Earrings, Earrings, Earrings........

I've been on a real earring kick this past week, it started with this stunning pair. The sterling domed disks I made by hand!! They turned out so well, I dug into my private vintage stock for the blue rounds... and I'm keeping this pair!! I've worn them to work about every other day so far... I should make another pair for sell, maybe this weekend eh? Next some Botswana Agate with delicate sterling swirls,

Gold filled wire encircles vintage pearly white glass balls, and these.. crazy lace agate dyed a shocking pink and sterling silver. I'm very pleased with these, they are similar in design to the scuplural pendants I make..

I call these my orange fish.. I just was trying to make cute squiggles, but it really looks fishy...

This final pair is pieces from a vintage necklace. You know, one of those glam gorgeous vintage costume jewelry pieces that are segmented? Some of the rhinestones where missing, so I took it apart to recycle the sections that had the full compliment of rhinestone's. They make great earrings! That's all for now.

Week 34: Hip to be Square

OK, I admit I'm not following themes this much this year. I even like this week's theme: Crystal Clear. I'm actually working on a pearl/crystal creation that would work perfectly for the theme.. alas, I don't want to get behind again. So here is this weeks' not on theme item: "hip to be square" I've made one of these bracelets before using traditional round beads, but I wanted to try it with different shaped beads.. these square Sodalite beads are really nice, they have bezels on the edges and everything. I really wanted to feature them in a piece, so what is better than square frames? I'm especially pleased how well the clasp came out. Not exactly square, but angular for sure. This sold almost the second I put it out, and the gal commissioned matching earrings, which turned out great.. regretfully I didn't get pictures of them.



Here are 3 pendants I've made recently. The blue is cat's eye, the middle one is a vintage glass cab meant to suggest opal, and the 3rd jasper of some type. I mostly play in silver, but I know quite a few of my customers appreciate gold also, so I've been making an effort to make some things with gold fill. these turned out pretty well don't you think?

Week 33: "leftovers"

OK, I really won't call this piece leftovers, but that's what it is. If you recall, a month or so ago I made this great piece with copper and sterling with handmade copper leaves. After that project, I had 2 leaves left and some of the sterling links. I ran across them again trying to put stuff away ( I get lazy and tend to shove old bits to the side.. until the sides outgrow the middle of my work desk.. at which point I'm compelled to clean up or find somewhere else to work!) Well I also had this great handmade lampworked blue leaf bead just hanging around, and well, I decided to make another handmade chain necklace. Almost everything on this necklace, minus the blue leaf, are "extras" or bits from other projects. Since I'm lazy, I often put left over beads all in 1 box instead of properly putting them away.. making bead soup as it's called. Blues are my favorite color, so I had lots of bits of blue leftovers... I did have to make more sterling links but overall, this was a very quick necklace to put together, since almost everything was prefabricated. Now of course I'm going to make 2 more copper leaves to make matching earrings, I've got them cut out but not sanded down yet.. I"ll have pics in a week or 2 of them. Below is another necklace and earring pair I've made recently, using banded agate and onyx. The wrap on the pendant is very simple, I just tried to follow the banding of the agate.

Week 32: "God's Tear"

This is my attempt to find beauty amidst the sadness. The "tear" is a beautiful, delicate crystal butterfly. Yeah, I've been depressed lately, and yeah, I'm trying to work through it. Art is therapy both for the artist and the viewer.

The "eye" is a huge (guessing 35mm) buckeye agate, the frame is in 16GA sterling, wrapped I think with 24GA?

Week 31: Yin-Yang

Messing around with pearls again, like that ~never!~ happens around here. Anyway, wanted to do a bracelet with a wire center, and came up with this yin-yang pattern. It's a spiral, naturally! I love spirals. It's made with 16GA wire for the base, and 24GA for the wrap. The pearls are great in this, a very deep metallic blue.

Week 29 & 30: catch up

Argh! I"m behind again, and I"m not in the mood you know? so here is a few items I've done recently:
I really do love to play with wire. Both of these designs are from a mag, with modifications. The Paula and crystal necklace I shaped the Fleur's free hand off the pliers using 20Ga sterling wire. I gently hammered the loops for strength. The chain that goes around the neck is purchased. The 2ND piece is from 18GA? and again free hand forming. To keep the spiral segments as even as possible, I cut the wire first in equal lengths. I made the hook on the bracelet.. I think it looks pretty good. The spirals are gently hammered, the loop connecting each link I hammered extra for strength. This piece is long gone, I think it sold in the first show I had it in.

YOJ Week 28: Copper Fields

This was so much fun to make!! I'm still playing around with copper and sterling together. I started out with 24GA sheet copper, cut out the lily shapes and leaves, filed them so the rough ends were smooth, and shaped and textured them. Some of the leaves I used hammers on, one of the leaves I used my punch block to shape. I used pliers to give some of the leaves crinkles on the edges.. I tried to make each leaf different. I got out my letter stamps and used o's and x's on the large lily on the bottom lip. I really want to get more stamps and punches, it's really fun to texture metal using them, and it amazing what different patterns you can up with just using the letters! The Chain is alternating open sterling links with closed copper links. I used sterling wire ( probably 20GA) to attach the leaves on the chain, and look.. I used spirals! I love spirals!! then I used LOS and polished and cleaned the piece until I liked how it looked. I left more LOS on the copper.. I just really like brighter silver I guess. I lost most of the color variations I had with the LOS.. one of the silver links turned a lovely green/purple, but the LOS was coming off in my hands I figured it was better to polish it all off. This piece took a significant chunk of time to do, even with using the dremel as a short cut for some of the filing and polishing. The lily and leaves are from a design from Janice Berkebile, she is a fabulous teacher! The copper links and spiral attachments are me playing around. You can see her classes here: http://wiredarts.net/jbclasses.html If you get a chance to take a class from her then do it!

YOJ: Week 27

Again I'm not actually following topic, but I"m continuing my explorations of mixing sterling silver with copper. I've never actually made this type of bracelet before, so I"m very happy with how it turned out, and I think it looks extra special snazzy with sterling accents. I did something which I don't do alot, I followed the instructions exactly, and it came up kind of short.. so I added the change and the hook. ( The directions I had called for 7 inch pieces, in the future I think I"ll try it with 9 inch pieces) I think it looks rather nice even with the chain and hook. 2ND piece is a copper heart embellished with craft wire in a couple of colors. It's sort of a dream catcher that is heart shaped.

YOJ: Week 25th & 26th

I'm behind, so it's time to get caught up. The amethyst cab in this pendant is very special, my friend Anne's Dad cut and polished it. She gave it to me last year, and it's taken til now to wrap it. This is a pattern from Step by Step Jewelry, by Liza Niven Kelly. This first picture is pre- LOS, I usually prefer bright silver, but in this case it looks very nice with the patina. My 2nd item is a very simple pendant in snowflake obsidian. Sometimes simple is best.

YOJ: Week 24th Winter Queen's Crown II

I have to be honest, this year's themes for YOJ just are not catching fire in my head. It's me, not the subjects. There are several things going on in my life, things I can't really explain but it's effecting everything about me, including my art. It's been a major effort to make any jewelry, let alone try to hone in on a particular theme. Normally art is my therapy, it makes ALL things better, like your mom kissing your boo-boos as a child. I'm not saying my art is only a band-aid for my mental wounds. Rather it acted like a balm, healing me in the moment and making me healthier, stronger for the next time. I miss that feeling. I guess I just spent a paragraph to say I don't feel very creative right now. I will just keep forcing myself to make things, and hope that I'll recapture that feeling. I need that Feeling back!!

Anyway, I looked through past projects to see if there was a theme I wanted to revisit.... and I found my first series of Winter Queen's Crown. ( http://mkpbeadart.blogspot.com/2007/04/week-17-happy-fish.html#links )I felt at the time I wanted to explore this further. I think this bracelet turned out even better than the first one did. I think 1 year of practice and new skills shows. The hinging on this is much better and smoother than the first bracelet. Matching earrings of course. I felt better after I made this, it's the first thing in a month that felt right. I want to create a whole series of this: Winter, Fall, Spring, Summer. Time is an issue as always, and my wounded heart.

YOJ: week 23: copper and sterling experiments continued and other goodies

I'm not really on topic again this week. Again I've been playing with mixing copper and sterling for interesting effects. This Time I've used copper wire in 18 GA and sterling wire in 22GA, twisting them together. I really like the effect, especially when paired with gorgeous silver mist jasper. The pictures really don't do justice on the stones... they have an almost tiger-eye effect in some places. My guess that's why it's called silver mist....

I've been playing with doing more Cabs with the "wire sculpture " style of Reuther Preston and others. Here are some examples, the cameo is actually a vintage plastic piece. The purple square is vintage glass, and the stone is I believe lapis.. but not sure.

This next piece is about color. I have this great big chunk of "cherry quartz" which is a fancy name for dyed.. anyway, the cut is pretty, and I really wanted to mix it up color wise. So some turquoise and vintage glass helps spice it up. The purple stones are fluorite. Last of all is a heart pendant. I really like this, and I guess my customers agree it's already sold! I think I used18GA or 16GA sterling silver wire, shaped and hammered to my heart's content ( yeah, I meant that pun) and and wire wrapped a pearl on the bottom and a bail on top. I need to make more of these!

YOJ: Week 22 First Date

I've been playing with copper and sterling together. I really like the look of mixing these 2 metals together.

These earrings are named first date". Ok, it wasn't really the first date, it was the first formal date with my now Husband Jerry.. just about 15 years ago infact. I had a wedding to go to, and I had been dating Jerry for approximately 5 weeks.. so I asked him to be my date at this wedding. I had this absolutely gorgeous dress .. all in dark navy lace. One of my favorite pictures of us together is one taken at the wedding, me in my dress and he in his suit. Anyway, I was totally gonzo nuts over this man, and the fact he was willing to go to this wedding with me, it meant I had him in the bag! No way is a guy gonna go to a big fancy frilly wedding unless it's his family or he really digs you!! LOL I kept this dress for years... but a few years ago cleaning out a closet I discovered the dress had gotten wet and damaged in storage, and ruined.. but I clip off abit of undamaged lace from it for remembrance sake. Fast forward to now, when I buy a rolling mill as the newest toy-- er, tool in my studio. I dug out the lace and used it to pattern the copper, then I shaped and polished it. The sterling swirling around the copper represents the happiness of that day. I'm not totally satisfied with how I connected the swirl to the earring, but making these made me smile. And I spent a very pleasant day remembering when Jerry and I were new at this relationship thing. For the record: in July we will be married for 14 years.