Monday Miscellany - Pink Lampwork with Brass Necklace

Happy Hanukkah! I know I'm a few days late, my apologies for not mentioning it until now. My son's significant is celebrating it with him each evening and he reminded me when we spoke the other day. I've pretty much finished up my Christmas shopping. Just a thing or two still coming in the mail (or UPS as the case may be).

A while back I made a necklace using amber and some Beadin' Path vintage glass beads. Part of the necklace used amber colored glass that I'd collected from quite a few glass mix packages (Blue Moon). While arranging the beads I wanted to use in the amber necklace, I discovered that some of the glass was more pink/mauve with a golden AB coating than the golden brown I needed. Those I sorted out and put aside.

Then, while going through other various beads I noticed that those beads went really well with some others that I'd used in various designs which had all ended up in an odds and ends dish. After playing around with various combinations, this is the result.

The design was a bit constrained by the number of antiqued brass spacers and lampwork beads I had in my stash, but I'm still quite happy with how it looks.

I recently received some Trios from Soft Flex (thank you, Sara!) - a set of Satin Silver Soft Touch in Very Fine, Fine and Medium diameters, plus a set of Fine, Medium and Heavy Soft Flex, also in Satin Silver. I'll be working up some new pieces with these and giving you my impressions, so I hope you'll come by to see.

Late Breaking News!

I have been selected as a finalist for the Soft Flex Company's Flex Your Creativity contest! You can see all the entries here (my work is listed under Dawn O'Bryan-Lamb) and vote on your favorite.

The prizes are wonderful, too:

GRAND PRIZE:
$500 Gift Certificate

Runner Up:
$250 Gift Certificate

Honorable Mention:
$100 Gift Certificate

TOP 10 WINNERS:
Free 30ft spool
of their choice

Friday Pick on Hiatus Today, but I have Two New Organizers and Necklaces to Share

I may have mentioned that I do the posts for each morning the night before. Thursday night I didn't get back to my workroom until pretty late and I spent some time setting up things in my new Beadalon storage products from Great Craft Works - where I also found the Beadalon square knot links in bulk (yay!) that I've been looking for.

I got a Table Top Work Bench and a Beading Station. The biggest enticement to get these were the rods that hold beading wire on both and the bars at the top of the beading station for my tools. And I just love the little drawers! Haven't figured out what all will go in them, but whatever I use a lot of and need at hand (probably finishing findings) will go in those.

I will try to remember to get a picture of the new set up and post it soon - the pictures above are the catalog pics from Great Craft Works and not my own stuff. I don't have nearly that many tools, but I do have that much wire - and seeing lots of great Soft Flex Trios colors all lined up in a row, ready to use, is really fun.

Anyway, that absorbed quite a bit of time, but I do have two more things I'm working on that I can share, too.

First up is a glass River Rock necklace with the remaining citrus nuggets and a 'topaz' nugget. You can find these at The Beadin' Path in a number of colors and two sizes, medium and large.

I used gold tone spacer beads in two sizes that came from Michael's but I can't recall the supplier and didn't save a tag, unfortunately. They're from a line that features rough, natural beads in ceramics and stone and wood. The spacers have a matte finish and a rather organic pattern to them, so I thought they were a good fit.

No clasp yet, still deciding how I want to do that. It's pretty heavy, weighing in at 4 ounces (doesn't sound like much, but it felt like a lot when I tried it on. For me that's a big drawback, since heavy necklaces give me terrible headaches. I could probably wear it for an evening out, but not a full workday.

Update: new pictures of completed necklace! Used ceramic beads and Artistic Wire to create the hook and eye clasp.

The next necklace is a re-do of the one I shared earlier in the week. I re-arranged the pink glass and green aventurine beads. I think I like this way better. These aren't great pictures, as they're workroom shots with the available lighting. The green aventurine beads are well up the necklace and almost hidden at the top of the strands in this shot. I'm still really fond of the River Rock pendant and exposed lemon yellow quartz Soft Flex wire.

Well, Friday is going to be a busy day (I hope) for making new stuff. I'll be really happy to have some new pieces to share and talk about next week! Saturday I'll be posting my Supplier Sales and Sunday we'll Wander around the Beadosphere together, so please be sure to visit!

Tuesday Tidbits - River Rock Concepts 2 & 3

As I mentioned before, Heather at The Beadin' Path sent me some glass River Rocks to create some designs with as one of their design partners. I made the first one with the amber rocks pretty soon after I got them, but the yellow ones were harder for me, as it's not a color I work with much.

I gave the rocks a lot of attention over the weekend. Finally I got an idea to jumpstart my imagination. I pulled out my Soft Flex Yellow Lemon Quartz (also comes in the Harmony Trio) beading wire and played around with clear and yellow beads, but didn't like anything I was seeing.

Then, after I'd spent some time reading Margie Deeb's Fall/Winter 2009 Color Report, I pulled out my green aventurine beads but ended up not happy with the combination of just the two colors. So I decided to try some multi-stone bead chips I'd had in my stash forever because I hoped the variety of colors would be a better balance against the large, strong bright yellow.

I strung just the chips and the River Rocks but it wasn't clicking. I got the aventurine out again and decided to use the large round beads. Still not quite it but really close. Finally, I thought I'd add one or two bright pink chips and big pink glass beads. Almost there! Made a simple pendant by using two strands of Soft Flex and more chips and curled the wires. I didn't string the large green and pink beads symmetrically on the necklace and I'm debating re-stringing them so they follow the same pattern on both sides. That's why I haven't added the clasp to this one yet. I'm really happy with the pendant, though! I'm tempted to do another necklace with just River Rocks now and a similar pendant.

The next River Rock necklace is an attempt to 'dress up' the rough glass, which I used as a solo focal this time, with some faceted glass beads, some tiger eye beads, some gold freshwater pearl disks and other miscellaneous amber/bronze/browns. I strung a length of dark amber, 3 or 4mm faceted glass rounds and twirled them around the strand.

I don't have any gold tone cones to cover the double strand ends, so I used some large holed beads...I really like how it turned out...I'm going to use this idea again.

There are your Tuesday Tidbits. See you tomorrow for Mid-Week Mutterings!

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.

Tuesday Tidbits - The Last Trios Design, at the Last Minute, Too.

All vintage images on this page are courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

I sent off 5 submissions to the Soft Flex Company's Flex Your Creativity contest (today is the "submissions must be received by" date!) on Sunday. I had four completed and photographed by then, but I'd planned on doing a couple more over the weekend to use each of the Trios I had from the Rings & Things blog partner package back in June. Unfortunately Saturday was so hot I didn't do much of anything but sweat and drink copious amounts of ice water.

So Sunday rolls around and it's cooler and I feel inspired. So I go grab my Harmony Trio and start thinking about what I want to do. I'm not sure what sent me towards the impressionistic butterfly thing I ended up with, but that's what happened after my original "how about making a Harmony petaled daisy?" idea bombed.

This design uses the Bone, Lemon Quartz and Copper colors of the Harmony Trio with beads from two different mixed contemporary glass color mixes, orange and yellow, from The Beadin' Path.

In this design I wanted to create something sculptural, like I did with the Renewal Trio necklace I recently re-worked. I started with an idea for creating a butterfly design (well, started after I couldn't make a decent daisy, so it morphed) as the focal piece and went from there, including a smaller butterfly on the body of the necklace as well. I used a lot of crimp tubes and crimp covers to help stabilize the designs. It might be a bit challenging to see the Bone colored Soft Flex parts in the small picture, so just click it for a larger image.

Oh, and here's the early version that I felt was too plain and not quite the right balance.

Did you enter? Have you entered any other contests or submitted to a magazine call lately? It stresses me out. I don't know how often I can do it, but I do know it's worth the effort - after all, I'll be seeing my design for the Colorworks contest published in Step by Step Beads in just a couple months and I was so hesitant to enter that one.

Until tomorrow!

Mid-Week Mutterings - Fable's Rocks Pendants

I've left the picture rather large this time so you can see more detail of these beautiful stones I received from Fable's Rocks. Here's what they say about their stones:

Our pendants are all natural agates and jaspers, cut into freeform shapes and tumbled polished, then drilled for jump ring insertion. We can also supply them without the hole, for glueing or wirewrapping.

I'm not sure, yet, of the types and names of the stones in the pendants above, just that they are beautifully patterned and have such great colors. The center and right pendants use multiple stones, the one on the left uses just one.

I used Soft Flex Emerald and Onyx for the one on the left, Soft Flex Lapis for the middle pendant, Beadalon Satin Copper for the one on the right. I used 22 gauge wire (copper from BeadSmith via The Bead Store in Redondo Beach, and sterling silver from Rio Grande via a group buy through a beading friend with an account there) to wrap the "bail" and create the coil designs around the bead wire for extra security. Before I finish these completely, I'll probably also use a dab of glue here and there on the back to make sure the beading wire doesn't slip.

I'm also *probably* going to do something with the rest of the necklace wire before I add clasps, but I'm pondering the what of it before I commit.

I have quite a few of Fable's Rocks pieces, including some 'Polish flint' that I am dying to use, but need to figure out how I want to set them. As I mentioned, I'm just now trying to teach myself how to do wire-wrapping and don't have the right wire or tools yet. I think the flint would be great with gunmetal or antiqued brass (or both!) and I have some lovely reds and greens that would be great with copper, too.

You can contact the Fable's Rocks gals if you're interested in some of their stones by clicking here and you can find one of them (and maybe both, but I only know the one) on Twitter @MidnightReading, too.

I'm hoping that a very special book I've ordered shows up tomorrow so I can read and review it for Thursday. If not, I'm not sure what I'll have in store, but I hope it'll be worth your time!

Thank you all, again, for visiting. I really appreciate my 'regulars' and the time you commit to coming back and reading here. I'll be figuring out a new appreciation contest to hold soon and this time with multiple winners so more of you can know how much I enjoy your company!

Tuesday Tidbits - Starring the Rings & Things 7-loop Star Connector Necklace

Yesterday I mentioned the July goodies package and said that I was getting close to finishing some designs for the remaining items. Today I can share what I've been working on with the Gold filled 7 loop star connector and some Soft Flex Trios (Tranquility) from the June blog partner offer.

The pendant and design elements are strung onto 24k Gold Soft Flex Extreme wire (which was part of my Extreme Trios prize in their Twitter contest!). The gleam and shine of the 24k Extreme is really lovely. The beads I used are glass bicones because I didn't have any Swarovski in the right colors. I know those would look better - this "Under the Boardwalk" assortment from Rings & Things would be a good choice, I think.

I wanted to use the Trio colors as embellishment, so I crimped about an inch and a half of one of the three Tranquility colors on either side of a set of bicones, then pinched it to a point to echo the points on the star. This will definitely be re-done, I've learned a number of things that I can do better (to say nothing of using Swarovski crystals instead of glass bicones) in the next version.

I had the day off today and one of the things I tried was to teach myself how to create a wrapped wire cabochon (thanks to Tammy Powley and her About.com 'how to' article). I think I'm getting the hang of it, but it's going to take more time, materials and a couple new tools before they're ready for prime time, so I decided to try a different approach. Tomorrow I'll share some pendants I've made with that approach and some gorgeous free form polished stones I received from Fable's Rocks (@MidnightReading on Twitter), beading wire and silver/copper embellishments.

Tuesday Tidbits - Soft Flex Tweet-a-Lot Prize Revealed + New Necklace

Remember a few days ago when I mentioned how I'd won a Soft Flex Trio set in their Tweet-a-lot contest? The prize package arrived late last week - Soft Flex Extreme Trio. I want to use these for only the most special of designs and with my best beads. I've got some really gorgeous stones to work with and lots of Swarovski crystals...now I just need to figure out what I want to make with them!

Also on the tidbit front, I made a necklace that I never got around to posting about to share today. Using beautiful Czech glass luster coated faceted beads from The Beadin' Path, freshwater pearls and Swarovski bicones, I've made a necklace in the same style as the bracelets I've been creating with a variety of those same luster beads. I have no idea how I forgot to post about it before this.

I really should get more pieces up on my Art Fire and Etsy shops. I just find it difficult to work up the enthusiasm for a whole day of photography when all I have is the weekend to get everything done and there are so many things I want to do.

Drop in tomorrow for some Mid-Week Mutterings!

Monday Miscellany - Rings & Things June Blog Partner Review Continues: Three Soft Flex Trios Necklace Experiments

Over the weekend I experimented with my Soft Flex Trios which were my choice for the June Rings & Things blog partner's review. The first one used Amethyst colored wire and an assortment of purple beads I got from a bead of the month club run by Elise Matthesen. I curled a couple of the wires using my round nosed pliers to add a bit of a sculptural look. I also figured out the Figure-8 knot, thanks to the SoftFlex website.

The next one I did using Quartz (white) Soft Flex from the Romance Trio and a number of Swarovski drops, beads and briolettes as well as some glass roundel spacers. I used an Opaline bead in the center, from a strand I got at the Rings & Things bead tour plus clear, translucent white, and opalescent beads I've collected from various sources (including a great Etsy shop, Prolifique) for this one.

The final one uses two shades of green from the Renewal Trio - Emerald and Chrysoprase. I used some sea-green pressed glass and Czech Druk beads, as well as a silver plated shell charm that came with May's The Beadin' Path bead club. I wanted an 'under the ocean' look to this one, so I again used the round nose pliers to curl the wires. I thought that would give the impression of a bed of seaweed and I thought the circles of Chrysoprase Soft Flex, with the Jonquil Druk beads looked rather like bubbles.

As always, I'm very interested in your thoughts about these ideas.

Don't forget to write reviews of products on Rings & Things
to be entered in their June-July contest.
Deadline is July 31.

Thursday Feature: Reviews & Interviews - Soft Flex Trios from Rings & Things

This month Rings & Things provided their blog partners with the opportunity to select what product(s) we wanted to review. I've been reading about the Soft Flex Trios on the Soft Flex Girl's blog as well as at the Flex Your Creativity Contest and the free patterns on the Soft Flex site. So my selection was a variety of Soft Flex .019" diameter, 49 strand Trios. Each Trio has three coordinating colors on 10' rolls.

The wire is color coated stainless steel with a test strength of 26 lbs. They say it can be knotted, which I tried with some light yellow quartz beads and the bone color from the Harmony Trio (Bone, Lemon Quartz and Copper)

The beads curved instead of lying along a straight line when I tie simple knots between them, so I went to the site to see what they recommend, which is a figure 8 knot. I couldn't figure out how to get the knot tight to the bead, however, and until I learn how, I won't be using this for knotting.

The pricing at Rings & Things is lower than the list price, but you do have to meet their minimum purchase requirements and there's a small additional cost for purchases under $50. The plus side is a full selection of trios, quantity discounts, and great customer service (plus a candy treat in the package).

By the way, if you do get a product from Rings & Things, there's a contest on this month - you only need to submit a review to enter.

There are several things I want to try, but first I decided to make a quick and fun necklace using some glass beads I'd gotten from various bead mixes. I used three strands, quartz (white) and Rhodocrosite (light pink) from the Romance set and Pink Tourmaline (a bit darker pink) from the Mystical set. I used a large sized tube crimp that all 6 strands fit into (unfortunately, I don't know the exact size) to form the loops for jump rings at the ends so I could add a clasp.

I also knotted the strands as tightly as I could against the last beads on each side and then left the rest of them bare to show off the color. Unfortunately, I had to do some adjusting and one side got a bit kinked. I'm hoping that the weight of the beads might pull out the kink, but I'm not too optimistic. Next time, I'll forgo the knots. The small pink beads between the larger glass ones are strung on just one of the three wires, by the way, to allow some additional color to show.

(click to enlarge for detail)

I'm having fun thinking up new things to try with these colors and may even make something I feel good enough to enter in the contest (deadline is September 1, 2009).

Hey, Another Contest with A Giveaway Attached...So It's Two Chances to Win!

Read about this giveaway to promote a contest first on Twitter: "@tammypowley New @ Jewelry Making Soft Flex Contest: Soft Flex has an interesting new contest running for.. http://tinyurl.com/cn5yqx" So I went over to Soft Flex Girl's blog and snerched the following from her post "Big Giveaway for Blogger Buddies"

Btw, if you aren't following me on Twitter and would like to, I'm @AWDawno - I don't post a lot, sometimes it's just chat with other folks I know from before Twitter, sometimes it might actually be interesting. One thing I don't do a lot of is push my wares - it kind of bugs me when that's all I ever see in other tweets.

Sure, you should promote your Etsy or ArtFire store, but every tweet is "see my beautiful new listing!" or "buy this!" - all the time? I have to admit it annoys me somewhat. Let's socialize and have some fun, too! Great examples of how to do just that are @beadinpath, @Rings_Things, @BeadGuy, @JustATish and @ABeadADay - to only mention a few. @Rings_Things posts links to articles, re-tweets other Twitterer's news and has made personal connections. That's what I look for in social media - being, you know, social.

Anyway, more about the contest and less my pet peeves. I've only ever bought a few rolls of Soft Flex, but because of the great color assortment they offer, and my new fascination with leaving long swaths of my stringing wire exposed, it's on its way to becoming staple for stringing. The black Soft Flex was featured in my bracelet a few days ago and the bronze Soft Flex in the necklace the following day. I want to get some bright colors next - red, green, yellow, turquoise.

OK, so, per the blog giveaway info, I'm posting about it here, adding a button on my sidebar and may post about it again for extra bonus entry goodness.

Just to tie up the loose ends - the blog giveaway is promoting a Soft Flex contest - two different things. You can enter the giveaway without entering the Soft Flex contest and vice versa (but why not enter both?) Deadline for blog giveaway is July 1, 2009 - enter by commenting at the post. Click here for Soft Flex contest details (link also found below). Everything below this is straight from SoftFlexGirl's blog - I take no credit for the content or art below.

Big Giveaway for Blogger Buddies!

Giveaway prize includes:
3 FREE Trios of your choice!
That's right ANY 3 Trios. You choose the colors!

Here's what you gotta do:

Help us get the word out about our new contest.

To enter to win, please blog about our new "Flex your Creativity" Beading Contest.

Save/Post details:

FIND OUT MORE HERE!
(link to: http://www.softflexcompany.com/BeadingContest.html)

Feel free to expand and say more if you like. The only big rule is that it must link to the details page on our website for your fellow designers to find out more.

In addition, if you use the fancy artwork that Kristen created in your sidebar, I will enter you again. 2 entries!

Grab the html code for the button artwork and display it on your blog at the bottom of the contest page. Then, leave me a comment with a link to your blog! I will enter you to win 3 FREE Trios in your choice of color combination! If you blog about it more than once, let me know. I'll enter you as many times as you mention and link to the details page.

All entries (comments) for this giveaway must be posted by July 1st, 2009.

A "Kreativ" Sunday (Thanks, Lisa!)

Been experimenting with that technique I used to make yesterday's black glass bead bracelet. Today I used freshwater cultured pearls in shades of gold, some Crystazzi cube crystals (on half off sale at Michael's) and bronze Soft Flex beading wire.

This one won't go up on Art Fire as I'm not quite satisfied with how it turned out. Was fun to make, though - I really like this technique for its open and organic look.

I read on Lisa's Bead A Day blog that she'd been nominated for a "Kreative Award" by Pearl of The Beading Gem's Journal and that she'd nominated me and 6 other blogs.

Thank you, Lisa, you are a major source of fun, supportive comments and information for me. You are very deserving of the award from Pearl.

So, to keep things rolling, here are the rules of the Kreative award:1. The winner may put this award on their blog.2. Please put a link to the person that presented you for this award.3. Nominate 5 blogs.4. Put links to all their blogs.5. Leave a message for your nominees.

My nominees are:
Just A Tish
Jen Nipps
SmuTopia
WillowWalker Designs
Rock Creek Creations

Five great bloggers who share their thoughts (and often, pictures) about their creative process. I find them supportive, inspirational and fun to "hang out" with here on the blogosphere.

And, breaking news - just got an email that I've made another sale on Art Fire. That's three this weekend and it blows me away!