Back to My Creative Comfort Zone - At Least for a Little While

What a day. Shopping for more display stuff at Michael's - more on that later in the post. Changing some earring wires for lever-backs because it looks better on the display. When I finish my displays, I may photo and post them - it would be great to hear what you think. Thank you for stopping by, to all the new visitors who've come from Twitter or maybe from a link you saw on another blog. I'll be finding as many of them as I can and linking to their blogs, too on my blog roll soon.

This morning I took some pictures of the stuff I've recently finished. I went back to my comfort zone and did some stringing. It was soothing to not be wondering how to "make this do that or the other thing" and just drop beads on the wires...

First, freshwater pearl, copper beads and tubes and malachite diagonally drilled cubes. It's about 20" long, has a copper leaf hook and loop clasp.

Next, a necklace with aquamarine chips and roundels with freshwater pearls and sterling silver beads. Lobster claw clasp, 20" long.

I really, really like how these turned out. Is it ok to be quite self-satisfied? Because I really feel great about those.

If they don't sell next weekend at Potlatch, they will go up on my Artfire store. Speaking of which, I haven't updated Etsy or Artfire because of the convention. I wonder if I should delist the current offerings until the con is over...

Here's another choker form idea - teal choker, teal Czech faceted, firepolished 4mm faceted glass and sterling spirals and swirls.

And lastly, here's yesterday's swirls and wraps and purple beaded choker again - but I've done a bit more wrapping (on the bottom left to balance the top right) and tweaking...I think it's getting close to done. I'll be ordering that sterling choker form for it!

So, about shopping at Michael's. As much as I'd like to only buy from trusted online sources and bead artists, sometimes I need so get something fast, locally. That means Michael's. I'm not crazy about the local store, it never seems to be well stocked, the beading section, particularly is getting smaller. But still, I go. Today it was raining fairly hard but I needed stuff for my displays for next weekend, so off I go to get the stuff. I get inside and they've put those long poles on the shopping carts so you can't take them beyond the door.

Well, if I hadn't been buying two foam display boards and about 20 lbs of decorative rock, two wire easels and three glass vases, I might not have minded. But that's what I got and I couldn't take them all out in one go without a cart. Especially if I wanted to stay dry and hold my umbrella in one hand. I have a bad shoulder, and carrying the bag strained it. What do they do for people with canes or walkers? I hope they help them out to the car.

Meanwhile people who won't return carts have ruined it for those of us who always take that couple of minutes to do so.

Well, it'll be as long as I can possibly make it before I go back there.

"It was here that I decided to quit before I went embellishment mad"

Before I dive into this, thank you again to Margot Potter for the link to my "Mondrian" inspired choker, in her latest blog post, and to a whole bunch of new crafting/beading/jewelry artists I am following on Twitter and who so kindly have followed me back!

Speaking of Twitter, I tweeted this last night "I'm always wondering, while making vintage-style pieces, when I should stop adding stuff. It's like Granny Ogg and how to spell bananananana".

I really like baroque and complex work, but I also like symmetry, simple lines...it's like having some kind of multiple design personality complex. So when I use intricately textured or ornamental components, it's challenging for me not to just keep adding and adding more chains and dangles and detail, or alternatively, not to add any.

I think last night's work (which was the finishing touch on the pendant I'd started working on weeks ago and put aside unfinished to think about) turned out as a balance between my impulses.

I'll start with the pendant - I received a set of different colored cabochons (all called 'jade' but I think they're another stone that's been dyed, so I'm calling this one 'faux yellow jade') and thought I'd try using some of the brass stampings to wrap them into pendants. I chose a rather large stamping called Maltese Cross (Item S40, Accessories Susan) for the base, and another one called Filigree to Wrap Stones (Item S38, Accessories Susan).

I wrapped the filigree around the stone with the Maltese cross in-between to hold all three pieces together. Then I bent three arms of the cross up and then curled back over to get the setting seen above.

The next thing I did was start experimenting with the chain. At first, right above the pendant, I used some Japanese glass beads with pale yellow rose decals on them, and then put the filigree beads you see above, on the chain as well. I wasn't happy with the rose beads, so they went, but I liked the filigree beads. By the way, there are three tiny yellow faceted Czech glass rounds inside each of those filigree beads to give them a secret inner glint.

I still found the chain a bit dull, so I added the pale yellow faceted Czech glass bicones. Then I looked at it again and wanted to embellish the pendant just a teensy bit more and added the chain loop and then the two chain dangles with the same pale yellow bicones at the ends.

It was here that I decided to quit before I went embellishment mad.

My shipment of silver ox filigrees came the other day, so the next vintage style pieces I do will probably use those. As I mentioned in a previous post, I think the silver will be a better color for Spring and Summer, the brass just seems to say Fall and Winter to me.

Many hours have passed since I wrote that last paragraph...

I think I'll have one more choker frame idea to share soon - been working on another experimental piece, trying something new again, and the way it's deciding to design itself (yes, this piece is growing rather organically since I didn't know where I was going with it, I just started playing and off it went) is looking like it belongs on a choker form. I've been absolutely obsessed with this since about 9 PM and it's now after 2 AM. I think it's nearly done...

I'll leave it a mystery for now and you'll just have to come back and see what it is sometime this weekend.

Lines and Squares, Inspired by Curves and Circles

Dave from Rings & Things tweeted about a choker that Margot Potter (The Impatient Crafter and star of wonderful crafting videos) made using one of the choker forms from Rings & Things (see my earlier post and review of those forms). I went to visit her site and take a look at the necklace - it's gorgeous. (And she has a contest going on as well, be sure to leave her a comment).

As I mentioned in her comments, her design got me thinking about using the red choker form from Rings & Things to make something that radiated out around the neck, too, but taking a different stylistic approach. So I got out some beads and sterling wire and got started. Here's the work so far - still need to add a few more bits if I want to get that radiating look. It's definitely an 'apprentice' piece, where I'm learning more what not to do as I go than what works (so maybe I shouldn't have used that sterling wire, but it was the right gauge and handy)...but I think I'll get to something I can be happy with eventually.

At first I was thinking Mondrian was the inspiration, because I was going for a simple primary palette and angular design, but I'm not so sure that's it. My background is woefully limited when it comes to modern art and artists.

Editing to add: I just realized (after reading some back posts on her blog) that the wire wrapping part of my choker, above, came from JustATish - she showed one of her choker form ideas in this post where she does a beautiful design with copper wire (or is it something else?), lampwork beads and turquoise dyed howlite. I truly regret the curse of CRS that caused me to forget where the inspiration to use wire wrapping on my piece came from!

Product Review: Choker Forms from Rings & Things

I've been meaning to get a post up on the choker forms sent by Rings & Things for days! I'd like to say, right off, thank you to Dave at Rings & Things for including me, it's fun to see new products, experiment with them and then share my thoughts.

I received a package of 6 choker forms - two black, one with a sliver tone magnetic fastener, one with gold tone; one red and silver tone twist fastener, one turquoise blue with silver tone twist fastener, a steel 16" choker form with magnetic fastener and a open ended steel choker form.

As you may have noted on an earlier post, I almost immediately thought of a way to embellish one of the choker forms with some glass beads that had just a large enough hole to go over one of the clasp ends and a pendant I made with sardonyx, sterling silver and glass spacer beads. I like the way it turned out and have gotten compliments (which gave me a chance to talk about my jewelry design and hand out cards, always a good thing!)

So, what do I think about the choker forms?

Pluses

Assorted Lengths - I have a long and thin neck so I prefer a length where the pendant hangs just at the collarbone. That means anything larger than 16" is too big and gives me a bit of a 'Saturn' look as the choker 'floats' in an orbit well away from my neck. The exception would be if I wanted something that would fit over a bulky turtleneck.

The choker form lengths available go from 15" to 20" on the magnetic clasp selection page, There is a silver plated 16" cable on the base metal choker selection page, the colored ones are 18". Sterling silver comes in 16" & 18" with a variety of fasteners and open ended choices. The unfinished end forms come in 16, 18 and 20 inches - and can be cut down to size with heavy duty flush cutters.

Assorted Colors - love that there is a good selection of colors. While the simple silver or gold tone works most of the time, it's fun to have more choice. Helps with the inspiration when it comes to designing something different or seasonal. Would love to see copper colored ones!

Clasps - also love that there are the screw-type or magnetic clasps. I think I like the magnetic ones best as my fingers are less flexible than they used to be. I also like that you can get unfinished ended ones and add beads with somewhat smaller holes.

Minuses

I'm mostly a 'stringer' - I like to have a lot of detail in my work, using small gemstone or glass beads and metal spacers and bead caps. I don't do much in the way of making pendants and these forms, due to the pre-attached clasps limit the kinds of beads you can get on them, unless you get the unfinished ended ones. Since I've not had a lot of experience in attaching a closure to a jewelry cable, I'm hesitant (for now) to invest in the open ended type and find that I can't get a good tight clasp attached. But that's a very tiny quibble and completely a factor of what I do, and where I'm at, in my current stage of learning.

I'd like to see more colors with magnetic clasps and in more sizes.

I am working on an idea (first pass, shown above - subject to a lot more tweaking) using the open ended choker form I got, which came with a magnetic clasp included. I was able to assemble with small, faceted, AB crystal saucer spacers and cathedral cut glass beads, so the 1mm dimension of the cable wasn't a problem. I needed to glue the one part of (there are assembly instructions and gluing recommendations on the listing details) the magnetic closure (I used Aleene's Jewelry and Metal Glue, which is not recommended at the link previously, but seems to be holding fine).

I would like to do two others, one with a black with a gold tone magnetic clasp (available with a 'white' clasp) and one in gold tone wire (not listed online), since I have some cloisonne and oxidized brass wire ball beads I really want to use, but the cloisonne is primarily black and gold.

All in all, I can easily recommend these choker forms, they got me thinking about new ideas and were fun to use.

Forgot to Get the Mail Yesterday...Big Mistake!

Well here it is, nearly 7:30 on Sunday, and the husband just brought in the mail that was delivered yesterday. In it was a package from a Beads of the Month club (BotMo on Live Journal, provided by Elise, whom I've mentioned elsewhere and in the sidebar). One of my favorite colors is purple and this month's theme was...Purple! I ordered "The Big Magpie" and got a wonderful selection of very cool purples and lavenders to play around with. Each bag of beads I looked at, I thought "ooh, those are my favorites" until I looked at the next bag. I have to say that the charoite beads are vying for 1st place, what a wonderful mineral! (I put little numbers on the bag to match the contents to the index that came with the package)

There was also a package from Dave at Rings & Things - some items to play with and some of their products for review here!

There were 6 cable chokers - various colors, fastener types, lengths and some nifty goodies (plus a Jolly Rancher). I immediately thought of some large hole glass beads I'd looked at the other day and put back, yet again, because I couldn't think of what to do with them. Turned out, only two of them would fit over the magnetic end of the fastener. So I put some large hole, silver tube beads and the two glass beads on it. Still seemed to be missing something. Then I went to the new beads I got from the Prolifique Etsy store and grabbed the large stone (?) rectangle and made a pendant for it. I'm thinking about maybe adding a turquoise dangle, but I'll leave it simple for now.

I won't post a review tonight - want to play a bit more with the chokers, get my thoughts together, etc. I'll probably have it ready later in the week.