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.

Really Short Post for Today

Well, this is going to be a very short post - had a busy day and not much time for either beading or writing. I think I more than made up for it with the length of yesterday's how-to, though.

I saw that Art Bead Scene's May Challenge is Monet's "Waterlilies". I love that painting. Was very fortunate to see it at an Impressionist exhibition in Los Angeles back in the mid-80's and brought home a number of museum exhibition posters featuring Monet works.

If you find yourself inspired to create something that includes art beads you should consider entering the contest - the prizes this month are wonderful as well.

I've been doing a little of this and a little of that lately. I posted three new lanyards on Etsy, cute floral ones great for eyeglasses,

Finally, here's a new piece I finished last night with the angelite stone that I used with the Swarovski pearls last week. There are sterling silver Bali Swirl bead caps from Artbeads, sterling silver beads and Jablonex Czech glass "black diamond" bicones in the design.

(click for detail)

Hope your Wednesday goes well! See you tomorrow.

Monday Musing on Creativity

Yesterday my husband and I went to see Jonathan Coulton in concert in San Francisco, so no post. Although I did some minor additions to other work and a bit more organizing, no beading of substance was accomplished yesterday. The concert was wonderful though and I saw a couple of folk who are pretty well known in science fiction and tech circles at the concert too.

My husband opened the mailbox just before we got in the car and pulled out Saturday's mail - somehow we just forgot to check it the day before. Waiting in the box were some aquamarine roundelle beads from Artbeads (along with a few other goodies I just had to get). I didn't open them in the car, and we got home late, so I didn't open the box until this morning. I had a few things I wanted to do today outside of the workroom, so I didn't started working with them until fairly late this evening.

I decided to use all sterling bits with the aquamarine, so this will feature sterling beads, different sized sterling roundelle spacers, sterling oval jump rings and sterling 20 gauge wire along with the roundelles and some polished chips I already had. Here is the first six inches:

I don't claim any specific inspiration for this piece from the concert, but Coulton is inspiring - he has gone and done what he loves to do and makes a living doing it. It surely hasn't been easy, but it seems like he's having fun. It was certainly a lot of fun listening (and often singing along) last night. It would certainly be great if all of us who create with our hands could find our audiences and make a decent living with our crafts.

Trying New Techniques With Copper Wire

I'm doing more practicing with various wire designs. I saw a picture of a necklace made using what the designer called "spring links" and thought I'd give it a try. I assembled my bracelet by first making a long coil of copper wire on a Beadalon jump ring maker. Then I cut jump rings to make the double link chain portion and sections of coil for the springs between them. To make the spring link you bend up half of the final loops on the coils. It's harder than it looked, I had to toss several attempts, although I cut more jump rings from the portions that were still intact enough. I decided to stop at bracelet length, added imperial jasper ovals on embellished copper headpins and made a simple hook and eye clasp from copper wire to finish it off.

The next thing I decided to try was a simple design link of wire between bead sets with wrapped wire loops. I used round nose pliers to create the four-leaf link. It took some experimenting but I finally figured out how to make them to my satisfaction. I have a small Wig Jig, but the pegs are pretty tiny and I was looking for a larger loop as I deliberately choose a larger size for the wrapped loops since the square bead is substantial and I thought the larger loop looked better. Normally the loops I make are pretty small, so I had to keep reminding myself to start the loop lower on the nose of the pliers than usual.

The square glass beads were among my Fayetteville purchases, the other beads are small and medium black glass Druk beads and a copper disk bead with a simple black pattern I bought at Global Beads. I'm going to make it about twice as long as shown. I'll probably finish it with a final four-leaf link and a copper hook like the one I made for the bracelet.

Absent getting all the materials to solder the links on both pieces, I'm going to have to figure out how to secure the open links and jumprings somehow, because the copper wire stretches and I don't think the loops won't hold up all that well.

New Etsy Listings - Holiday Badge Lanyard Necklaces

As threatened, uh, promised, I've put up several holiday themed necklaces on Etsy. Some will look familiar as I've posted about them recently. Others were made last Christmas, before I started blogging and joined Etsy. I'm very pleased that the gold plated lanyards from last Christmas held up so well - no tarnishing, and with minimal care (frankly, they just hung on a necklace stand) in a fairly humid environment. Can't say the same for the silver plated ones - I will be re-stringing a few as a result.

I set up a new winter/Christmas themed backdrop for my photos and priced two of the lanyards in the 'bargain' category.

Today's Holiday Necklace Lanyards

Finished two more new lanyard necklaces in red and green to wear for Christmas time. These will be added to my bargain lanyards group as they are entirely Czech glass and seed beads. The first is 31" long and features large (10mm) pinched oval glass beads culled from Blue Moon glass assortments and some iridescent glass seed beads (as with all pictures you can click it for a larger view).

The second one uses 6mm fluted green pressed Jablonex Czech glass rounds, separated by ruby matte glass seed beads (possibly Toho - I didn't keep the original label, something I do now) small, clear square beads with an iridescent finish (also Czech glass) and an oblong red glass bead of forgotten origin. This is quite light and at 29" is a good lenght for an eyeglass leash.

I put together a bracelet design with some fun red glass beads and silver 'bali' style spacers but wasn't happy using stringing wire for it as the wire seemed too fragile for the fairly heavy beads. So I tried attaching some crimp ends I had to a length of jewelry cable but it didn't work out. Now I'm a bit stumped on what to use for the bracelet, although I have a few ideas that I plan to try.

Sticking to a Template

For the most part I don't usually repeat a design many times. Mostly because my supply of a particular kind of bead lends itself to one or two, but not much more that that. Occasionally I will have different colors of the same type of bead and I might do one or two color variations of the same pattern.

That went out the window with the design idea that started with the Chateau Picard badge lanyard necklace. I've now done 14 variations on that theme in different colors. Here's the three latest versions, two in a smoky quartz colored glass (the label says "reconstituted smoky quartz" whatever that means) and one in a lovely chardonnay yellow color. The picture doesn't do them justice as it's a bit blurry and the lamp adds a bit of extra yellow.

The main reason I've made so many of these is that they are going to be the bulk of my 'bargain' necklace lanyard selection on Etsy. They're relatively simple, less expensive, and less time consuming to make than the other necklace lanyards I've done, so I can put them at a very inexpensive price point, $20.00. I'm going to try to get them all listed on or before this weekend.

If you can't wait, and the color you'd like isn't on Etsy yet, feel free to contact me via email and we can work out the arrangements.

Didja Miss Me?

I can't believe it's been over a week since I had time to post! I haven't done a lot of beading, but I do have a couple things I can share.

First, finished this necklace using copper and red glass and scanned it instead of photographing, mostly because it was easier:

Next I did some more scans instead of regular photos of some lanyards for my Flickr page - here's the alexandrite colored lanyard I mentioned in my last post. You can also see that I'm starting to add my new stamped tag to the necklaces:

Finally, I've created a section on Etsy for 'bargain priced' necklace lanyards - everything there is $20.00 and lowest cost shipping. I'm hoping I can get some sales before the year is out. All of these rondelle lanyards will probably go there - just have to get them photographed. I ran out of light today so I'm not sure when I'll be able to put them up.