Nicki's Reef

I love the Life is Good shirts. Here is the new addition to my collection. Check out their website. And the company is helping kids with life-threathening conditions.

I know it is not dressy and sparkly, but it is perfect for rainy cold days, where you have a flu and need to sit inside the house - like today. And it reminds me always that in the end, life is good.

Hello sunshine !

This is a fun event - if you have a doubt about it - hop over to Lori Anderson's blog and check out how much fun it was...

First of all, happy new year to everybody. I know I have been away for some time, since we are on vacation in the wonderful city of Detroit. I have made a necklace, which is very sparkly and very American (sorry ladies), but I actually like it. I made it for my sister in law, but I really think I need to make the same for me - every girl needs a little sparkle, right? no pictures this time, sorry, but I will post them as soon as we are back home on Monday ( I am using my brother in law's computer here - by the way with an American keyboard which is totally different from the German one, so forgive any typos). I had a chance to buy the entire stock of Suzan LK's industrial chic pieces at the local Michaels (at least this is what it feels like, since we are trying to pack luggages today...) and I have got something with me for Stefanie....   :-)
Will be back with you soon, I promise, and I hope you had a great start of the year.
Hugs and kisses,
N

I have been distracted from my blog lately. A weird feeling since this is the home to my favorite things - beads and meeting nice people. 


But there has been a lot going on. We acquired another company at work, and I am leading the integration of the  new team. That meant a lot of work in a part time job. Last week I flew to Paris for a day, and it felt like an instant flashback to the time when I lived - and loved :) - in France. I studied there for a year at a private highschool that had just opened. In the first couple of months we were about 40 people in the entire school. We had our own school champagne (since the school was located in the center of the Champagne - region). We had party nights with cocktail dresses. We had picnics at the lake. I was fluent in French. And the French guys.....
So nice we have that new company I might have to travel there more often and I will practice my favorite language a bit again.


Yesterday we went to the Xmas market in Cologne and had a few Glühweins. In case you don't know - try it out: heat but do not boil wine, add Xmas spices like orange peel, cinnamon, anise, and maybe a bit of sugar. If you like you can also add a shot of rum or amaretto or you favorite liquor - rum is the most common one though. So we stood outside, it started snowing like crazy and we froze out feet off but it was oh so nice to meet my friend Michael again. We used to hang out a lot together when we took Greek classes and I think we will start doing this again. On the negative side, this freezy night made my cold a bit worse, so I have a bit of a fever and feel yucky this morning. Baby too. Daddy needs to get us over the day.


So after this distraction part, I show you my second piece from the metalsmithing class. It is still not perfectly clean in some spots. But I wanted to start wearing it and it looks really nice. It is made out of sterling silver sheet. I cut two discs, then made a hole into one of them, domed them both, soldered the whole thing together added three silver balls and a bail on the back. Sounds easy, right? Well it is not that difficult but all you metalworkers out there know that this really takes time. And I think it turned out nice for a first attempt. It was so much fun too. I need to do this again. Anybody up for joining me?












Please leave a me a comment and let me know if you like it :)

Erin of Treasures Found had an idea to create this wonderful challenge. I had to pick a primary color (mine was blue) and she selected this wonderful paint chip for me. The colors are called Earthy, Composition, Coconut Milk and Dipped in honey.
I blogged about it HERE.

I signed up really early with the target of having my piece done in mid-November, but here time flew again, and I really just started thinking about it December 1.

I called my piece "Composition d'une romance" which means composition of a romance in english. (can you tell I went to Paris lately and enjoy speaking French again?)

I used this pendant I had forever in my stash made by Artisan Clay. It is clay with crackled glass inside. The blue reminds me of the ocean I have so nice memories of. The raw clay is to me like sand under my feet.
I added some recycled African cast glass beads that I bought recently on a fair in Cologne. They seem like beach glass to me and have almost the same color. At the same fair,  I bought these nut beads and their color represents the cocobut milk from my color palette. I do not really have a a big love for coconuts as the smell provides me with an instant headache. This dates from my childhood where we used to go to Spain for vacation, which was always a 2.5 day car ride, no aircon in the car, and paired with the smell of coconut sun lotion - goodbye Nicki.I love the color though and I think it is perfectly matching the pendant.
To represent the "dipped in honey color, I chose a few different glass beads, and the earth color was added by the wood beads.
Birds are always present on a beach - so I could not leave them out of here. Then finally I added the copper chain, the clasp with those cute metal spacers, and to add a bit of a sound, I also included 3 small bells. The whole piece rings in my ears. I love it. I think it did not only bring all the colors together but also nicely represents all the elements. Everything needed for a lovely romance :).

Ready for the reveal?








So Erin, I think that means that I get 7 entries in your giveaway. I think I managed to do everything you suggested. Thanks for being so wonderful and hosting this fun challenge.

For everyone that is interested in my pieces, please keep checking my etsy page regularly - I add jewelry as well as components on a regular basis:
www.etsy.com/shop/nickisreef.


Please visit the other beady artists and have a look at their wonderful creations. A list with all the links can also be found on Erin's website.

• Alice Peterson
• Amy Freeland
• Beth McCord
• Brandi Hussey
• Cary Scholes
• Catherine Pruitt
• Cindy Wimmer
• Claire Maunsell
• Cory Tompkins
• Courtney Breul
• Cristi Clothier
• Cynthia Riggs
• Emanda Johnson
• Erin Prais-Hintz
• Holly Westfall
• Janea McDonald
• Jeannie Dukic
• Jennifer Cameron
• Judy Campbell
• Karyn White
• Keirsten Giles
• Kelly Morgan
• Kristie Roeder
• Kristin Stevens
• Lisa Godfrey
• Lisa Tracy
• Lori Anderson
• Mallory Hoffman
• Marie Voyer-Cramp
• Mary McGraw
• Nicole Keller
• Nicole Valentine
• Paige Maxim
• Patty Gasparino
• Rebecca Anderson
• Renate Stark-Krammer
• Rita Parra
• Shannon Chomanczuk
• Sheila Summers
• Stefanie Teufel
• Yelisa Rojas

I went to a metalsmithing class on the weekend that was a gift from my mom for my birthday back in June.
I had tons of fun and I could do this the entire day all days of a week.


I have a couple of tools already, but now need to get the ones I am missing like a ring mandrel, a plastic mallet etc.


Anyways. I made three pieces. The first one was this sterling silver ring. In the beginning, I wanted to add something to it, but decided against since baby is tearing most of my jewelry apart and a big ring would not be the thing to wear. It wears super nice. The size is just right as I adjusted it for my middle finger.


I will show the pendant maybe tomorrow - still need to do some sanding. And then I started a third ring made out of brass, but this is still in the infantary stage.


Like it?

“The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist.”






Harold Wilkins


British journalist, historian (1891-1960)

How cool is that. My autumn birds necklace made me "Designer of the week" at Love My Art Jewelry. Read all about it here.

This is so special to me. I often feel that I do not really have a real space out here in the jewelry world, and now these talented bead and jewelry artists Kelli Pope, MaryAnn Caroll, Maire Jane Dodd, Barbara Lewis, Shannon LeVart, Patti Lakinsmith and LeAnn from SummersStudio have selected ME as designer of the week.

I am truely speechless. Need to go back to my bead table and continue to make something new to submit it to the LMAJ blog. Wouldn't something like this make your day? It truely makes my day!

I checked out my stat counter today. And this was the map I found when I checked for recent visitors. So one of my biggest findings of today: I am well on track with my goal of conquering the world!
(We need to set ourselves targets, don't we :) ?)

The second finding from today is the reason for this blog post. It is you, my dear JCI Holland Michigan reader. It is just a question, but would you let me know who you are? Since we both work in the same company. And I wonder if I know you. I live in Germany, but who knows, maybe we met. Leave me a comment or if you prefer, send me an email to: nickisreef@hotmail.com
I am so curious and I would love to chat with you. Thanks for stopping by.

And I hope everyone else will have a wonderful day too.

For the first time I submitted something to the ABS challenge. I always wanted to do it, but by the time I had decided on my design, it was usually the next month with a new challenge. But this time, it came natural to me. The tree of life directly remembered me of a giveaway I won a long time ago and that has been sitting in my stash ever since.





I created this necklace based on a wonderful ceramic swirl bead set (beads, pendant and button) from Tracee Dock aka the Classic Bead. For the clasp, I made a double wire gunmetal hook and used it together with the button.
I also wanted to add some color and had that bright orange sari silk ribbon left that complemented the colors of the bead set really nicely (life should be colorful). I made some wire wrapped chain out of gunmetal wire and created a nest with coral beads that I attached to the clasp. Assymetry strikes me so to balance the ceramic beads I used czech glass beads. A wire ring was added to the pendant and voila - hatching life.









So here is my first submission ever. I hope you like it and buy some beads from the Classic Bead as well. They are really gorgeous.

So three questions for you today, since I made some more pendants and need some direction on where to go with it.

1) Which one is your favorite?
2) Do you generally like the plain ones better or the ones where I tried the image transfer?
3) What would you pay for it?

I have put some on etsy but did not sell any so far. I made one necklace with a bird pendant and I think it turned out quite nice (check it out here).

Your choices are the following:

1) Bamboo

2) Water and Air


3) Lotus


4) Field of flowers


5) Orange blossom


6) Pink swirl


and a few for Xmas
7) Snow heart


8) Snow rings


9) Snow waves


They are not totally done yet, and need to be sanded on the edges. But I like all of them. I will list some of them in my ETSY store, and some others will directly go into jewelry. I like creating with them, they are lightweight, and unique and made by me.

Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

I am participating in a challenge that was just kicked off by Erin of Tesori Trovati called the challenge of color.

I will now create a piece of jewelry using some or all (bonus points) colors of the palette, select a name for the piece from the palette and post it on December 3rd. There will be a huge blog hop, some make sure you note the date in your calendars. And there will be a random winner to win some .... BEADS. YAY. And there are lots of talented ladies participating, so I am sure it will be well worth it.

if you are interested about the details - click HERE.

I celebrate



Night and Day


Sunshine and Rain


The sky and the ocean


Air

 

Peaceful times and Party times


Friends and strangers


Music


Vacations and daily routine




Time with my baby


My family and my animals


Our health


My garden



My work and finances

Good dinners with a glass of red wine


Time to bead