Everyday Creative- Resin Art Jewelry

So today is the big day...The FIRST episode of My Craft Channel show- Everyday Creative with Liz Hicks airs today! Today we are walking through the basics of Ice Resin and creating a simple mixed media bracelet. This is a wonderful intro to Ice Resin if you are just getting started with Resin Art.


I was fortunate enough to be able to sit in on my friend Jen Cushman's Ice Resin class this last December at Seaside Soiree (a wonderful mixed media art retreat). We were both teaching and were able to take each others classes, which almost never happens for instructors. In this class Jen shared her love for Ice Resin and from there I was hooked... I have not stopped playing with it since!


The wonderful team at Ice Resin (Susan Lenart Kazmer) have offered up this AMAZING prize to go along with this first episode of My Craft Channel show. This prize has a Retail value of $25.

To Win, simply leave a comment  here on my blog and let us know anything else you think Ice Resin would be fun to create with. Please leave a comment here on the blog by August 20th (Monday) at midnight MST and I will announce the winner the next day when we feature the next My Channel Video episode.

For more information on Ice Resin, make sure to check out their blog and their creative team. These are seriously some of the most creative artists and jewelry makers out there!

Thanks again for your support :) My heart is full with all of the wonderful love and support my friends have shared. I was a wee bit nervous (especially with this first episode) So to have so many wonderful comments, emails and facebook remarks has been a joy. Thank you!

Thanks again,

Liz Hicks ♥

Dupioni Silk Necklace- tutorial

This year I have been enjoying making some handmade gifts for my friends and family. Something about working with your hands to create something for someone you love makes you feel good inside :)

This necklace is based off of a version I saw on-line. The original was a coral color and used large rondelles as the spacers. For this necklace I used black Dupioni Silk and wire wrapped it with hematite seed beads and wire. I didn't have a whole lot of progressive pictures of this project, but I tried to explain it the best I could. If you have any questions... just contact me. I'd be happy to help you out.

A little unknown fact about me is that I dabbled in jewelry way before I ever scrapbooked. I use to love jewelry making... the only problem was that I never could do it just perfect as in magazines and such. Earlier this month I took a class with Jen Cushman and her attitude towards jewelry making is to create "organic" pieces. Since I am "organic" in my art... this just made sense for me. It truly felt like I could liberate myself from the perfectness of what I used to do in jewelry making and now attempt it in my own fashion. If you ever have a chance to take one of Jen's classes. Do it. She is phenomenal in the way she teaches as well as very well educated in jewelry and mixed media.

This was just one long piece of black Dupioni Silk that I used to wrap wooden beads. Before finishing off each wooden bead with silk, I used wire to stabilize the middle of the wooden bead and used the excess of the wire to wrap around the base of the bead to enclose it in the silk. This is actually quite simple, once you get the hang of it. The wire I used was what I had on hand which was 24 gauge (that is what the packaging said... but it felt more like 20 gauge) in a silver finish. For the beading I took a long piece of thin wire and strung beads through it. From here I simple haphazardly wrapped it around the beads and the wire wrappings in between each beads.

To finish off each end I wire wrapped each end and trimmed the silk to fit in a silver cone bead. I made sure to loop some wire through and formed each loop and hammered it. For the closure, I tied some silk to the loop and sewed it close with a zig zag stitch.

It truly is a simple project if you just let your self play, make mistakes and find out what works for you. The only way you can learn is to make mistakes and learn from there what you like and don't like. Sometimes you may just fall in love with the unexpected and make that your new style :)

Products used: Black Dupioni Silk, Black Thread (From Joann's Fabric), Wire (From Hobby Lobby) Beads-Unknown.

Thanks for visiting today... I hope this helps you with your holiday gift giving :) If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via email or facebook :)

~Liz ♥

Shabby to Chic... Turning the Ordinary to FABULOUS pt. 1

Ok so today is the first day of my blog hop with Marion Smith from a Piece of Craft. In this FUN blog hop, we are going to share some unconventional ways of making the ordinary fabulous! We have the next two weeks planned out with some fun themes and great ideas! Here is what we have planned out:

APRIL

19^th antique store finds: reusing vintage items in crafting. We will take a trip to the flea market and come back with a variety of options to make you re-think these lost treasures.

22^nd $1 Store: Now we all know that $1 stores do have a small scrapbooking aisle... but what about the rest of the store? We will explore the possibilities beyond the craft section and open up the possibilities to some VERY interesting finds.

26^th Reduce, Recycle, Reuse: on this day we will feature some "unconventional" products that can be easily re-used in a FABULOUS way! Sprinkle in a little "green" mentality and you have an inexpensive and totally resourceful crafting experience.

29^th Rags to Riches: So for this day we are taking some of our "older layouts" and projects and reinventing them to a modern time, not necessarily taking them apart... but offering a "classic" layout the opportunity to be "new" and perhaps take these ideas onto a whole new page. We will also be utilizing some literal "rags" and incorporating them into our projects.

With April being Autism Awareness month, my blog hop for the month kinda took a back seat. But thankfully Marion was on board to do a POWER month crammed into two weeks. I am looking forward to sharing with you all some "resourceful" ways of creating in hopes that we give you some ideas that will platform some of your own "resourceful" thoughts.

So here is my interpretation of our theme for today (Antique/Flea Market Finds):

For this resourceful craft, I used some old wool and cashmere sweaters to create a wearable broach.

Using some old Jewelry from an antique store to embellish the centers.

This flower is doubled up on color using a striped sweater.

And here is a video explaining just how I did this:

I have a few other items that I picked up on my flea market venture, but unfortunately the battery ran out of my camera as I was filming, so I will have to share those this weekend. We will also be doing a giveway for those of you who would like to try out out fun technqiues, give them a try and post them to facebook. Make sure to tag myself and Marion in them so that we can add you to the list of participants. We will randomly pick a winner from those who participate. Now I know this didn't go so well last month, but I am hoping that was just because of easter. This specific craft is super easy and CHEAP, so I hope you all will try it out this month. We will be randomly picking a winner at the end of the month from all who participated.

Next months blog hop will be featuring the Tattered Angels Education Team!!! I am so grateful to be able to participate with the girls for a Tattered Angels National Scrapbook Month Blog Hop. It will be so much fun and feature ALL things Tattered Angels. It will start May 1st with some videos from the Tattered Angels staff.

So as you can see I am going to be BUSY this month, but between work and soccer for the kids, this will be a fun project for me and James to work on. We love doing these videos and hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Thanks!

~Liz Hicks