And right now on her excellent blog (which you should read) she is giving away a Lisa Pavelka pendant! Go check it out and comment, to win!

And for MORE great Craft info, collected into one place, 
here’s an excellent resource: Top 25 Articles on Craft Critique !

First, I found something weird that was on sale, and bought it. It turned out to be grungeboard (which is by Tim Holtz, available at fine scrapbooking stores everywhere). It comes cut up into shapes, or not – and covered with texture, or not.

Here is a random photo I pulled off of the web, because I was too lazy to go upstairs and take a photo of my actual package.

Anyway it turns out this stuff is fascinating and versatile, and smells like basement mold. Or, at least, the package I bought does. But anyway, you can paint it, you can bend it, you can cut it – it’s fun!

So I made up ten little tiles, using layers of paint, brads, gears, etc.

And they look like this:

 But what am I going to do with ten tiles? I thought about putting magnets on the back, or pin backs on them, or make them into thumbtacks. Or something. But instead I have put rivets through them all (actually 9 of 10), and am going to make them into a necklace. It isn’t done, but here is the beginning of my idea:

Some kind soul (actually, my aunt) bought me a “Bead-a-day” calendar that has a jewelry pattern for each day of the week (more or less). Yesterday and today’s “How to: Wire Wrapped Loops” may be something that we already know, but they sure gave a wonderfully detailed tutorial that will help me get back to basics – I know my wire wrapping is not the best!

I can’t show you the calendar page, but they DID say that the tutorial was from wigjig.com.
There are a LOT of great wire-working tutorials right here on their site.
They start with basic skills, but go on and on, and there is a link to an alphabetical listing of techniques!

In fact, if you don’t have a titular “Wig Jig” you’re missing out – they’re really fun!