They're crafty (and they're just my type)

A while back, some friends and I were commiserating about how we never have enough time for our crafting hobbies.  Someone came up with the great idea to get together for a "craft night" wherein we would each bring our respective crafting projects and we would be able to socialize while we worked on them.  I excitedly told my husband about this plan.  Unfortunately, he has been witness to our "book" club meetups where we rarely discuss the book, so he thought "craft" night would pan out to be much the same.

Undaunted, I packed up some supplies and a necklace that I had been working on for a few weeks, and went off to join my friends for craft night.  Yes, I admit that we gabbed for a good hour before we sat down at the craft table.  BUT, I did finish that necklace and was able to start another one.  So there, hubby.  My crafy friends all scrapbooked, and they are all quite talented.  Someday, I may pay one of them to organize my photos in a scrapbook.

The necklace was a gift for a special cousin, and I can share the pictures with you now that she has (finally) received it. (Please ignore fuzzies in second pic.)

We don't yet have another craft night on the calendar, but I hope we can do it again soon.  In a completely unrelated project, I decided to make some earrings inspired by fall.  I think they're kind of fun.  The earrings in this picture were made with a silver crafting wire, just so I could test out the design.  Sterling silver wire is very expensive, and I have learned the hard way that I should practice on (less expensive) crafting wire. 

Case in point, this was my first attempt.  Although I didn't have an exact shape in mind, this definitely is not what I was going for.

The final result was a bit better. Keep in mind that this is my "prototype" and the finished earrings would be in sterling, so they will have a much nicer shine to them.  I bent the wire into the leaf-like shape, and then hammered them to give a textured appearance, but I don't think this shows up well in either picture. 

In other wonderful news, I am excited to share that I have a working camera again!  I have missed my camera terribly, so I am super excited about this. However, the above pictures in this post were all taken with my crappy camera before I got the new one, so please don't judge me. 

I have one last item to share with you today.  I initially made this necklace close to a year ago, and I just wasn't thrilled with the result.  I reworked it a bit the other day, and the final piece is much better.  I love the mix of wooden and glass beads, different shades of blue/turquoise, with a few silver pieces thrown in. 

I was going to share a few other things with you, but that's probably sufficient for this post.  I have to keep all thirteen of my followers coming back for more, you know.  And now, I'm off to work on some jewelry while my son is resting.