The Wedding sneak peek; the bridesmaids' jewellery

The days continue to race away and there are now only 47 days until The Wedding. Today I wanted to share with you the Bridesmaids' jewellery which is now finished. For those of you who have not read my post showing my jewellery for my daughter's Big Day have a look here.

For the bridesmaids jewellery we decided to commission my great lamp worker friend, Laney, who sells her gorgeous wares under the name of Izzy Beads. What I love about Laney is that she has 2 wonderful, very different sides to her bead making. She makes fun, whimsical beads, often showing her very naughty sense of humour but she also makes the most glorious "grown up" floral beads. Laney lives in Hereford and we will definitely meet up at some point. I first "met" Laney via Ebay where she started selling her early creations,probably 4-5 years ago now.

I photographed one of the bridesmaids dresses so that Laney could get an idea of colours and she sent me back some glass bead single colours "testers" so that we could get the colours right.

With out giving too much away of the bridesmaids dresses they have a wonderful bold floral pattern on an ivory background.

Laney really got the colours right

I have just photographed the some of the pattern...you will have to wait until after The Day to see the dresses in all their glory. We picked out 4 of the colours and Laney had a few play around with some beads. We had all sorts of ideas...making different colour beads, making different flowers, making some of each colour etc.

Finally we came up with the idea of using a background ivory glass which Laney would make "Cadbury" purple flowers and have a swish of the yellow, green, red and orange. I have seen gorgeous beads Laney has made where she puts cubic zircona's into the flower centres to give a real "wow" sparkle and asked her to add these too. After a couple more size decisions and trials she was ready to make the final beads.

 I was so excited when the parcel arrived in the post. I opened it up and I really did gasp as they really do have that "wow" factor. Take a look at these beauties.

Aren't they stunning!

Here are all 14, I just sat there and stared. You can see how wonderful the CZs are in the centres of the flowers.

They are lentil shaped (round but with flat sides) which sit really well against the skin.

Like my MOTB jewellery I decided to go with a fairly simple design, again using freshwater pearls. This time the pearls are just mid drilled.

So this is what I came up with.

Each bridesmaid will also have a pair of freshwater pearl stud earrings to wear.

Here are the beads in close up.
Each necklace is finished with a sliver heart toggle.







2  weekends ago we had a hair and make up practice with the stylist who will come to get us ready at the Wedding Venue in July. All I will say is that we were really pleased ;0) Everything is really coming together now.  The wedding rings are ordered and  the service has been written. In a few weeks they are having a pre wedding photo shoot which should be fun. I am also making a bracelet for my son's girlfriend with more of Laney's wonderful beads and there are a few other secret things going on, watch this space.

So of course today's card could not be anything other than a wedding card could it!

I have used my favourite Lili of the Valley Wedding couple stamp

I hand coloured it with my trusty Promarkers and highlighted using my Prismacolor pencils. I used some bunting paper from my stash and hand cut some red hearts using a punch. I used really lovely bright red organza ribbon for a bow and added a circular sentiment.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;
Ribbon Girls use ribbon or lace
Totally Gorjuss #135 Sunshine
Penny Black Allsorts All my favourite things my favourite things I have used in my card are my LOTV bride and groom stamp and my lush red ribbon.
Crafters Companion Time to embellish #25
Make it Monday Linky party #93
Cupcake craft Red, white and blue #196




Now I am off to catch some of that missing sunshine. Yes we off on holiday in the morning and I can't wait. Life has been quite hectic for my dear Hb and I recently and we need a break and a boost! I always love to give a clue to where we are going to so here are a couple of photos taken in 2007 when we last visited this spot.

Tee hee, any ideas where this is??

Take care everyone and see you soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x