Jewelry weekend

I had a good weekend!  And now I should be reading essays, but I'm not feeling it, so I'll do them later.  Instead, I want to blog about the fun stuff I made!  :D

So, I started last week playing with the resin beads I won as part of the Art with Heart Viewer's Choice contest (thanks again, everyone who voted!)  I absolutely love these beads, and it's especially cool, because I doubt I would ever have bought them for myself.  Here they are:

Resin Beads from Happy Mango Beads

So, I've been pondering these beads for awhile now, and the very cool Softflex: Trios™ Color Wire Set I received as well, in the Harmony colors (I'm so going to have to get some more of this stuff.  It's great!!)

Finally, I decided it would be fun to make myself a set.  So I did.  Here's all 3 pieces:

Resin Jewelry set

  I absolutely love the earrings and bracelet:

They look like little purses! (I have since been told, by my students, that they're reminiscent of Jolly Ranchers Watermelon)

So feminine and light!!! I tell you, it weighs nothing! (and the bracelet, according to my dad, looks like candy...)

But the necklace, I just don't know about.  I mean, I like it.  I just don't know if I like it for me. You know?  Here's a close-up:

It is a lot of fun, this necklace, but I just don't know.  This one may make it into the shop...

So that was the week.  This weekend, I worked on bracelets that some ladies I work with ordered.  I'm not done with the one order (4 African Helix bracelets for Christmas gifts) but I got a pretty good start on it.  Here's some of what I did:

I love the topaz shades against the mossy green here.  Such a fun color combo!

Black with silver. The customer I made this for wants it to match a necklace she already has.  I'll find out this week if she likes it!

Something I'm playing with--a Spiral rope with gradations of color to emulate a blooming tree. I kinda like it!

 Here's a close-up of that last one:

I love Spiral Rope.  For all that it's a relatively simple stitch, it's so variable!  There's literally, from what I can tell, no limit to what you can do with it!  I plan to play with some more spirals this week, while also working on some more helix bracelets.


Hope you like the new work!

New Stuffs...

Happy 4th of July!!

Well, it took a good minute, what with all the, you know, real work and stuff, but I finally got a few new pieces up on my Artfire page.  You can see them here. I'm in the middle of a rather major revision of my artfire page, and I'm aiming to spend the rest of my summer learning some new techniques, posting some new work, and trying to make a real go of my jewelry business.  Which, if I really want this to be my life's primary work, I really need to get to work on!

So, the latest work... well, I have several more pairs of earrings, since earrings are something of a staple for me (I'm looking into making clip-on earrings, too, since I have several family members without pierced ears, so let me know if you'd be interested.) But I also posted a bracelet I'm quite proud of. The stitch is called the African Helix stitch, and I found a  video tutorial for it on YouTube. With this stitch, it's relatively easy to master the basics, (you work with five beads at a time, so there's not too much room for damage) but I'm discovering new and different problems every time I make another piece. For example, this stitch is worked on a wooden dowel or pencil. I thought it would be a good idea to score the pencil with inch marks, so I'd know how long the bracelet was. Great idea, yeah?  Yeah, I thought so, too... until I had to destroy the pencil to get the bracelet base off...  oops!  So far I've made 2 bracelets, and I have an idea for earrings.

[caption id="attachment_19" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="This is the African Helix Stitch bracelet, done in a base of matte black, with transparent lilac accent beads."][/caption]

I've also made an awesome little bracelet for a good friend of mine who's moving back to Arizona next week.  She's had a rough few months, but is getting back on her feet, and she collects bracelets, so I figured it'd be perfect (it was! She loves it!)  My goal was to make her a "Beach Bracelet."  She's lived here in Florida for 5 or 6 years, and doesn't really want to move back to Arizona, but at the moment, there's really no other option. So I wanted her to take a wee piece of Florida with her.   Here it is:

[caption id="attachment_18" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Deb's Beach Bracelet"][/caption]

I found some wonderful shell beads at Michaels, so that was obviously going to be the focal, since this is a "Beach" bracelet, and Florida definitely has shell-y beaches (unfortunately, we also have other icky stuff on our beaches now, too... boo....) And, of course, any "beach" bracelet must have it's water and sand!  I used a spiral rope stitch (probably my true favorite, and the first I ever learned) that I modified a bit to include a bit more framing around the turquoise beads. This is just such a fun and bright little bracelet!

So that's my new news!  More fun and changes to come!

R.Wilson

What have I been working on?

Well, mostly, I've been working on school. What with four classes, I'm a bit busy at the moment.  But when I'm not doing that, I am still making jewelry.  Still haven't sold any from the Artfire shop, but jewelry making is something of a reprieve from real-world work for me, plus it's fun!  I haven't made any more contest pieces, but I have entered the Art with Heart Cycle 2 contest, and the kit looks great! I should get the kit sometime next week.  I've made a number of key chains in the last few weeks. Those were fun.  Actually, I made the first of the key chains ages ago, but they didn't work out to well.  At least, not yet. I'm not quire ready to give up on that idea--key chain bracelets.  You know, to make things easier when your hands are full. So when that fell through (or, more properly, fell apart), I made the first of the more traditional key chains I've been working on.

[caption id="attachment_59" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="The first of the "real" key chains. This is mine, with a Chinese dragon focal. "][/caption]

I've been using it for a while now, and it seems to be working out fairly well. For the next batch, I started out just trying to make something nifty, then remembered I had the animals from my nephew's necklace left over, so I started what my friends are calling the "Safari Collection." I've already managed to sell two, both to friends...

[caption id="attachment_82" align="aligncenter" width="470" caption="On the left, Loving Giraffes, in the center, the Lion!, and on the right, a pretty keychain I made with a fancy jasper nugget, and the Oraphant. "][/caption]

I've also been making lanyards, which has been a LOT of trial and error.  he first was actually one of my very first projects as a beader, and admittedly, it wasn't very good.  Hadn't ever used thread, didn't know how to make a necklace without a clasp, it was heavy, and the silly thing kept coming apart.  I remade that one a few months ago with actual chain (bright copper, very cool looking, totally impractical) and it actually FELL apart in the middle of the hallway at SPC (managed to find all the beads, though... go me!) By that time a friend had requested a lanyard, and I had already been using thread for bead-weaving, so I much more comfortable with it.  And really, for lanyards, it works SO much better than anything else...

[caption id="attachment_83" align="aligncenter" width="342" caption="The top images are the lanyards I created for a friend, and the bottom are mine--on the left, the frog focal, and on the right, the flowers..."][/caption]

Since those lanyards, I've made a few more, and I'm actually designing one for my best friend now (who just got a new job, go Ame's!), and I have a plan I want to try for my other BF--Sara the nurse.

I've also been working on some earrings, and hope to get pics made and have the pieces posted on my Artfire page.  And I'm in the middle of an African Helix bracelet.  I found a tutorial for it from Auntie's Beads designer Karla Schafer (here). Here's some pics:

[caption id="attachment_84" align="aligncenter" width="339" caption="On the left, the current bracelet in progress (you have to build it on a pencil or dowel); on the right, a completed bracelet I made for my sis-in-law..."][/caption]

I love this stitch.  It's kind of a pain in the butt to work, since you have to build the bracelet on a wooden dowel (I used Karla's suggestion to use a pencil, and I've since marked out the inches on the pencil, so I can more easily control how long the finished product is.  A full bracelet, though, takes the whole pencil.) And, you have to pull each stitch WAAAAAAAAAAAAY tight, so when I get to finishing off the bracelet, I'm going to try wrapping my index finger in medical tape, to protect it from the thread (yeah, I got thread cuts... in fact, I had to stop working on it to let my finger heal up, and then got sidetracked by homework... :() I've also tried a pair of earrings, and I'm going to continue that effort, since the first pair ended up being completely different lengths (that's why I scored inches on the pencil...)

So there ya have it--the major projects I've been working on... School's out in  about a month, so I'm hoping to have more time to work on some things. I have a lot of ideas floating around inside my head, and they tend to not leave me alone until I get them created. Very annoying....

Have a great day!

RLW