While waiting for my son to finish his soccer practice I took a few pictures of Lake Michigan at sunset. Beautiful lake it is!
This place is called Montrose beach at Lake Michigan.
They have a small space designeted as a nature area with birds and insects one will not see in other places.
I'm always on a look out for creative and inspiring artists. It's amazing what some of the artists out there come up with and how beautiful many of the art pieces are. I've recently came across Nadia of Happy Emotions who turns common pebble stones into happy and bright home decoration pieces. What a great idea!
How did you start?
I first came up with an idea of making jewelry out of pebble stones. The idea was to drill a hole in a pebble stone to put a thread through it, thus, creating pendants and other pieces using sea washed stones. I tried to make it happen but the result was not quite what I've expected. We often times dream up something new and it does not always turn out the way we want it to be. That's life!
While experimenting with pebble stones I came up with an idea of turning them into magnets. Stones are an ideal material to work with. One can draw something on stones' smooth surfaces turning them into bright decoration objects. One can draw letters on pebbles so that different letters could be assembled into words. Such stones could be a great gift for someone special.
What inspires you?
When a mom gets a message from her daughter saying "I miss you" it's so touching! Even more so when all the letters are pebble stones! Young men and women send each other "I love you" messages made of my pebbles. When I learn about how people communicate by the means of my pebbles it makes me happy and inspires me. I try to come up with new ideas on how to make people's lives rich and full of positive emotions!
When I first saw colorful earring and pendants by Alery I instantly fell in love! Bright summer colors of Alery earrings radiate positive energy and make me think about ocean vacation, exotic flowers and refreshing cocktails at a beach.
I was curious about the technique and materials these bright pieces are made from. Thus, I simply had to talk to Avery and share what I’ve learned.
Could you please tell us a bit about yourself?
My name is Valery and I was born and raised in Kiev, Ukraine. It’s a beautiful city with rich history and beautiful ancient churches. A few years ago my husband, our two children and I moved to California where we now live in a small city not far from San Francisco. I work in IT but in my spare time I turn into a jeweler.
How did you start?
I’ve always been into crafting and art. Over years I’ve tried different crafts, techniques and fibers. Finally jewelry making became my main passion. I started about six years ago with incorporating precious stones and beads into my jewelry. Later I moved to wire wrapping techniques and metal. Nowadays I mostly work with hot enamel. I love to experiment and to incorporate completely different techniques into my creative process.
What are your main sources of inspiration?
On one hand I’m inspired by the diversity and sophistication of nature. One can indefinitely contemplate intricate creations of nature finding something new and surprising every time.
On the other hand man made objects can be as beautiful. Apart from nature architecture and art serve as great sources of inspiration. The simplicity and elegance of minimalism where every shape and every line have a well defined meaning and purpose prompt me to create simple yet bright and colorful jewelry items.
Could you tell us about the technique you use in jewelry making?
The technique I use is called enameling. A metal surface is covered with a finely grounded glass powder. The surface is then heated to about 1450F so that the powder melts and fuses together. One can use either kiln of hand torch to heat the powder.
It usually takes a few melting iterations for a jewelry piece to be ready. With each iteration a jeweler can change the color of the glass powder, its quantity and transparency. As a result most of the pieces turn out to be one of a kind and completely unique as it’s simply impossible to replicate them.
The process of enameling offers a jeweler a lot of freedom for creativity and experimentation. The results are sometimes very surprising and unpredictable. I totally love it!
Russian Artists team on Etsy just had its Summer Wedding Essentials contest. Fifty six team shops took part in the contest submitting their hand made wedding-themed items. All of the entries were fantastic! They can be checked out at Russian Artists Facebook Page.
Although all of the items submitted were amazingly beautiful, creative and unique, I picked up a few of my personal favorites. All of the wonderful items presented will make any wedding an unforgettable experience!
1. Dog Crochet Wedding Floral Collar by mailo
2. Event Decor for the Wine Glass by MamaTita
3. Tea Set, Original decorative painting by Yury Tarler
4. White earrings with pearls by HoneyCase2
I've recently received an amazing gift from a very talented stained glass artist FleetingStillness who lives and works in Maryland.
It's always nice to receive gifts from fellow artists who are members of vast and diverse hand made community. When such gifts turn out to be beautiful hand made pieces of art it's twice as nice!
I always had a soft spot for pieces made of glass. I praise glass for its transparency, variety of colors and opportunities for creativity. The suncatcher I've got is made of bright yellow and blue glass and a copper foil. It was created in a "Tiffany" style meaning no lead was used to attach pieces of glass. 
The suncatcher is a perfect summer gift. The sun shines through brightly colored glass lighting up everything around and making me happy! Yellow and blue colors are of the warm sea, sand beaches and vacations! This piece of art will always remind me of the summer. From now on I'll have a small part of an ocean beach in my room.
Alla, thank you for such a great gift!
Since I bought plenty of blue colored Kool Aid on line I continue experimenting with dyeing different hand felted items in bright blue. This time I decided to create a hand felted bracelet.
I first hand felted eight beads mixing white and dark blue wool. To read more about how to make wool beads please visit my earlier post.
To create a blue dyeing mixture I poured Kool Aid blue raspberry drink mix into a plastic container with water. It's important to stir the mixture well before soaking beads in it. Thus, the color will be applied equally on all the beads.
When my dyeing mixture is ready I placed all my eight hand felted wool beads into the container and microwaved it for about 3 minutes or until it starts boiling. Don't overheat the beads as they can get burned! Please be careful handling beads after the microwave as they get extremely hot!
My beads absorbed bright blue color. They now look like marbles with spots of light and dark blue.
Dyed beads could be turned into a necklace, a bracelet or a pair of earrings. I decided to create a jewelry set this time. First I made a bracelet chaining six beads together. I still have two blue beads left. They will look great as a pair of earrings.
The set is of bright colors of sea waters, ocean lagoon and sky. It's completely unique as beads were hand dyed and now have their own special color. That's the beauty of hand dyeing. It creates unique colors and special items!
I came across these Dragonflies - Damselflies at Camp Merryelande, a really cool spot for summer vacation at the beach. It's a rather undeveloped and wild place but that's exactly why we like it so much.
Surrounded by tall grass and pine trees the camping is very secluded. One feels being in a jungle full of unique birds and beautiful damselflies. 
These insects are actually ideal models as they normally freeze for a minute or two on a leaf or a piece of wood before leaping to a similar object nearby. A photographer has enough time to make a good shot. These are beautiful creatures definitely worth being photographed.
My first ever Giveaway ended yesterday, June 24th. Thank you so much for participating. I very much appreciate your time and attention!
I ran the number of comments through a random generator.
Let us congratulate Tina Reynolds who won the set of my handmade beach bracelets in berry cream sherbet!!!
Congratulations Tina!!!
I so much like summer colors of pink, berry, strawberry, raspberry, sherbet and fuchsia. They add color to any summer outfit. In combination with grey these colors look very elegant and stylish. I handmade this set of three bracelets in pink for a summer at the beach. They are water resistant and easily adjustable. The bracelets attach well and will fit any wrist.
I'm hosting my first giveaway ever! One lucky giveaway participant selected by True Random Number Generator will win my handmade beach bracelets in berry cream sherbet next Thursday, June 24.To enter:
Please visit my Etsy shop TonyaUtkina and leave a comment about your favorite item in my Etsy shop. Don't forget to leave your e-mail address so I can contact you in case you win. Your e-mail info will NEVER be used for any other purposes!!! Extra entries:
Please leave one separate comment for each entry. (So if it is 2 extra entries for example, leave 2 comments, etc.)
1 entry - follow my blog with Google friend connect
1 entry - follow me on Twitter TonyaUtkina
1 entry per day - retweet the following message and post a comment about it (just copy and paste the following into the twitter window). Can be done daily:
RT @tonyautkina GIVEAWAY Beach Bracelets berry cream! Visit my blog http://www.tonyautkina.blogspot.com/2010/06/beach-bracelets-in-pink.html
2 entries - grab my button and put it on your blog
4 entries - blog about this giveaway
No purchase is neccessary, but if you happen to buy something you will get extra 5 entries .
Open to US and Canada only. Winner will be chosen by online random generator. Winner will be notified by e-mail on Thursday, June 24, 2010 and will have 3 days to reply or another winner will be chosen.
Good luck!:)
I love the summer colors of blue oceans, green mint from cocktails and yellow sun and sand. For a perfect day at the beach I've created this set of three colorful bracelets that are water resistant and adjustable. They will add color to your summer gowns and beach outfits.
I like sunny bright colors and items! Golden, amber, yellow and orange are my favorites at the moment! I created these earrings of high quality amber colored Czech glass and silver plated wire. Large beads look like candy that shines and glistens in the sun making earrings very pretty. Their simple and minimalist design will go well with bright and vivid summer dresses and will add color to any business casual outfit.
I created this minimalist and elegant fish shape earrings of beautiful blue aquamarine glass cubes. These Czech beads are made of high quality glass and shine and sparkle under the sun. Earrings are very easy to put on and take off. They will match almost any summer dress and will add style and color to business outfits as well.
I've selected a few wonderful items in different shades of blue. I've got sky blue birds, deep blue oceans, aquamarine stones and exotic blue flowers! It's a great color!
I like to work with wire. It's so nice to be able to twist and bend it the way you want. When I add bright and shiny glass beads and stones to my twisted creations they turn into either blue zigzag, red fish or red apple earrings! It's amazing how much room for creativity a simple wire can offer! 
Summer inspires us to wear bright and vivid dresses of all hues of red, green, blue and yellow. It's a perfect time to put on jewelry to compliment all these gorgeous outfits! Sun shines through elegant earrings and wonderful glass beads of our bracelets and necklaces. There is so much sun, light and shine around! 
Forget work! It's sunny and warm and all I can think about is white colors of the sand and shells, inviting blue colors of the water and bright rainbow colors of summer and spring flowers! Let's go to the beach!
More Summer jewelry items at Tonya Utkina
