Em's Gems Etsy preview!

Emily and I were very excited to get our first bead shipment this week. We sorted through and weeded out what isn't going to work for us (I'll be shipping some back), then decided it's best that we shop locally so we can see and touch before buying. We made a trip to JoAnn's last night and came home with more goodies. We immediately started working on some pieces for our personal collections. Emily's a lot more experienced in the jewelry making process than I am. I've always been in the background with suggestions for designs but up until taking the bracelet class recently, I never actually did the work. Once I got started last night I found it to be easy and quite relaxing.

Anyway, we created these two bracelets last night. This is just an example of the bracelets you'll see in the Em's Gems Beading shop on Etsy and at the local craft fair in November. Most pieces will be unique and one-of-a-kind because we'll be working with beads we have in our stash.

This is Emily modeling the bracelet she made for herself. When she picked out these beads they didn't do a thing for me. After she started putting the bracelet together I loved its simple but colorful design. This bracelet has a lobster clasp. Emily has the patience to work with clasps. I do not.

This is my memory wire bracelet. I used ceramic, glass, metal and seed beads. The best thing about memory wire bracelets is one size fits most and there are no clasps to fuss with. Because the memory wire comes as a big slinky type thing, you cut it down to however many loops you want the bracelet to be. This bracelet is about 3 1/2 loops. It was my 'experiment' bracelet as I get the hang of working with the memory wire. My wrist is small and the bracelet fits nicely without draping over my hand. At the same time, there's enough give to it to fit a larger wrist comfortably as well. Once you take it off it bounces right back to its coil shape.

I think in the future I'll have Emily model the bracelets. It was a little difficult trying to model a bracelet on one hand and take a photo with the other. lol