapped it around the nails to create my "clothes line."

We must have wrapped the wire around each nail a dozen times or so!

I had been packaging many of my Fall Line and silver dainty necklaces on vertical business cards and included the materials used and price on the back of each card. Then I started adding them to the canvas... And them added some more!

And before you knew it - we had another jewelry display on our hands!

I am really happy with the result, especially since it cost it less than $20 and can be used again in a different capacity. And best of all, it is light, east to store, and holds 48 necklaces! Whadaya think?

Statement Necklaces for a Black Tie Affair, Etc.

Bead Up had a very, very busy weekend. A very project filled weekend! For starters, the husband and I made 3 (count 'em, 3!) display holders for the upcoming jewelry party! I will be blogging about them every Wednesday until the party :) Let's just say that they all turned out better than I had expected and well within our budget! Secondly, I finished making the most of what I call "dainty necklaces" for the party, and have now moved onto making earrings (I find that I can make more when I stick with one type of product and just produce them in mass quantities rather than jumping all over the place). Next on the list is bracelets and then gifts, and before you know it, it will be party time! I also made a few pairs of earrings for one of my high school friends who asked me to make her something to match the heirloom yellow pearl necklace she is wearing on her wedding day. Abbey originally asked me to make all the wedding jewelery, but after finding her grandma's pearl necklace she made some earrings to match it for her bridesmaids. She called one day in a frantic because she just couldn't come up with a design she liked for herself. On the right is a picture of what Abbey made next to her Grandma's necklace for her bridesmaids, and below is what I came up with. I figured I would give her options in addition to paying homage to the design she originally came up with, but with some extra length to differentiate :) What do you think (I personally like the middle ones the best!)?

Lastly, I also spent some time making several attempts at a statement necklace to go with a little black dress I planned to wear for a taping of Dancing with the Stars. A few months back while in Chinatown I bought some crazy golden coral stick-lookin' beads (which my shopping buddy Erin though were horrendous!). I also bought some beautiful turquoise crystals in downtown LA last month that I have been dying to use. Here is necklace #1:

($26 on Etsy)

I like how it turned out, and though I never mind wearing brown and black together, I didn't think this necklace went well with my dress. On to design #2. I bought a bunch of REALLY heavy, funky, beautiful agate pink and purple beads at a craft store next to Mood Fabrics (the one as seen on the current season of Project Runway) in West Hollywood a few weeks ago and have been itching to use these, too. Here's a little choker of a piece that I came up with:

($30 on Etsy)

I liked how this one went with the dress, too, though still wasn't 100% satisfied as it still seemed to lack the WOW factor I was hoping to achieve. So I finally tackled some crazy big amethyst chips I have been avoiding in fear that I would only find frustration in them. Turns out, I found a winner! I added some little green beads as accent colors and double-wired the thing to make sure it wasn't going anywhere! So yesterday we set off to see a filming of Dancing with the Stars! Here we are before leaving for CBS Studios in West Hollywood. We waited in line for 2 hours before finally finding out that more VIPs came to the taping than they had expected and we were about 30 people shy of getting in. Though that was the sad news, the good news was that they would give us free confirmed seating VIP tickets to a taping of our choice! I left a happy camper after all :) I will let you know when I finally do end up going (I am hoping for next week!). Lastly, did you get a chance yet to enter Bead Up's October Giveaway on Etsy It Up? If not, what the heck are you waiting for? You have up to 13 chances to win one of my Fall Line necklaces! See you tomorrow when I replace tomorrow's I Love You, Wednesday's with I Love DIY Projects that Save Me Money!! ;)

Fall Line Giveaway!

Ok, lovelies! It's my favorite event of the month:

GIVEAWAY TIME!

I found Celeste's blog, Etsy It Up!, one day while blurfing (blog surfing), and immediately fell in love. Her site featuring Etsy sellers is visually stunning, clean, crisp, and very interactive (and she uses blogger!). And best of all - she often features awesome giveaways! And this week, guess who she is featuring? (And don't you think our blog header designs and names go so well together?)

Celeste and I decided on giving away one of my new Fall Line items, this Sprout Necklace :)

You have up to 13 (woah!) chances to enter - so what are you waiting for? Click HERE to enter!

Also, if you buy something from Bead Up between now and the 10th and mention Celeste's giveaway, I will offer free shipping and even throw in a free pair of earrings!

Lots of love,

~Christyn

Preparing my Fall Line and for a Jewelry Party!

Welcome to Fall, Y'all! It's been a busy season in the Bead Up world, as I have been spending alot of my free time preparing for a jewelry party a friend is hosting for me in less than a month! This past weekend I got the invitations I designed in the mail (I did the text and my sorority sister Mary Ellen did the awesome illustration - make sure you check out her site!) I am really pleased with how they look! I passed about two dozen out to people at church yesterday alone, and am going to mail about two dozen more out and give the other 80 postcards to my co-sponsor Cheryl of Cupcakinitup! and the host of the event, Marla! Cupcakinitup! and I also spent a good part of Saturday taste testing chocolate frosting for the event, attending a decorating demo at Michaels, and choosing cupcake liners (pink zebra stripped!). I can't tell you how much fun this whole event has already been! At this point I have made over 100 necklaces and earrings for the event, yet my to-do list still seems endless! Anyone have any jewelry party ideas/tips that they would like to share? :) And to add to the fun, yesterday I got an e-mail asking if I would like to be a featured vendor at a local Christian school's Christmas fundraising event in December. Would I? Sign me up! Now I have even more of a reason to create in bulk! That said, it's been hard deciding what to post on Etsy and what to save for my party. I have decided to at least have my whole front page on Etsy be items from my Fall Line, so here are another 5 items I added today (all bird themed)! Let me know what you think! (Click on any of the images to see the listing on Etsy)...

Bird with the Yellow Rose necklace

Around the Blue Birdie Bend earrings

The Spirit's Grace Necklace

Bye Blue Birdie Brass Earrings

Bird Plaque with Pink Roses necklace

I love you, Wednesdays.

Because, seriously, Friday is still 2 days away. I love you, Wednesdays is my bloggin' attempt at a.) shutting up about my products and sharing the love of others' with others! and b.) sharing sources of inspiration that often stands behind my jewelry and creative process. Last week my blogging friend Karen sent me a link to a website she thought I would find intriguing. Two words: heck yeah. She suggested I check out Lovely Clusters, which is a website dedicated to finding beautiful items and showcasing them by color, theme, or even season. I LOVE these kinds of websites (as mentioned in last week's ILYW blog entry!). Karen even suggested that I try to see if I could get my stuff featured on the site. I sheepishly asked the site's administer to consider Bead Up in her collection, and within a day she responded positively! So here's your challenge, everyone: visit Lovely Cluster's "Product Cluster" feature and see if you can find the two Bead Up products that are listed (hint: they are under the categories "jewelry," "autumn," "fuchsia," and "orange."). Post your answer in the comments section of this entry - the winners will get a free gift with their next Bead Up purchase! After finding my Bead Up items listed on the site, I decided to have a little fun of my own on the site. I have been saving this Crate and Barrel advertisement for some time now because I am just in love with it's color scheme. It totally mirrors what I am trying to go for in my Fall Line, both in terms of color and differing textures. Using the Product Cluster feature on the site and searching under a few of the colors listed, I came up with this little collection of color:

Marang97, claireyhairey, namolio lamarquisedesanges, ohhellofriend, CassiaBeck lamarquisedesanges, Marang97, SophieIsobelDesigns beanandthesprout, inklore, CassiaBeck

Don't forget to visit their Etsy sites, too!

So, what inspires you today?