MiShel Designs

October Means Awareness!

Shel's Awareness Ribbons

Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month I thought it was a good time to do a 'reminder campaign'.

Please remember to get your mammo's, do your monthly self-check, and remind all your girlfriends, mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, cousins, neighbors, co-workers and any one else you can, to get checked out for breast cancer.

Helping to support breast cancer awareness through causes that are dear to your heart or volunteering in whatever ways you can to help bring awareness, funds for education and research in order to help save lives and eventually eliminate breast cancer is what it's all about!

Shel's Awareness Ribbons with Cultured Freshwater
Pearls Dangles and Silk Ribbon

Earlier this year many of you put in special custom order requests for these in various styles and with various colors of beads and/or pearls in order to support cancer awareness and other types of illnesses, diseases and causes and so in honor of October being

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I'm offering my 'Shel Ribbons' for the entire month over in my Etsy Store starting at $39.00 and up with $5.00 of every sale going to support

The National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Shel's Awareness Ribbon Earrings
(This specific pair belongs to my sis - of course, right!? LOL!!)

Click here to go to my Etsy Store to see the various designs offered during October.

Shels Awareness Ribbon Pendants with Pearl Drops

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love and Awareness Baby!!

Cheers,

~Shel~

Shel's Awareness Ribbons - 2011

This or That Thursday!

It's This or That Thursday over at Deb Duty's Blog today - you should see all the fun photos!!

Today, I'm sharing our fountain that we put out in the front entrance to our house for "Prosperity" - it's working!!

Wishing you all a great Thursday!

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love and Prosperity!

Cheers,

~Shel~

Bead Table Wednesday

It's BTW! (Bead Table Wednesday!)

Here's what's happening in my studio today,...

This bracelet (remember this from last week?) still isn't right!

Unfinished Bracelets - It's Driving Me NUTS!

I've tried Sari Silk, bead drops/dangles, all kinds of stuff - nothing looks good to me. Although, it does feel really good right now with all these silk ties on it - very smooth, cool, and soft - so that's nice, but we'll see where this goes!

And these,...oh boy! Yes, these are those "Snake Skin" components that I won from Kristi Bowman over at Dreamsome Designs.

Snake Skins and Pearls!!

Yep - I added glorious pearls (of course!) and wrapped them w/some vintage colored wired from Parawire/Vintaj - lovely color, huh?! And then I added some custom earring wires with the wire as well. Can't wait to get some real 'shots' of these earrings - they're very cool in person!

And last, but not least, it's these little devils giving me a hard time this week with the Very Vintage Fall Challenge over on Michelle Mach's blog. I'm stumped!!

A few components from the Very Vintage Fall Challenge Kit

So, these will be on my table, staring at me for the rest of the week until my muse shows up and tells me what to do!!

What's on your bead table this Wednesday? Hop on over to the Flickr group and check out everyone's tables - they're pretty cool!!

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love and Happy BTW!!

Cheers,

~Shel~

I'm Vintage Challenged,....Literally!!

The Very Vintage Challenge that

Michelle Mach is having over on her blog

this fall is almost upon us and I’m basically stressing out!

Okay, Okay,...so I'm not really stressing out,...I’m 'twirling'.

(Those of you who physically know me just got a good visual, didn't you?!)

Any hoo, we don’t actually have to create something

‘vintage’ looking with our components, we can do anything; fall, hip, modern, trendy, rustic, boho,…you get the picture!

But I’ve decided, since it IS called the

“Very Vintage Challenge”,

that I’d make something completely out of my style element and do something “Very Vintage” as the Challenge title suggests.

"Vintaj" Brass, Co. - Lovely Goodies!

So, I’ve been playing around with a few of these,….trying to put them with some of the things that came in my

Very Vintage Fall Challenge kit

and I think I need more inspiration.

I need some real “vintage” items to actually hold, touch, smell (yes, there’s a vintage smell to jewelry – trust me!)

I’m going to be putting on some Beggie Adair music this week, sitting down and looking over Grandma Mate’s jewelry,

(yep, they gave that to the right little girl, don’t ya know!)

and seeing what these bits of inspiration can manage to

“Muse-Up” from me.

The “Big Reveal Date” is October 4^th – Right Here

and of course,…right here!

So stay tuned and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Wish me luck!!

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love, and Twirling with Vintage Anticipation!

Cheers,

~Shel~

I Heart Macro - It's Sunday!!

Today is all about "Textures"

Cold ~ Hard ~ Pointy

Amethyst Crystals

Warm ~ Soft ~ Fuzzy

Fuzzy Coco Macro

Cool ~ Malleable ~ Bumpy

Bead Fun!

Hop on over to Studio Waterstone and see the great Macro Shots

everyone has posted over on Lori Plyler's Blog for

I Heart Macro

They're sure to WOW you!

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love and Great Macro Shots!

Cheers,

~Shel~

This or That Thursday!

Okay - so I'm playing along with "This or That Thursday" over on Deb Duty's Blog.

Her photograophy is amazing!! (to say the least!)

My pic for the first This or That Thursday is,....you guessed it: The Ocean!

San Onofre Beach - Camp Pendleton, California

Sorry, I just can't get enough and I have so many pictures I've taken that inspire me and just plain 'ol call me - I mean, who wouldn't want to be sitting here, right now,

looking at this view?

San Clemente State Beach Park - California

I can just hear the waves crashing on the beach, smell the salty air and feel the warmth of the sun as it sets.

t's my litte slice of heaven!

So, get an eye full of great pics and head on over after work to "This and That Thursday" and sit back, relax and be inspired, feel loved, be touched, in awe, or just plain entertained!

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love and Beautiful Pictures of Life!

Cheers,

~Shel~

Hopping, Hopping, Hopping,...

Well, I'm still blog hopping this week,

trying to get to everyone who participated in

Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party

this past Saturday.

I've encountered so many wonderful blogs, made new friends, seen some of the most amazing jewelry designs ever

(I'm w/Lori - my hat's off to all the peeps working w/seed beads - you amaze me!!)

and I love all the various mediums people have utilized - simply amazing!!

I have even picked up a few "Great Finds" here and there

from some of the wonderful artists I've encountered.

Like these lovelies from Raida Disbrow over at

Havana Beads - Oh My!

Havana Beads on Etsy

How lovely are these goodies?

They arrived yesterday (Thank you Raida!!) and WOW!

"Love" - Ceramic Bead by Raida Disbrow of Havana Beads

Coolio, huh? I know,...I know!!

They're so SWEET!

So, what are some of your great finds from the

Bead Soup Blog Party?

Do Share!

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love and Cool Finds!!

Cheers,

~Shel~

Bead Table Wednesday

Okay - so 'everyone' (and I really mean literally almost everyone on the planet!)

participates in BTW - Bead Table Wednesday - so I thought I'd

share with you what's on my bead table today.

So, here goes:

Earring Wire and Findings Orders to Fill
I love the "Bronze" earring wires - so Autumn like!

Here's a bunch of orders from my Shel's Jewelry Supplies Etsy Shop

that I'm getting ready to pop into the tumbler.

She's gonna be a busy tumbler today because

I don't mix my metals and these orders are only half finished!

Brass, Bronze, Copper - Yummy!
Clasps and Earring Wirese Ready for the Tumbler!

Bead Table Wednesday - All Sorts of Stuff Today!

Then, there's these things over here on this table,....

a bracelet I keep taking various pieces of Sari Silk off of because

it's just not looking right at all.

There's all those goodies I won from Kristi Bowman with Dreamsome,......oh yeah, baby!!

I've been looking at those for a couple of weeks now,...nothing seems good enough for them.

Yet, anyway!

And yes, that's a skull bead on a bracelet you see sticking out way over to the upper left corner of the pic. I do love skull beads,...although you've probably never seen them in any of my designs (unless you're a family member who's received some or seen my bead stash!)

And, there's the left over Bead Soup Mix from the big Bead Soup Blog Party

that happened this weekend.

What?!???

You didn't hear about it?

Just click on the button at the top of my blog here that says

"Bead Soup 2011" and go check it all out.

There's even links to everyone who participated - over 360 peeps - so you can check out all their lovely designs!

So, that's what's on my bead table today,...and for the rest of the week!

What's on yours?

Head on over to the Flickr group and check out everyone else's BTW!

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love and BTW!

Cheers,

~Shel~

Lights, Camera,....Oops!

Ocean Blue by Michelle Buettner of MiShel Designs
Bead Soup Blog Party - Fall 2011

Okay - so, if you were blog hopping this weekend for the

Big Reveal of Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party

and you made it to my entry here, you may have read down far enough where

I told you that as I was taking the pics of my last "Bead Soup Creation"

that my camera went all hay-wire on me.

Well, I pulled out my old camera (which is now the 'family' camera) and got some shots yesterday of the necklace I created with the remainder of the beads my bead soup partner, Melissa, sent me.

I am still having trouble with the new camera - keeps reverting back to 'normal settings' even though I keep adjusting the iso, f-stop, white balance, etc. for my macro shots - so not sure what's up there, but thank goodness my old camera doesn't take half bad shots, cause the new one's taking stuff that's all fuzzy, grainy and sort of 'filtered' looking - weird!

I'm sure it's something I've set it on to revert back to the original settings or whatever, but it should at least take the picture the way I want right after I set it, right?

Nope,...that would be too easy to figure out then, wouldn't it?

So, here was my inspiration for the opalite beads and those cute little 'birdie links' Melissa sent me.

Birdie on the Beach!

Anyone who knows me at all knows I LOVE the beach and I take a zillion pictures of it anytime we're there and there's always way more pics of the ocean than of us as a family while on vacation!

More Birdies on the Beach

This is "Ocean Blue" - A macrame necklace with waxed cotton cord, opalite links, one cute little birdie, a few glass beads that are supposed to resemble beach glass and some recycled Sari Silk ribbon tied on for a bit more texture and color.

Ocean Blue by Michelle Buettner of MiShel Designs
Bead Soup Blog Party - Fall 2011

Ocean Blue by Michelle Buettner

So, enjoy the beach shots, and wish me luck w/the new camera

and future shots this week as I try to figure out where I'm messing up.

California's Ocean Blue - March 2010

P.S. - We're not telling the hubby about the whole camera thingy yet as this was my birthday gift back in March,...and I can't find the receipt (and don't want to ask him!!)!

Until Next Time,

Peace, Love and Working Camera Karma!!

Cheers,

~Shel~