YOJ: Week 43: Queen of the Harvest

It's soooo nice to be on topic!! I actually started this a few months ago, lost interest, and then thinking of topics remembered the color scheme of this piece, which is just perfect for this time of year! "Queen of the Harvest" has 4 different pearls, and 6 different types of seed beads. Gorgeous drape! Originally, I was going to add a 2nd row, but I really liked how this looks and lays with just 1 row, so 1 it is!! Matching earrings of course.


Since Queen lacks wire working here are a couple of other things I've done recently from the shop. These lovely cobalt earrings have just the right amount of wire work on them, and then this brown glass pendant was another experiment that didn't quite go as planned, but I like the results. I think this linear design would look great with crystals, say 6 or 8 mm.

Since the season seems to be influencing my color choices right now, here is yet another brown item, a 2 strand bracelet. I have a huge stash of large sterling silver beads, and most of them I never even look at... so most of this bracelet was hmm.. time to use up some of those holdouts!! It was fun to use up some of my larger guys... and I think I will do a few more in this vein. Yes it makes them expensive, but it looks great!! and feels great to make. Sometimes I look at the cost of my materials and it inhibits me... I'm afraid the final piece will be sooo pricey no one will buy it. I am trying to get away from this, as anything that acts as a brake on the creative process is a bad thing. With this in mind I used a very expensive but definitely kewl clasp that I think goes perfectly with it!! I'll tell you something else, I am normally hesitant to use brown with silver, but now that I've made several pieces in the last few weeks with brown and silver, I think it looks great! I just wish the picture was better... it's got petersite, pearls and a few vintage crystals. What fun!

YOJ: Week 41 & 42

Well I'm off topic. I got various ideas, but nothing that I could bring myself to do. So these are sort of filler weeks for me. I'm working hard on one of the Nov projects, I"ll post it once it's done. Anyway, for Week 41, here is my version of God's eye. The Ojo de Dios or traditional Eye of God is a magical object and cultural symbol of the Huichol peoples. (Mexico) Originally made as an amulet for babies, the God's eye was made over 5 years, started by the dad if possible. Then each year another band would be added until the child was 5.

My God's eye is much simpler and only meant to be pretty. One is made with copper "sticks" and sterling weaving, then I used LOS to darken. The other one is silver "sticks" and goldfilled weaving, no LOS. Both of the "sticks" are heavy gauge, 16 or 14, which I hammered and texturized to make them look more like something someone would pick off the forest floor. Then I did the weaving with 24gu. It's funny, I was thinking of making something like this ( My daughter brought home a God's eye as an art project from school) and I saw a friend make one out of wire.. so I had to try it too!

Week 42 again off topic. Not even wirework.. but I had these great Caribbean Chalcedony beads and I've been dying to make something with. I ran across these huge sterling beads I had and realized I finally had beads that would do justice to the large patterned roundels. I love this necklace! I used Pacific Opal crystals as they matched the beads quite nicely.

Not sure what to do about YOJ, so here are some earrings

And a Few pendants. And 1 bracelet. Let me start with the bracelet. This took me way to long to make, so it's a good thing I had fun making it. I've been playing with links, so this is a link bracelet with crayon colored American art glass, one shaped like a heart. I'm not an overly heartsy person, but I do like these glass hearts.. heck if all heart beads were like these, I would be into hearts!

And matching earrings of course!


These earrings I made the hearts out of wires to echo the glass heart beads. When you wear these earrings the Wire heart is seen straight on, and the glass is seen on the sides. I like it when you can carry the motif in both directions!

I have 4 boxes of art glass, most of it is Dave Christensen's, hand picked at trade shows. He really makes lovely beads!! Here are some more earrings, just got into an earring kick!

A pair of aventure stars, and very simple amethyst beads. And Finally a couple of pendants. This gorgeous banded agate beads makes a grand and simple pendant.
And then this more complicated dyed slice agate pendant. I love the color!

YOJ: Week 40 And the Topic is......

Well I don't really know what the topic is this week, but that's OK. There is a debate going on right now on what topics to use for the quarter, and one of the possibles is "falling Leaves". What I ended up with after much thought is "Silver Leaf" . I made the wire leaf with 18ga frame and 26ga wire for the wrapping. I have these gorgeous silver pearls, really large one like 12-13mm, that I've been dieing to use, they just seem to call out to me about 1/2 way through the wire wrapping of the leaf. To give the piece texture in the necklace I used 5mm sterling silver spacers, and lovely peacock colored pearls that goes very well with the larger silver pearls. I decided to dig out my LOS (Liver of Sulfur, it's to darken/color wire) finally, I've only used it once before in a class. While I like the overall effect, I do think I really prefer shinny bright silver over LOS. Still it's good to have it as a tool in one's wirework arsenal. This is my birthday weekend, and among many delights, (making this necklace being one!) I also got the loveliest roses from Jerry. If my camera had cooperated I would have had pictures. I'll try again tomorrow. ( I think the rechargeable batteries are dying on me, they seem to have no lasting power anymore)



The second piece is for a co-workers' daughter's wedding. It's always an honor to make jewelry for weddings. I'm hoping I'll get a picture of the bride wearing the necklace if so I'll try to post it at some point in the future. She's got this gorgeous dress with red trimming on it. The bridle shop calls it candy apple red.. I would call it very hard to match red. (here's a picture at this site:

http://www.davidsbridal.com/bridal_gowns_detail.jsp?stid=1325&prodgroup=10 ) See the wonderful bare back on the dress? The client really loved this huge vintage bead, because frankly only my stash of vintage reds were matching the dress. On the other hand she really loved the more delicate looking necklaces. After much thought this weekend, I decided the 2 were not mutually exclusive, and I kept thinking about that exposed back. My solution was to use the big bead in the back almost like a counter balance. I thought the simple wire heart as the dangle worked very well. You can't really see the chain but it's a bunch of little hearts. I did find some seed beads that matched, and used them with clear crystals to give the necklace in the front the touch of color she wanted. She's not seen this yet (I'm sending her this link) but I'm hoping she will be pleased. I do wish the pictures turned out better, I should have used a dark background, you can hardly see the crystals. I used 3, 4, 6 mm clear crystals, seed beads, and 1 large vintage crystal for the middle drop.