Devine Designs Jewelry

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Alone, kind of boring. With February being Heart Health Month , I thought I'd share some ways to take a plain ol' piece of protein and throw together some healthy additions to make tasty creations. A variety of salads to add to your skinless, boneless chicken breast! Southwest style grilled chicken salad~ Mediterranean salad~ Cranberry Walnut chicken salad~ All of these salads start with a grilled chicken breast. You can use any type of greens you like for the base of the salad. For instance, I like to use a romaine or field greens mix. There's a great guide to salad greens, click here . Now for the southwest salad you can add corn, tomatoes, fresh avocado (a small amount, since it is high in fat, but also good for you), black beans, onions, and for a healthy dressing I would use fresh salsa. O.k, use canned if you're so inclined. For the Mediterranean salad, I like to add, black olives, cucumber, ripe tomatoes, red onion, feta cheese...

I don't feel like I have anything to say, but I like to blog a few times a week, so I'd at least drop by and share. I think my life is boring sometimes; go to work, come home, make jewelry, read, ho hum. ANYWAY..... I've added some new lampwork beads to destash in my supply shop , still with more to add over the next few days. I did find a couple of sites to help with photography, especially of small items like jewelry, so I'll share them with you. This one is from Crafts Report , and the other one for jewelry photography is from Table Top Studio . I have yet to read over them so if you do and would like to leave me a comment, please come back and post one! I have a birthday coming up next month. I'm thinking I need a big change. Thinking of cutting off my hair for a short style and adding highlights. Maybe then I'll get over my shyness and post a photo of myself! And there's another piece of artwork in my near future, but I'll keep that under wraps for ...

I'll be taking on a new wire weaving project next. It will be a bracelet that consists of wrapping 11 or 12 different pieces of wire. This should be fun! Just got my new order of wire in the mail today. Supplies were running low. So I have a couple of earrings I forgot to post yesterday. First is a pair of larger hoops in copper with Mykonos Greek ceramic beads . The next pair I made using beautiful barrel shaped lampwork beads made by artisan Moon Stumpp . I just love this shape of a bead. Now these are hard to describe, but they do have colors of varying shades of green, dark purple, and maybe brown. They look like pottery to me. I used some sterling silver and pewter findings; Celtic beads and a pretty Celtic bead cap. The only name that came to me was "Celtic eggplant"! That's what the beads remind me of! Some of these new items may end up in a local shop this week, if not they will be listed in my Etsy shop . Also, I'm feeling an urge to purge. Destash that i...

And it's a good thing too. I actually finished about 12-15 new jewelry pieces this week! I finished some projects yesterday, and today did the photography. (I hate taking the photos), probably because I still struggle with taking good quality photos, that are appealing to the potential customer and show different angles, sides, how to wear, etc. I actually found a new colored background today, or should I say, "discovered" as I did not know that I had it. It is a rust/brown and I found it looked nice against some of this copper and silver mixed jewelry that I've be making, so I re-did some shots from last week. And these amethyst square hoops look much better on the purple background. It brings the amethyst to life. And now on to the new stuff: silver spirals with textured circle impressions. These are post earrings. A new copper cuff: Amethyst with textured sterling silver discs: More "barbed wire" designs, (I feel a series starting here) I spent the...

Have you seen this? Little Black Boxes , a cool way to try a large number of sample items from various independent retailers, ie: small businesses. What they do: Each month a new "box" is offered for a reasonable price and you get about 15-20 samples of products to try. What they offer: This is a great way for small businesses to get noticed, get their product in your hands, and hopefully score some new customers. I have gotten to try new skin and body care products this way. It's always fun to open it up and check out all the goodies! Now here's a tip that I've done with them. When I have a home jewelry show or open house, what I do is let my customer pick an item out of the bag, without looking of course, and they get a surprise goodie to take home too! I would guess to say that there are many ways that you could use these: hostess gifts, teenager sleep over party gifts, package up items in a basket to create a unique variety gift basket for someone. There is al...

I've had a great last 3 days; a good weekend. I finally have some new jewelry made and photos to share. It felt good to have thing flow, to feel natural to me; working and shaping with wire. But before I do show off my new goodies, I want to mention that in today's mail I got this month's issue of "Step by Step" wire magazine and paged through to find my earrings featured in the gallery page. This made me happy! A step forward! A great magazine for those of you would want to pursue wire jewelry making. So on to the eye candy. I made a number of hoop type designs, well squares to be honest. A pair with a dangle of wire wrapped chunk amethyst, and (my personal favorite), "barbed wire" squares of sterling silver with copper twisted wire wrapped around. I think I'll be making a pair for myself! And some more sterling silver spiral earrings in bright silver and oxidized with some metal beads. These were a request from a local gallery here. Then I finally ...

Topic: Polishing As I frequently do, I like to share tips and resources for others, just as many have helped me along my jewelry making path. So today, while cleaning and polishing a necklace for someone, I came across this bottle of JEWELRY SOAP. I almost forgot that I had this. It works great on silver and gems. I got this tip at a workshop I took a long while ago. It comes with a toothbrush like brush to gently scrub your jewelry. It really shines a piece nicely. I picked it up at Wal-Mart ; as you can see, pretty cheap too. Two other polishing cloths that I like to recommend are: the Sunshine Cloth and Pro polishing pads. I use each for different finishes. The Sunshine cloth is great, I think the best to use on copper. Here's a copper bracelet that I made, and some connectors polished up using the Sunshine Cloth. The Pro polishing pads I use when I oxidize silver. They act somewhat like steel wool but less messy to use. And they last longer than steel wool. You can purchase the...