Floral Holiday Treasures!

Lisa Lodge, of Pine Ridge Treasures, put together this FUN hop for us!  Thank you Lisa!

Lisa sent each of the participants a selection of kind of "out of the box" beads and elements for an "out of the box" hop.  Her instructions to us included the guideline that these creations did not have to be jewelry, nor did they necessarily need to be "Christmas." Rather, this is a December "holiday" hop.

But, Christmas is my 2nd favorite holiday of all (Halloween and Thanksgiving tie for 1st place... lol!) so, I went Christmasie.  Plus, she sent me the most GORGEOUS red and white lucite flowers!

Okay, here's a partial pic of the kit itself (I'd already started using it when I realized I hadn't taken pics... oops!)

So, I knew early on I wanted to weave a combination spiral rope and nepal chain, mainly to see if I could do it.  I needed small enough seed beads (11s are perfect for that) and decided to go with red and green, to maintain the theme.

Now, my first thought was to make a bracelet, but then I decided that maybe I would make a garland...  Therein lies the problem....

This is not done...  If you look close, you can see the thread up there at the top....

When I decided to go with a garland, I neglected to take into account that this is pre-finals week for me (the students really want their essays back, you know?) AND we scheduled my mom's retirement party for the same day as this blog hop, and of course, I have LOADS of things to do to prepare for that... But I managed to get about a foot of it done... and then I changed my mind again...  it's so pretty, I don't want it just hanging out in my house.  I want to to travel about! with me!  So now I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it...  I will be putting more of those beautiful lucite flowers on it, at random intervals... Oh, and you see that vaguely holly-berry lookin' bit at the bottom? That's the nepal chain stitch.  So, you know, yay!  It worked!  lol!

Now lest you think I was a total slacker, I did get 2 pieces completed.  Admittedly they were earrings, but still:

More of the awesome red and white flowers, but Lisa also included the orangey flowers as well!  They remind me of orange blossoms, even though I know those are white...  What can I say, I'm weird...  :)

So that's it!  I'm looking forward to finally figuring out what I want to do with the garlandy piece.  Maybe a lariat necklace...  I'll keep you posted!

In the meantime, why don't you go visit the other artists in this hop! Here's the list:

Your Host: Lisa Lodge, Grateful Artist (Pine Ridge Treasures)

Courtney Breul, Beads by Breul

Jeannie Dukic, Jeannie's Blog

Kimberly Flood, Goddesses and Beads

Mary Govaars, MLH Jewelry Designs

Tanya Goodwin, A Work in Progress

Kathy Lindemer, Bay Moon Design

Alicia Marinache, All the Pretty Things

Cheri Reed, Creative Designs by Cheri

Toltec Jewels, Jewel School Friends

Rana Wilson, RanaLea Designs <--you are Here! :) 

Thanks for visiting!