Get your Christmas on.

Posted on 19th November 2011 in Christmas, crafting, experiment

I love Christmas ornaments, as I’m sure lots of people do, especially when they are handmade or gifted from special people.  As a kid, my Grandmother Bebe subscribed to a series of Christmas craft books called Christmas Is Coming.  I used to pour over these books for hours, over and over again, waiting for Christmas to come so that I could make all the fun things in these books.  The craft that I remember most are wine cork reindeer.  My family saved wine corks for over a year to collect enough to make a giant herd that could encircle the gigantic kitchen island/bar in my grandmother’s kitchen. The looked much like these.

Now that I’m older and not going home for the holidays I feel the itch to make ornaments for my own tree.  All sorts of ideas come to mind.  There’s salt dough, paper crafts and painting glass balls.  I envision all matter of craft supplies such as pipe cleaners, glitter, jingle bells, beads, construction paper and old Christmas cards.

This year I am organizing a Christmas ornament swap.  I know it’s a bit last minute, but I think it would be fun.  If you are interested in swapping ornaments then please email me at designateddryden@gmail.com and let me know if you would like to swap up to 3 ornaments per person with others randomly assigned to you.  Children are welcome to participate.  You should include your address and let me know if you are interested in having an International partner (no guarantees though).  Sign up by November 26th (I know that’s only a week).  I will get you your ornament partners assigned to you by Dec. 1st and then you will have until Dec. 10th to mail (or swap if that person happens to live in your town).  You can let me know if you are interested here in the comments as well.

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31 Day Challenge: 1st Week

Posted on 9th October 2011 in Designated Dryden, Etsy

There were a few small set backs for the 31 day challenge, mostly involving busy work schedules, missing camera batteries and sinus headaches. I only missed one day technically and now I’m all caught up.  Here’s the run down of this weeks posts.  Each image is a link to the Etsy listing.

Sunday:

Shooting Arrow earrings.  (I love these earrings!)

Monday:

Dark green tourmaline tassels.  They are so dark in fact that they are practically black.

Tuesday:

Malachite short 9 stone necklace.

Wednesday:

Peridot stack earrings.

Thursday:

Skeleton key story cord earrings.  I am proud and happy to report that these sold within 5 minutes of posting!

Friday:

Lapis lazuli stack earrings.

Saturday:

Unakite upcycled medal.

Now off to prepare pieces and photos for next weeks posts!  So fun!

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31 Day Challenge: Day 1

Posted on 1st October 2011 in Uncategorized

I am part of a great group called Starship Crafty Biz, lead by Tara Swiger (more about the group in the near-ish future).  During one of our recent talks the topic of giving yourself a challenge came up.  Some of the other members of the group do a variety of daily personal and professional challenges to keep themselves motivated.  Some are part of Project 365, the daily photography project.  Some create a new piece of art every day, others send out daily newsletters of their artwork to their customers.  All of them seem to get something out of this.  I love challenges, and earlier this year was working on the Iron Craft Challenge, but time constraints and travelling made me lose focus.  I decided that I would do a shorter challenge, a 31 day challenge to list a new piece of jewelry to my etsy shop everyday in October.  I’ll be posting them to my twitter and facebook fan page daily and doing a weekly round-up here on the blog every Saturday.  Today being the first day of the challenge AND Saturday, I only have one piece to show you, but it’s a piece that I love very much.  It is the Feng Shui brooch that I originally created while I was participating in the Iron Craft, and originally wrote about it here.

Here’s the brooch, and it’s etsy link.

 

You’ll be seeing two branches of pieces stemming from this piece.  One is a line of brooches made partially from recycled jewelry bits, the other is a small line of pieces inspired by the Feng Shui chime.  Hope you like what you see listed in the coming month!

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Guest Post: Wedding Bell Baubles

Posted on 16th August 2011 in Designated Dryden, guest post, jewelry, weddings

Today we have a special guest post from my dear friend Rickelle, for whom I had the pleasure of working with to design her wedding jewelry (and also serve as her maid of honor). I loved working with her in this capacity and hope to have the opportunity to work with more brides in the future.

Picture of our guest blogger, Rickelle, and her husband, Shaun

Hello, Designated Dryden fans! I’m Rickelle, the girl that was lucky enough to have my wedding jewelry custom designed by Dryden…and honored to have her as my wonderful maid of honor.

Let me begin by saying that my wedding to Shaun would not have been as wonderful without our friends and family.  And I’m not just saying that. Soon after we were engaged, Shaun quit his job to go to law school full time; and my job ended unexpectedly. We were on a fairly tight budget. But let me tell you, having a wedding that is made possible by your friends’ and family’s help and love is way better than any high budget wedding.

But now let’s get to the jewelry! I am so glad Dryden could help me with this. I am pretty clueless when it comes to these sorts of things, and I knew that Dryden would design something great while keeping my style in mind.  As you may have seen in Dryden’s earlier post, my something borrowed was a pearl necklace of my great grandmother’s, but it was way too long to wear with my sweetheart neckline. I needed to find a way to temporarily make it shorter. I was really amazed by Dryden’s solution to tie it into a pretty scalloped design. It was just the right style to complement my simple wedding gown, and it was really hard to give it back to my mom after the wedding.

Also, the same night Shaun proposed, our 4 year anniversary, he gave me a gorgeous pair of diamond studs.  I really wanted to wear them at our wedding, but I also felt I needed something a little longer and more dangly since my hair would be up and my dress was a pretty clean design. Dryden had the great idea to use an earring jacket to string pearls from my studs. This also tied together my necklace and earrings into one consistent look.

The best part about these earrings is that she also gave me hooks to convert the earring jackets into stand alone earrings without the studs for a more casual look. I wore them almost every day of my honeymoon, and I wear them pretty close to every day now! They go with everything, and it means a lot to me that I can wear something (other than my wedding band, of course) that reminds me of that special day every time I wear it.

Me on our honeymoon in beautiful Barcelona, Spain with my Designated Dryden earrings.

 

Having Dryden as Maid of Honor and having her design my wedding jewelry were two of the best wedding decisions I made. Dryden’s always been a wonderful, talented friend, and it meant a lot to me to have her so involved in mine and Shaun’s special day.

 

Dryden and I at the reception.

Wedding photo credit: Jason Travis www.jasontravisphoto.com

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Mighty Ugly workshop

Posted on 12th July 2011 in community, crafting, experiment

Back in June I took my mother and my grandmother, Roro, along with me to I Heart Art PDX’s Etsy Party.  There was quilting and embroidery happening when we arrived, but we were informed that in just a few minutes there would be a Mighty Ugly project table.  YES!  What a great project for my mom, Roro and I to participate in!  They were in for a treat.

Not sure what Might Ugly is?  Well it’s a challenge really, a challenge to make something ugly.  It’s the brain child of Kim Werker, a Vancouver, BC based crafter and writer.  At a craft party she decided to attempt to make a doll from some really ugly fabric, on top of this she had never sewn before.  She decided if she attempted to make the doll ugly, then she couldn’t fail.  What she realized in the process was that in making something ugly, the pressure to perform was removed.  What a great concept, right?  I mean I know that as a crafter I tend to get stuck in my own need for perfectionism.  When you make something purposely ugly you break that cycle.  It kind of reminds me of the tacky dress days we used to have back in school.  No one could judge you that day because everyone was tacky.

Here are the guidelines she sets forth when taking the Mighty Ugly Challenge:

  1. Set aside an hour or two. Unplug the phone.
  2. Grab materials and supplies you won’t miss. If you’d just as soon give them away or throw them out, they’re perfect.
  3. Make an ugly creature. And by ugly, I mean hideous, grotesque, revolting. Not, “not so pretty.” In this challenge, “not so pretty” is a big fat FAIL.
  4. Notice how you feel and what you think as you do it. Does the voice in your head sound different while you’re making ugly? What do you feel and think when you’re done?
  5. Take photos. Share them in the Mighty Ugly Flickr group.
  6. If you feel like sharing your experience, submit to Mighty Ugly and we might feature you here on this site so other people can get inspired by your ugly.

So at a table full of supplies provided by my beloved SCRAP, we set to work.  Here are the results.

My mother, Bridget, made her interpretation of Gall Bladder disease (something she dealt with in 2009) by making an interactive doll.  From his mouth he is spewing yellow pus and you can open him up to find all sorts of oddities.

I made a might ugly hat our of a scrap of leather and some fabric bits, all attached together with the scariest looking yellow hot glue I’ve ever seen, and Roro made a monster mask from a scarf and attached the paper bits with staples.

You can see more pictures of the Mighty Ugly Project from the I Heart Art Party in the Mighty Ugly flickr pool.

 

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Iron Craft #24 – Something For Him – Extra long wool scarf tutorial

Posted on 15th June 2011 in Designated Dryden, Iron Craft, writing

Still working on catching up with The Iron Craft Challenge, but I figure if I get this one in that’s a start.  This week’s theme was Father’s Day.  I had already mailed my gift to my dad, so I went ahead and made him his Christmas gift and I’m making this a tutorial!  I went to the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store and bought several bolt end pieces from a large bin marked $5 a pound. Then I bought a bag of thin ivory color strips to make tassels.  It was a pretty easy project, and I’m I think my dad will like it.

First of all the piece of plaid fabric I bought was pretty large for the price, especially since a full yard was $20.  It measured 24” by 97”and while I wanted the scarf to be long (my dad is 6’2”) I felt like it was too wide to be comfortable.  I cut it in half length-wise.

I cut the little strips into smaller pieces.

Then I used my scissors and poked small holes along the edge.

Then I folded the strips in half and poked them through the hole and looped the ends through.

The final product is so lovely and fuzzy.  I hope my dad loves it, but more importantly I hope that I remember where I put it when Christmas rolls around.

 

 

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Iron Craft #22 – Al Fresco

Posted on 3rd June 2011 in Designated Dryden, Iron Craft

Wow, May got away from me without completing several Iron Craft Challenges on time. But all for good reason, like work and travel and a wedding.  Anyways, this week’s theme was Al Fresco and I couldn’t think of anything more perfect than customizing myself a reusable tumbler.  I drink copious amounts of water, and usually carry a water bottle or plastic cup with me, but I’ve taken a liking to the insulated plastic tumblers because they don’t sweat when full of ice like other containers.

So I painted it with a large tree and my name in black acrylic paint.  It’s simple, but I think it’s pretty.

Then while I was out running errands a few days ago I decided that a reusable lunch box from The Container Store could be a fun addition to the project.  Inside the multi-compartment container was a small circular container which I also painted with a tree.  The paint may eventually wash off, but I’m alright with that.  It was a fun to personalize something that I will use so often anyways.  And now no one has an excuse to eat my lunch.

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Iron Craft #19 – Spring

Posted on 11th May 2011 in Designated Dryden, Iron Craft

This week in Iron Craft the challenge was simply Spring!  Since last weeks challenge was flowers (a challenge that I’m still working on actually), I decided that I would interpret this week as Spring cleaning.  I’m in the middle of getting organized for summer craft shows and getting ready for my family to come visit in a few weeks.  I have a lot of things I need to remember to do and lots of ideas swirling around for summer lines.

When I was at my volunteer shift at SCRAP on Sunday I found some great, neon striped, vintage fabric and an old bulletin board.

(The yarn was something I thought I would use, but decided against.)

To attach the fabric to the board and I would normally use my staple gun, but I left it back in Georgia when I moved.  Instead I used flat thumbtacks.  Eventually I may cut the extra fabric from the top, but for now I ‘m cool with the little extra tab hiding back there.

After the fabric was on, I sewed on some of my collection on fabric covered buttons.  Last year I cleaned through a bucket of buttons my mom and I had accumulated and pulled out the fabric covered ones.  I also made the two larger covered buttons myself.  If you’ve never covered a button, you can buy a little kit at any craft or fabric store.  They are super easy to make and pretty addictive too.

Inspired by the post-it board that Jennifer Lee, author of the Right-Brain Business Plan has hanging up behind her in video chats, I grabbed a bag full of small notepads at SCRAP as well.  (10 notepads for 50 cents, can you say deal?)  Now I have all my lists of things I need to do in the next few weeks and months, and I can mark them off as I go.  The envelope will make it easier for me to keep up with my supply receipts as well.

Are you Spring cleaning as well?  What are some of your organizational tips for when you have a million projects going on?  I’d love to hear about them.

 

**Also don’t forget that the entire month of may I will be donating a portion of all sales to the American Red Cross’s relief efforts for the tornado victims in the Southeastern United States.  Please go to www.designateddryden.etsy.com and help those in need.

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Helping Tornado Victims

Posted on 3rd May 2011 in charity, community, Designated Dryden, jewelry

The news of last week’s tornado outbreak in the Southern United States has really shaken me. The storm has affected the lives of several friends and family members back home and I feel so grateful that they are alive and well, but many people were not so lucky.  I live on the other side of the country from all of the destruction, so I can’t help physically, but I wanted to do something for the victims. Here are a few ways I’m taking action.

1. I will be donating 15% of all sales in May to The American Red Cross for efforts helping the Southeastern Tornado victims.  Have you bought a Mother’s Day gift yet?  Or do you have a graduation gift to buy?  Now you can buy something pretty AND help those in need.  Go ahead and shop here.

2. If you have donated money, goods or time to The Red Cross, United Way or other tornado relief charity, you can email me a copy of your receipt (feel free to delete the amount portion or other details if you like) or other record of your efforts and I will enter you in a drawing to win the Heart cord earrings.

(Also available for sale here).  This drawing will be help on May 15th, so be sure to email me how you’ve helped before then and you will be entered.  You can send them to designateddryden@gmail.com

 

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Iron Craft #17 – Royal Wedding

Posted on 27th April 2011 in Designated Dryden, jewelry

Iron Craft this week was inspired by the Royal Wedding.  While even though, I’m not really into the hype over Will & Kate’s pending nuptials, I will admit I like weddings.  I’ve attended at least 2 weddings a year since 2005, have been a bridesmaid 5 times already, am about to be in 2 more and even was the wedding coordinator for friends this past October.  I jokingly call myself a professional bridesmaid  and have asked more times than I can count if I’m trying to collect 27 Dresses.

This Memorial Day weekend I’ll be the maid of honor for my dear friend Rickelle.  She is a beautiful girl, marrying a great guy named Shaun.  She asked me a few weeks ago to help her with her bridal jewelry.  Her mother is loaning her a pearl necklace for her “something borrowed,” but we agreed that it is too long to wear with her gown.

So she and I talked options on what could be done to shorten it.  I decided to use more pearls and silver wire to create a scalloped silhouette.  The necklace wasn’t here in time to complete the challenge, so I used some bead strands that were graduated in a similar way and made a mock-up.

 

I really like the silhouette and I think it will shorten it to just the correct length for her dress.  I make use something more crystalline instead of the pearls to tie it together with the other project she gave me.

Shaun gave Rickelle a gorgeous pair of diamond stud earrings for an anniversary present one year, and she plans on wearing them on the wedding day.  But like I mentioned she wanted the pearl necklace and diamond studs to go together, and also the earrings to have some movement.  So I made some pearl earring jackets for her to place behind the studs.  

Yet again, these are merely prototypes, but I feel like they are simple and yet provide light movement for her special day.  And after the wedding, she can either keep them as earring jackets, or an ear wire can be added so that they become their own pair of earrings.  I really like this style and may offer something similar in other color pearls and stones.  Is this something that would interest anyone?

I think she’ll like them, and I’ll be sure to post pictures after the wedding of the final product and lovely Rickelle.

I’m also waiting for my bridesmaid dress so that I can make a custom matched pair of mix and match earrings and a simple necklace to wear that day.  Check out all the other colors of mix and match earrings in my etsy shop by clicking here.

 

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