Keeping a pendant in place - tips

I get fed up when I am wearing a pendant on a cord and then I realise the clasp has twizzled round to the front and is distracting from my beautiful creation. I keep meaning to design some necklaces where the clasp is a feature but until I get round to that here's a couple of tips to avoid it happening.

Tip 1 - Add a little extension chain (which also makes the length changeable) to the jump ring the clasp clips too and add something to hold it dangling down, here a little matching polymer clay bead. You can buy ready made little extension chains but I find they are too light on their own and still twizzle. I just bought a length of chain and used a 3cm or so length.

Tip 2 - This idea came from Caroline Harvey, Beads from the Coast, you can see more images in her flickr gallery. You wrap a bit of wire around the cord in the centre and then poke it inside the bail. Wouldn't work for all pendants. I tried it on one of mine and once I got the thickness of the wire wrap so it fitted snugly in the bail it worked brilliantly. thanks for sharing the tip with us!

Tip 3 - Use crimps or knots to hold the pendant/beads in place. The pendant shown below has some little beads and crimps holding it in the centre of the wire, the weight of it stops the twizzling. I have done this with simple knots either side if on a couple of wide pendants if I am using cord. I can't find a picture of knots though but you get the idea I am sure.

If you have any other tips do let me know in the comments below, I am sure others would be keen to see them. Hope you can find a way to string your things so you don't end up showing of the clasp.
Cara

Latest jewellery - blue and brown pendants

 I am still busy making special things that I can't show you - yet. In the meantime here are a couple of new things I've made with some of the scraps from my secret project.

This was a birthday present for my soon to be (official) sister in law Heather.

This you might recognise as one of the projects from the new Julie Picarello book - Patterns in Polymer.

Another special pen

A special pen for my niece's 21st birthday! Happy Birthday Jessica!

Design Seeds colour Palettes

I love Pinterest. The best thing about it is it doesn't take too much time, I can use it to file away pictures I want to see again and I can have a quick flick through to see what everyone else has come across but (so far) I haven't spent half my day sat there playing with it.

I came across a new web site today, courtesy of a pin by the amazingly talented Zuda Gay Pease called design seeds. It's a collection of beautiful pictures and the  corresponding colour palettes.  Here's one I particularly like.

I am trying to be more organised and co-ordinated in my creating so I might have a hunt around to find some funky colour schemes to play about with. Although of course I should be trying to keep up with the colour palette challenge on flickr, not been doing very well with that recently.  I've got some new creations to show you, and some I can't show you just yet. Watch this space.
I'm also excited about going to the London Polymer Clay Group meeting this weekend.
have a colourful day!
Cara x

Teacher presents

My children made present for their teachers to say thank you for such a wonderful year (they have both had amazing teachers this year lucky things!). I managed to persuade them to make spoons instead of necklaces, much more useful. Here they are:

My daughter who is 5 made all these things. She has 5 adults who work in her class and she adores them all! Her actual teacher got one of the flowery spoons and the necklace.

My son who is nearly 7 made these 2 teaspoons.

They are both very proud of their flower canes (I'm not surprised as they about the same as the flower canes I was making at about age 15 but then they have the benefit of my experience lucky things - can't wait to see what they're making at 15!). They are always wanting to sell their jewellery, I think I will try and find an opportunity for them to give it a go as they are making some pretty good stuff - look at these pendants

Cane and pendant made by James aged nearly 7

Cane and pendant made by Daisy aged 5

I am busy working on some special jewellery, I will show you soon. Hope you are all having fun playing with your clay!

Cara x

Giveaway winners!

It is time to announce the winners of my giveaway.

Prize 1
Thanks to all of my followers, I am sorry you couldn't all win. The random number generator picked follower 14.

 I counted up from the beginning (unfortunately the people with no google id go to the beginning so they had to count as numbers 1 - 4 even though they weren't my first 4 followers) - so I make number 14 Flowermouse. I am delighted to be sending this necklace to such a colourful home!

Prize 2
Not sure I explained this giveaway very clearly as only 3 people are entered, 2 who left comments on the giveaway post and another I received by email. To be entered you needed to post a link to my blog somewhere and let me know. Comments on the post didn't count but thank you for your kind comments.

I put the 3 peoples names on slips of paper the appropriate number of times (one for each link) and my daughter chose one. The name she pulled out was nickandkatherine. Congratulations! If you could email me with your address I will get the earrings in the post.

Thank you all for entering. I will do another giveaway when I get  to 100 followers on this blog.

Will have some pictures to show you of the lovely presents my children made for their teachers later, made from polymer clay of course!

Deadline extended 48 hours - giveaway

I had a super busy weekend and forgot to remind you about my giveaway deadline - so I'm extending it by 48 hours (because I'm working tomorrow so won't have time to draw it anyway).

So if you haven't entered you still have time - so far it's one of 2 people who will win the second giveaway prize. To enter all you need to do is put a link to my blog on facebook, twitter or your blog and then leave a comment or email me (see contact me link above) to let me know.

The first giveaway prize will be drawn from all my followers - so if you haven't signed up as a follower already now's a good time!

Good luck!

Cara