Twisted Metal Bracelet Wine & Cheese Party

This month we had two "Twisted Metal Bracelet" Wine and Cheese Craft Parties because everyone wanted to make this cool bracelet! Each class had a lot of fun. The first class had a birthday group in it. What a great gift- spend time with your friends and make yourself a new piece of jewelry!

Class instructor, Chrissy Gemmill, had some great samples to guide the bracelet designs and tons of extra beads so that you could improvise on your designs.

After learning the techniques, everyone got down to the hard part- choosing which beads to use! We had a lot of fun and everyone was happy with their creations!

Jewelry Box Recreations with Chrissy Gemmill

Guest Blogger...Chrissy Gemmill

Sunday Workshop

April 19 12-3 pm "Jewelry Box Recreations"

Hello there! Bring in your old, mismatched, or broken jewelry and recreate it into a fresh new recycled design at my upcoming Jewelry Box Recreations Class. This class will offer a variety of non precious findings plus a large array of beads to incorporate into your recycled design. I will help guide your designs into something you will love to wear!
I've started going through my old jewelry boxes to find old things to refurbish, revamp and make samples for the class. Here's the random selection I've collected so far.

I had so much fun with this project. I only had about two hours to work on this but could have spent the entire day messing around and recreating. I made the necklaces below with an old pin from about 1984 bought at Express, an old broken antique shoe clip and an old earring.

There will be a jewelers drill on hand and basic jewelry hand tools. I encourage you to bring your own hand tools if you have them so you don't have to share.

Begin your jewelry clean out now!

Here are some suggestions for this class:
1. Anything broken to recycle jump rings, clasps, chain and beads
2. Mismatched earrings

3. Buttons
4. Pins

5. Vintage Jewelry

6. Ask your family or friends if they want to give you any of their old jewelry they no longer want, the more you have to work with the better your designs will be.

7.Flea market finds

8.Thift store finds (I've often spotted bags of other people mismatched jewelry sold for cheap)

9. Chains! Broken chains are great too! The class will be begin with a basic jewelry skills review and I will be available to help through out.
This is going to be a really cool workshop, I can't wait to see the interesting things people are going to bring and make. The possibilities are endless!

Hope to see you there!

Cheers!Chrissy

Valentine Wine & Cheese Craft Party

Using needle felting we created Felted Valentines! Nothing is better than receiving a handmade piece of art from the heart. Below is a picture of Laura with her beautiful bird Valentine that she created.As you can see, they all turned out great and we had a lot of fun making them!

"Recycled Wool" Wine & Cheese Craft Party

Our most recent wine and cheese craft parties were needle felting workshops. The last one was called " Recycled Wool" where we learned how to alter and add personality to clothing and accessories we already own! This class was really fun and everyone seemed to like their results!

To Blog or Not to Blog...

Before now, I never really understood reasons to blog. I enjoy reading blogs written by my favorite artists and crafters but never had a desire to write one myself. As the craft parties and fun events at The Muse grow in popularity, there seems to be a reason to blog! Chrissy Gemmill, jewelry artist at The Muse and good friend, suggested I start a blog for the store to showcase the fun wine and cheese craft parties and sunday workshops we do. This gives people a chance to see some of the options that they have for future classes and private craft parties! Plus people who took the class can see pictures from their class! And who knows what else might get posted!