Rhodonite & Filigree Necklace

I have had this rhodonite oval bead glued to a four leaf filigree from Accessories Susan, in which I had curled each of the leaves into a tube shape, sitting on my worktable for ages. I liked the idea, just wasn't sure where to go with it.

Then I found these huge rhodonite ovals at Michael's and thought I'd try making it into a pendant that hung under the filigree piece. I used the same chain and a long eyepin to attach it. I thought it looked too plain, but I wore it anyway to see if it got any notice. Didn't get a peep.

Got home and set it on the table to ponder it some more. Then I got the idea to embellish the huge oval somehow, maybe use some filigree to wrap around it. Finally decided to glue an embossed sterling silver plated filigree piece to it and added a little rhinestone to the center. I think I'm going to add some clear Swarovski bicones and filigree tube links on the chain next.

This has been a very busy week at work and when I'm home I'm pretty tired, although I do manage to do a piece or two each night. As I mentioned yesterday I was focusing on bracelets and meant to get some earrings done, but I keep making new bracelets - I'll show them and possibly a new necklace, if I finish it in time, tomorrow.

The countdown clock is ticking away - I'm starting to obsess about my display now, and how I'll get it all in the car for the long drive to L.A. Since my daughter is coming up over the weekend to spend Thanksgiving week here, I'll have to clear all my stuff out of her bedroom which doubles as a photography "studio" and storage for all my displays and other related stuff. The dining room is going to be overwhelmed since it will become my staging area until I pack it up for next Wednesday's trip.

Hope you'll drop by again tomorrow!

Mid-Week Flutterings, I Mean, Mutterings - Jacaranda Blooms Lima Beads "Fresh Pick" Necklace

I'm pretty pleased with today's necklace. Back in June I blogged about doing a "Fresh Pick" which is one of the features of the Lima Beads site. I named the pick "Jacaranda Blooms" because of the purple dogtooth amethyst and purple freshwater cultured pearls that caught my eye and recalled to me the lovely colors of the jacaranda tree.

I ended up buying the picks from Lima Beads soon after, but didn't get around to making a necklace with them until this weekend (almost 3 months!). I tried a number of things, and ended up not using several of the pieces. This is what I've got so far.

I wrapped the larger piece of dogtooth amethyst in 20 gauge oxidized brass colored beading wire from Accessories Susan and added a Vintaj brass butterfly charm from Lima Beads, as well, also used the same wire to make the bead links. Accessories Susan antiqued brass fluted 5mm bead caps decorate the dark brown jasper (called antique jasper at the Lima Beads site) which reminded me of bark.

This was the first time my first try at doing this sort of wrapping actually seems to have worked out and look good. Have to also give huge kudos to Wubbers pliers for letting me make the bends in the wire without marring the finish.

Then I strung the beads on Soft Flex Metallics 21 strand .014 inch Antique Brass flex wire, because of the tiny hole size of the tsavorite and pearls I was going to use, which I got from DryGulch.com. I did one side's strand at a time, finishing both ends with wire guardians and Scrimps from Rings & Things.

While the design is repetitive, and sort of symmetrical, I decided to make it a little bit different by having one side feature a line of pearls then a grouping of "wild orchid" potato freshwater cultured pearls, antique jasper and tiny (2.5 - 3.5 mm) tsavorite faceted rondelles (which add the bright green, to give just an impression of leaves on a jacaranda branch) and the other side featuring the antique jasper in place of the pearls. The little groupings have two lovely oxidized brass filigree bead caps at each end of them, also from Accessories Susan. Lastly, I added an antique gold plated curb chain, which I think I picked up from Michael's, long ago, because the necklace just seemed to need it.

I've still got some bits of the pick left over and am deciding whether or not I want to try and add them or use them in other pieces. I do think this one is finished - I kind of like it as it is. And that means I've got plenty of left over pearl, jasper and dogtooth amethyst to make bracelets and earrings and maybe another pendant necklace, too.

So, this is another design full of little departures from my comfy zone. It's also one where the beads seemed to lead me where I should go rather than me having a fully conceived design idea before I started. Does that ever happen to you? I'd love to hear about it.

This One's Just Going to be Random...

It's the end of a fairly busy week for me and I'm a bit tired tonight. Didn't list anything for my 'list 1 item a night on Art Fire' goal, didn't work on any new jewelry. As soon as I get this finished, I'm curling up in bed with a book.

But - here are a couple things I thought were worth sharing with you:

I was one of the folk who left a product review at Rings & Things and got drawn for a gift certificate prize. I'm going to peruse my 'Wish List' and make some purchases this weekend. The appropriate sound effect is "squee!"

Speaking of Rings & Things, I took Russ Troll to work a while ago, and I didn't share those pictures here, so why not take the opportunity now? Can't think of a good reason - click to enlarge, please!

Russ Finds Some Minerals, Ponders the IP Phone, Between the Giant Eggs

Got this from Duchess at Artbeads in my email today:

The "Muse" is Revealed! At the "BIG REVEAL" you'll also see what design won the Grand Prize, 2nd Place, 3rd Place and each of the 10 Category Prizes. In fact, the entire gallery! See all the winners and entrants in Scarlett Lanson's exciting international jewelry design contest.

We at Artbeads want to thank everyone for supporting this wonderful, creative event and look forward to Use the Muse III!

Blanche from Sha-sha Handcrafted Jewelry Blog posted her lovely entry to The Muse II, so do be sure to take a look and leave her a comment, too.

Are you going to enter Muse III? You can enter right now! I'm very tempted because of all the copper I see in the picture and I love making jewelry with copper.

Update: Promoted from comments - Janeen's Muse II entry - lovely! Do also check hers out! If anyone else leaves a link to theirs in comments, I'll definitely add them here.

Remember my Sunflower Starry Night necklace with the cool vintage Lucite beads from The Beadin' Path? Well, Tish wanted one of her own, so I said I'd make it. And now, the bead is in! This weekend I'll get to work on the necklace. Along with the bead came the cutest gifts - I hope I can do them justice, they're just adorable. Thank you, Patti Stoll!

Speaking of Tish, I will soon be the proud owner of these earrings, featured in a spiffy tutorial.

Lastly, I needed to re-supply some of my Accessories Susan vintage style filigree, bead caps and chain because I have a convention coming up to prepare for and I think that Steampunk style will sell well. The order came in on Wednesday and I got a few new things as well, can't wait to share some of the ideas (assuming I can get them to work) I have. I really love her site, lots of great ideas and a huge variety of settings, findings and just cool stuff, to choose from.

Have a fun Friday, a great weekend and don't forget to visit Sunday to Wander Around the Beadosphere with me!

Convention Countdown - 4 Days to Go

My easels and acrylic risers came today. I am *almost* there with the displays now. I thought I'd share a bit about how I constructed my displays, not that I'm any expert, as the last time I did this, all I had were a couple of spinning wire racks and a few necklace stands...it was enough for the small space I had in the 'artist's alley', though.

I have visited a number of great crafts fair stalls (during our annual Art and Wine Festival) where the sellers have obviously put a lot of time and effort and imagination into their displays. Eventually I hope to be able to justify doing (and have the time to find the stuff) something fabulous, but for now I'm trying to keep costs as low as I can without coming off too cheap.

First the stuff I bought. I mentioned above that I got 3 floor easels and risers to give my display more vertical interest, instead of everything flat on the table. I bought 4 clear acrylic risers, two low and long rectangular ones and two squares. The squares are pretty cool - "corner turn" is the descriptive name, and they look like this:

The easels are made of antiqued copper tubing and stand 76" high. I got them on closeout sale from displays2gofor what I think is a pretty decent price. I can't share a picture from the website, but I'll be taking a photo of my finished display when it's up at the convention and you can see it then. They're pretty!

I wanted to have some of my lanyards hanging on some kind of backing that I could put on those easels - so I bought foam display boards, covered them in fabric and then used U pins to pin the lanyards on. I have to figure out what to do for trim around the edge of the fabric covered board, it looks rather plain right now. I thought about some kind of light wood molding, but I don't have a way to miter cut the edges...still pondering what to do about that.

Then I bought some small wire easel frames from the floral aisle at Michael's and some ecru colored counted cross-stitch fabric. I put the fabric inside "poster frames" - each part of the frame is a separate piece that slides over the fabric and cardboard backing until all four sides are captured tightly against the backing by the frame pieces. I embellished the black plastic poster frame with some brass stampings on the corners. I use U pins again to pin lighter objects, like eyeglass lanyards and earrings through the nice, evenly spaced holes in the cross stitch fabric, and then hang the whole thing on the small wire easel frames.

I'd already invested last year in quite a few raw silk covered necklace displays in multiple colors (you can see the coral and beige ones in the picture above), so I am going to use those, too. But I also bought some clear glass vases and sea-shells that I'm going to use to display my pearl lanyards. These will sit on cork circles about 7" in diameter.

I'm a bit nervous about all this - but can't wait to get it all set up and take some pictures to share. I hope I can make some sales, but even if I don't it will be a good experience and fun to be part of the convention.

I did have a few moments tonight to work on some new stuff - earrings and necklace with onyx lentils, iridescent Czech glass bicones, and silver ox floral links and silver ox floral stamping from Accessories Susan. The chain is about 20" and the floral pendant is about an inch long. The earrings dangle just over 2 inches from the earwire.

Dragon on a Leash

Months and months ago, I started fiddling with two brass stampings from Accessories Susan - one is a dragon and one is an "Art Deco Style Framework Setting Piece" in brass ox and the other is a "Gothic Style Dragon". I finally figured out that I wanted to make a pendant with them and an aventurine cabochon.

(click pictures to enlarge)

First I folded the dragon around the stone. Then I folded the framework piece. This was the tricky part. I folded it up in half and then half of that half back down again and wedged it under the dragon folds in the back. It still wasn't completely stable, so I used E6000 glue (rather thickly) to hold all the pieces together and onto the cabochon.

Next I put a textured brass cable chain on it using jump rings. It was too plain. So I thought, why not make a toggle clasp out of another framework piece and another dragon (using one that faced the opposite direction) the dragon is attached to the chain with a jump ring - kind of like a collar and leash. Then I decided to use two chains at the bottom to attach this part to the pendant.

Better, but still missing something. So I took some filigree chain and some large aventurine beads with filigree bead caps and added them to the other side. I like it now!

The total length of the chain is about 30" around, and pendant hangs 1.5" so it drops about 16" from top to bottom.

It Was Longer and Curvy-er but I Twisted It Up

Been busy, busy with day job - had a business dinner last night, lots of meetings today. Did manage to finish a glass bead badge lanyard to match my outfit, and I wore it with a brass stamping and bauble necklace into the office today.

The beaded badge lanyard uses pinched sphere Czech glass beads in peridot and tiny (2 or 3mm) faceted jet black Czech glass rounds. It's about 29 - 30" (my tape measure has wandered off, maybe a cat stole it?)

The necklace features one dangle on a bit of chain made from two peridot Czech pressed glass flower beads with tiny pearlescent seed beads. I used a long headpin to stack the beads, and a tiny brass bead just above each yellow seed bead that is mostly hidden in the flower, so the yellow ones would show.

The other dangle is a freshwater cultured pearl. I then looped them both together through a jumpring with a glass teardrop in peridot, and that through another thicker jumpring attached to one of the swirls in the stamping.

The brass stamping (Accessories Susan "Poppies in the Wind") started out much longer and curvy-er but I wasn't satisfied with how it hung as a pendant, so I gave it a twist to shorten and center the piece at the top where I fasten the chain through another jumpring.

Did you notice that I got a cool new graphic to add to my sidebar from Rings & Things? I'm a blog partner - nifty! They're having a comment contest there through the end of the month (and each month) - leave comments on their posts and be in a drawing for a surprise goodie pack.

Nouveau and Other New Jewelry

Got a start on displays over the weekend, I think I've figured out how to do what I want, but I will have to go pick up a few more items this week. I hope to have it all finished next weekend. I got a note that the table will be 8' long and have a nice amount of room behind it. I may bring the mannequin.

Worked on some new stuff with gunmetal filigree, wire and chain. The first is a single purpose eyeglass leash with iridescent dark blue India glass beads:

The next one is a necklace using an oval filigree link and jet black Czech glass faceted crystals. It's a shorter necklace, hanging just under the collarbone.

Lastly, here's a piece inspired by the Fantasy Falls project in the Vintaj project gallery. The focal is an art nouveau-style brass stamping from Accessories Susan and miscellaneous bits and beads, including rough faceted marquise cut garnet beads and a cultured freshwater pearl. It has a double chain.

These will be going up on Art Fire after the Potlatch SF convention. Hope you'll visit my shop there!

Earrings and a new Embellished Retractable Lanyard Badge Holder

Didn't do nearly as much as I wanted to today - but I did make these new earrings - The one unfinished pair (far left first set of pictures) I'm still debating on how I want to finish them. the pair on the far right has rutilated quartz nuggets, amber chips and tiny amber beads dangling from filigree circles and may be my favorite pair of the day. All earrings are on leverback, shell embellished brass ox earring findings from Accessories Susan, which also provided the filigree, chain, headpins, etc. for all of them. The only thing not from there are the beads and stones.

For this set, below, on the earrings at the far left, I'm considering adding something to the bar that holds the dangling smoky quartz bead behind the filigree.

And this is another filigree embellished badge holder - I thought I'd show the side detail, too, as I've put a bit of stamping on the sides as well as the front. The filigree stamping on the front is one of my favorite patterns, by the way. The side view also shows the button on the back used to release the ribbon lanyard from the inside reel to retract and extend it.

I've only got a few of these badge holders left and I'm thinking of holding back a few for later experiments. Whether they become a permanent part of my inventory will depend on the comments I get from folk I meet at the convention or here on my blog. I did get one positive comment on the steampunk style one, over on my Flickr page (Thanks, justalby!) The particular shot of the new prototypes has had 11 views in just one day...I think because I tweeted about it on Twitter.

Experiment with Steampunk and Vintage Style Embellishments on Retractable Ribbon Lanyard Badge Holders

I was trying to go to sleep last night and was thinking about the upcoming Potlatch SF Convention, and had a 'voila moment' about some badge holders ("C-line retractable adjustable neck lanyard" @ $3.54 retail each) I bought last year thinking I might be able to do something interesting with them, and never got around to it.

So, I'm experimenting with adding embellishments to those badge holders, which come with a retractable ribbon lanyard. I'm going to display these at Potlatch and get feedback, but I would only sell them if the buyer understood the caveats. These are prototypes, they need to be tested. Right now, I don't know how they'd hold up under different types of use - could be a bit delicate for anything but very occasional stress-free use - so, caveat emptor, no refunds, returns or guarantees.

The top one is the "steampunk" style idea using tiny watch parts and a tiny glass 'gem' from an old re-cycled costume jewelry brooch. I painted the retracting part with Classic Gold Liquid Leaf and glued on the parts using Aleen's Jewelry & Metal glue. I want to seal it with MagicGlos, but I still need either a sunny day (not having many right now) or get the right UV light bulb. I bought a flourescent black light blub, but it didn't seem to work on my test piece - might be the wrong wattage? Anyway, I will need to seal that one before it could be used.

The other two use brass filigree from Accessories Susan and some glass gems from the same re-cycled costume jewelry brooch. The one on the right has chain and a dangling Swarovski crystal and a bead cap on the ribbon retractor bead. The other one is just one filigree and two little glass gems. I used clear E6000 glue for those. I show an un-embellished badge holder with the ribbon (16" on a side) pulled out. There's a button on the back of the holder for releasing and retracting the ribbon.

I'll probably replace the silver jumpring that came on the holder with an antiqued gold one and maybe add a dangle...

I'd love to hear your impressions...

Vintage Style Set Made with Clear Glass & Brass Filigree

Fast post, it's late and I need to get to bed, but I just finished up some new, as well as re-worked old, pieces tonight. The necklace was one of my first experimental pieces using filigrees. The earrings (the earrings are what are hanging off the necklace) and lanyard necklace are new. Filigree, chain and large lobster claw clasp, Accessories Susan; tiny brass spacer beads Ohio Beads; clear Czech glass beads from Blue Moon clear glass mixes, except for the long oblongs in the lanyard, which were from Bead Gallery, purchased at Michael's.

Today's WIP: Vintage Style Earrings

Haven't accomplished much today - found a TV show on Hulu that I wanted to watch, Damages (shown on FX), and I've been catching up to date online.

I did work on something, now and again, while I was watching. They need a little finishing work - couple drops of E6000 here and there - but I don't think I'll add anymore embellishment.

Filigree, chain and shell earring finding, from Accessories Susan, tiny brass bead from Ohio Beads and some champagne colored (not sure what the official name ofthe color is) Swarovski crystals from the Auntie's Beads "Tucson Mix" I bought almost a year ago.

No photography today - too overcast to get enough good natural light.

A Winning Design

Wow! I won the Beadfly Fall Design contest! Thank you to the Beadfly folks. I've enjoyed being a member of this new site and its forum. I blogged about the winning design here, too.

So, what is Beadfly? It's a very web 2.0 type of site for beaders. It has an interactive forum, a place to upload and showcase one's work and talk about the inspiration for it, it provides members with opportunities to give and get reviews. It's got a good look, some neat features and I'd love it if you'd join and be my "friend" on the site. I'd also love to get a group going - another fun social networking feature they offer. I was thinking either a regional group (Northern California) or one of folk who do vintage style jewelry would be fun.

Now if I could only find the time to really concentrate on getting my stuff in the public eye and sell some of it! I have a new domain but haven't figured out how to get it on the hosting site account (which is set up under my husband's name with the hosting co.) nor how to build a storefront website.

I've got some good Googlejuice on the search "beaded badge lanyards" since I blog here so often and make sure to tag nearly every post with that phrase, but other than that, I'm still floundering a bit as to how to market my work. I had really hoped to get into LosCon (as I've whined about before) and get a few more sales this year, but absent that opportunity, I'm just not sure what to try next. I tried Google Ads for several months, but tracked no sales from that investment so I stopped it. I love Etsy, but it's a huge site and unless someone knows about me specifically, I doubt if they'll just stumble on my site and make a purchase.

Not going to give up, though! Eventually I'll figure something out, and next year I'll contact some cons much earlier than I did this year.

To cheer myself up, I'm working on a new necklace - turns out these stones and colors I'm using are pretty close to some of the the "Pantone Fall 2008" fashion color report colors. I'm thrilled about purples being 'in' as that's one of my favorite colors to wear.

I'm using 20 gauge copper wire to 'string' and attach squares of hemimorphite, bright, fluted copper beads and antiqued copper bead caps, faceted amethyst colored rondells and oval beads in this one. May not take this pattern all the way around the neck, have some nice antique copper chain I can use, too.

Peridot Glass "Gems" and Filigree Work in Progress

Only one of the small peridot colored glass 'gems' has been set in the filigree and one in the center oval, but I'm liking how this looks so far. Not sure how I'm going to finish it. I've done a couple wrapped link peridot colored glass beads but they seem so plain in comparison, I'm not sure if I'll use them in the piece. May have to find some faceted beads, thinking briolettes, and maybe a chain tassel...I guess there's a trip to the bead store in the near future.

I used four filigrees to frame the center oval piece. The two between the large eight pointed backing and the large visible oval frame are practically invisible, but add to the depth and detail.

If the test setting for the small gem on the outer filigree is solid enough, I'll do the rest of the gems tomorrow. If not, I'm going to have to puzzle out how to add them. Right now I'm using the E6000 glue suggested in the 'how to' section of the Accessories Susan site, we'll see if it holds.

I Hope it Doesn't Get to be a Habit

Missed posting last night, too. Again, busy with other stuff and very little of it was beading. I did finish stringing the gold glass and pearl lanyard, just have to add the hardware now.

I got an email from Accessories Susan saying they had the large copper lobster claw clasps I've been looking for in stock, so those are on their way now. Many thanks to Accessories Susan, not only for taking customer requests seriously, but for great service. I'm looking forward to playing around with design ideas this weekend and hope to make a few vintage style pieces I can show off.

I also found a source for tablet cut rectangular beads to match some of the ones I bought at the Arts and Wine festival last weekend so now I can make sets - thank you Mermaid's Cove! One set I bought from Mermaid's Cove was just beads I liked, no mates from the festival purchase, these are "Seafoam Opal" and I'm really inspired by the colors - thinking about matching them to some of my hemimorphite stones.

Still practicing loops - found a bundle of thinner brass wire (might be 21 or 22 gauge - it's not on a labeled spool) stashed away and have run about 8 loops with beads in a string. I'm still very clumsy, wasting a lot of wire, too, but the loops and wraps are looking better and the wrapped end is pretty snug to the bead. Before I start doing work with sterling wire (thinking about Argentium Sterling) I want to be confident and certainly not waste any of the wire - that stuff's expensive. I can't even think about gold filled yet.

There are two beading techniques I still want to learn - one is knotting. A number of my favorite purchases from this and past festivals have been made with lovely knotted thread instead of wire or chain. I'm going to wait to learn and practice that until after I feel accomplished enough with the wire loops. Lastly is chain maille. I have also seen some lovely work using a Byzantine pattern as well as some jewelry that has beads or pearls inside little cages of links, and I'd like to learn to do that, too.

Well, I'm going to finsh off the hardware on that lanyard and maybe play around in my beads until something inspires my next design.