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 Mutterings - Bracelet Frenzy!

As promised, here's most of the output (aside from the Beadin' Path design partner bracelets I showed the other day) of my bracelet frenzy this weekend. There's one more I hadn't put the clasp on to and I've got a couple under construction, as well.

I wanted to work from the fall color palette, so I kept it close at hand as I selected the beads for these. I did consider mixing it up a bit in terms of using contrasting colors in the bracelets, but ended up only doing the one (in the center) with two colors that I wouldn't have normally put together. The bracelets feature a lot of gold filled beads and gemstones (except for the two on the far right and the copper one on the far left). I also liked the way the on the mookaite strand were pretty random, so I strung that bracelet straight off the strand with gold filled spacers between each faceted rondelle.

I used CRYSTALLIZED™ Swarovski Elements bicones in each design, except for the two directly to the right and left of center, the pearls in the far left and third from the left are Swarovski, but the ones on the amethyst bracelet (second from left) are freshwater cultured pearls.

Which are your favorites? I really like them all, but I think my favorite is the dark brown and antique brass. The copper with carnelian and the mookaite ones are my next favorite.

I'm pretty close to having what I think is a fairly decent inventory of bracelets, so I may focus on earrings for a while. My inclination is to make sets - earrings that match either my necklaces, lanyards or bracelets - what do you think?

Tuesday Tidbits - Re-worked Rings & Things Blog Partner Design

I mentioned in the post last week about using the "M - Moments" charm that I wasn't quite satisfied with how it turned out. The other night I sat down and re-worked it. I'm now much more pleased:

I've moved the second gear to the same side as the first and used two large faceted carnelian stones with a couple additional CRYSTALLIZED™ Swarovski Elements Red Magma bicones to the other side. It's still got balance but the effect is definitely asymmetrical. To close the chain I turned the large 'spinner' into a toggle to go through the gear - may need to use a smaller spinner, though. The copper "M" Moments Muse Token and spinners that were part of the package Rings & Things sent, the rest of the items were in my stash. Gears came from the Tim Holtz Idea-ology collection.

I made a bracelet that sort of coordinates, but I'm thinking about using more copper gears and the carnelian to make one that's more in line with this design.

Speaking of bracelets, come back tomorrow to see the bracelet frenzy part 2 post!



FTC compliance disclosure notice of material connections: All items referenced in this post were personally purchased, with the exception of the Idea-ology Muse Token & Idea-ology spinner, which were provided by Rings & Things as a promotional gift in exchange for my design ideas and/or review of the product.

Monday Miscellany - Beadin' Path Design Partner Baby Blues

Later in the week I'll share more about it, but this weekend I was in a bracelet frenzy. I've got tons of necklaces and lanyards for the show next week (yikes!) but not many bracelets, and I could use some earrings, too.

So today I'll share the bracelets I made with the vintage baby blue German glass faceted beads The Beadin' Path sent me in my recent Design Partner batch (the bag on the right in the picture below). By the way, the only beads left from that batch that I still haven't figured out what to do with are the opaque baby blue "bones and pods" strand (second from the right). Yep, that's what they look like to me and they're driving me crazy. I've got an idea for the yellow disk beads (second from left) but I haven't started working on it yet - maybe later this week.

Anyway, I made 6 bracelets so far from the faceted baby blue vintage glass. They still need to be finished, but it's getting late and I need to get this post done so I can go to bed! I'll add the clasps to them soon.

For the ones above, along with the vintage glass beads, I used CRYSTALLIZED™ Swarovski Elements opaque turquoise bicones, sterling floral bead caps, silver beads and a faceted glass roundel in the one on the left. The one in the middle has the faceted, rounded cube and bicone beads I got last year in Fayetteville, NC plus silver, and the last one has Beadin' Path sea-glass style beads and silver. You can probably tell the vintage faceted beads have an iridescent coating, but the picture doesn't do it justice (nor to the iridescence of the rounded cube beads).

The bracelet on the left above, uses gold filled disk spacers and beads with the vintage glass. The center one has Golden Shadow CRYSTALLIZED™ Swarovski Elements bicones and gold beads. The one on the right has copper bead caps and Padparadscha CRYSTALLIZED™ Swarovski Elements bicones. I wanted to use a really different color and thought the unusual pink/red of Padparadscha made a very interesting contrast and looks nice with copper.

I have really enjoyed working out how to use the Beadin' Path beads over the last few weeks - they've been challenging, but once I got an idea, it was a lot of fun trying to make it work out. If only I could figure out what to do with those bones and pods. I've still got plenty of the faceted blue beads, so one of those bracelets may have a matching necklace, soon.

Hope you'll be back tomorrow - I think I'll write about the rest of the bracelet frenzy and show you what came of it.




FTC compliance disclosure notice of material connections: All items referenced in this post, with the exception of the vintage glass baby blue faceted vintage German glass beads provided to me for use as a Design Partner, were personally purchased.

Tuesday Tidbit - Rings & Things Goodies Have Arrived!

Yep, like a few of my fellow Beadospherians, I too have received my blog partner package from Rings & Things. There was much squeeing involved when I spotted it waiting for me.

I want to do a fuller post about the wonderful items, (and as you can see from Just A Tish's post, there were a lot of great goodies) but I didn't have a lot of time this evening*, so I'll just show you what I was immediately inspired to do with the copper "M" Moments Muse Token and spinners that were part of the package. The other items in the necklace were already in my stash from various places - the Swarovski red magma bicones, the Tim Holtz Idea-ology gears, and some copper chain. The piece is much longer than shown because I pulled it up to fit better on the smaller display bust I have in my workroom.

*I write almost all my posts the night before they publish.

Now, this is just a quick first pass at using the Muse Token. I have to let it "age" a bit while I stare at it and figure out what I want to do. The first thing that came to mind, after just a few minutes of pondering, is that I want to do it asymmetrically instead, and I'm probably going to add other crystal embellishments, maybe some pearls, and perhaps another chain. I think one of those open gears might be good as part of a toggle closure, or paired with a copper hook.

There are a number of ideas I've had for using the Moments charm, and I may indeed remove it (temporarily) to try those ideas out. The Idea-ology pieces have a nice patina and full packages come in three metal colors: antique brass, antique silver and antique copper. I'm not sure, however, whether they are the actual metal or a plating - I suspect plating but I haven't sacrificed a piece to check that.

The pieces are one sided, and the back side is textured, which I think is a drawback when used as a charm on a bracelet or on earrings. In a necklace it's not so much of an issue. The gears and keyholes are rather large, so whatever you make with them is going to be pretty bold. I like the delicacy of using gears from watches in my steampunk style pieces, but the Idea-ology line isn't a bad option, just a bit more 'mass market-y'.

One other thing from the goodies I'll mention before I wrap this up, is a length of ebony wood chain. The links are *huge*, the larger one is almost 1¾" long and the smaller one is 11/16 ". This may very well strain my comfie zone excruciatingly before I come up with a design, but I'm excited about the challenge. As a matter of fact, I got a length of brown polyester chain in my Beads in the Mail club package from The Beadin' Path the other day, and I have a glimmer of an idea about using it and the wooden chain together...we'll see.

I hope to have more time tomorrow night to take some additional pictures and discuss the rest of the Rings & Things items, so I hope you'll return for my Mid-Week Mutterings!





FTC compliance disclosure notice of material connections: All items referenced in this post were personally purchased, with the exception of the Idea-ology Muse Token, Idea-ology spinner and Ebony wood chain, which were provided by Rings & Things as a promotional gift in exchange for my design ideas and/or review of the product.

Today's post sponsored by:

Dawno

Sell Handmade

Monday Miscellany - Vintage Glass and a Lovely Chunk of Amber

I've been playing with the amber colored vintage Czech glass that The Beadin' Path sent me as a design partner, below, between the yellow and red.

Like the yellow glass, I spent a lot of time trying various combinations until I saw something that I thought would work. Then I went to my stash of amber colored glass beads looking for complementary beads to fill out the design. I'm not 100% sure of the leaves - what do you think?

The beehive shaped beads and the saucer shaped beads are from the Beadin Path, the amber nugget and larger bead caps are from my local bead store, Global Beads. There are also tiny bead caps from Artbeads in there. The other glass beads were from Blue Moon assortments bought at Michael's.

some additional shots you can click on to see more detail:

After I finished this and photographed it, I did some photos of a couple necklace lanyards. I also worked on descriptions, the main photos for some other listings and a couple other little touches. I'm trying to get all of my work into my ArtFire shop. You can see the new listings in the Rapid Cart below my signature.

Until tomorrow -

Dawno

Sell Handmade

FTC compliance disclosure notice of material connections: All items referenced in this post, with the exception of the vintage glass 'beehive' and 'saucer shaped beads', were personally purchased for the express purpose of creating this necklace.

Took a Tropical Turn Tonight with the Beadin' Path Design Partner Challenge

The Beadin' Path sent me some vintage Czech and German glass beads to feature in some Design Partner jewelry designs back in October.

I've really struggled with what to do with these - partly because of the colors and partly due to the shapes. Well, I finally figured out what to do with the yellow strand on the far left. I started with just re-stringing the beads this way and that. Then it occurred to me that I could pull out the hyacinth druk beads and some Lucite flowers I had played with this summer to mix in with them.

Necklace #1 uses each of the shapes on the strand, except for the larger oval one (I keep calling them 'pods'), and a orange Lucite flower. The bright orange beads I've added are modern hyacinth Czech druk beads.

(I think this is darling, if I say so myself.)

Necklace #2 uses the pods and some dark orange Lucite flowers with a larger yellow one. I put some yellow seed beads between the flowers and pods since they didn't hang well without them.

There were some problems making the second one. I couldn't find enough of the original yellow seed beads and at the end I had to use a different yellow bead. And of the eight orange flowers, seven were matte and the eighth was shiny - I put that one at the end. The large yellow flower looked brighter, and more like the yellow in the 'pod' beads, in the light I have in my beading room than the light I used to take the picture, too.

I'm quite happy with these, especially since the ideas didn't come easily! Now it's off to figuring out what to do with the others.

Hope to have more designs with the Beadin' Path beads soon.

FTC compliance disclosure, notice of material connections: All items in the previous post, specifically referenced as from The Beadin' Path, were provided as promotional gifts by for review or design partnership purposes.

Monday Miscellany - Leopard Skin Jasper and Gunmetal Necklace, part 2

I've been fiddling with this leopard skin jasper necklace for some time now. Back in September I posted this:

I mentioned that I thought something was missing. I went back to work on it this weekend and now it looks like this:

Now I'm not entirely sure that the chain part still works, but I certainly do like the addition of the new strand. I don't have enough crystal volcano to do another strand like the top one, so the decision is do I order more and replace the chain with another one like the top? I'm leaning in that direction. By the way, the chain is a bit challenging to work with when it comes to connecting it because of the way the links are made - they're like little cages that clasp through each other in one direction. At one end of the chain it's pretty secure, but at the opposite end the clasping part tends to bend apart too much and it's nearly impossible to close them well.

I enjoy reading the thinking processes of other designers, so I hope that these little glimpses into mine are interesting or even valuable to you, too.

'Til tomorrow -

Tuesday Tidbits - Halloween Necklace

Owl graphic from Graphics Fairy

Some time ago I did a Friday Pick from Rings & Things with a Halloween necklace in mind. I've finally gotten around to making it, and I thought I'd share the process.

First off I tidied up and set out all my stuff. I've left the bags on the mat for these pictures. I do leave stuff in the original bags (or save the labels) so I know what to re-order if I run out - and so I can identify what I've made stuff with - I didn't always and learned better over time. I don't usually line them up like this on the mat, they're normally on the right side of the work area, since I'm right handed.


Here's a close up of the rubber tubing I'm using, wooden cat charms and rubber tube ends. The cat charms come in left facing and right facing and are plain wood. I am considering some sort of decor on the charms, just not sure what quite yet. Those experiments come later.

I was enticed to try using rubber tubing by Margot Potter - she features it in crafts on her blog, in her Beyond the Bead and there are also pieces with it in Bead and Wire Jewelry Exposed which she co-authored with Katie Hacker and Fernando DaSilva.

I've put the tools I'm going to use in this nifty holder right in front of me so they're easy to swap out as I need different ones. You'll note the Baby Wubber flat nose pliers - those are from Blue Buddha Boutique and simply wonderful - they fit my small-ish hands perfectly, the grip is soft and non-slip, and the very smooth finish on the pliers doesn't mar the rather delicate matte finish on the jump rings at all. I'm also using a flush cutter, bent nose full sized Wubbers pliers (everything except the 'fit my small-ish hands' above applies to these, too), and round nose pliers, to make the simple loops.

I have these great 7/8" gunmetal headpins from Rings & Things. Great because there's so little wastage when I make a dangle with tiny beads, because the finish does not chip or flake, even when I'm less than extra cautious, and because the finish color is true gunmetal. I also liked the matte black jump rings from the Black Lace (from Michael's) assortment for this necklace because they practically disappear on the black rubber tubing, so I used them instead of gunmetal. However, the black headpin/eye pin coating will chip and flake when you use them for a wrapped loop, if you don't treat it with the utmost care, and even then it might anyway, which is the ultimate reason I used the gunmetal ones from Rings & Things, instead. The matte black jump rings didn't have the flaking/chipping issue when I opened them, although they were easily marred if my tools (yes even Wubbers) slipped - which with such tiny rings happened. I used a Sharpie to color in the flaws. Unfortunately, as you'll see further on, it turns out the idea I had for them didn't work out so well.

Ok, so now you know what's going to be on the necklace, on to how I assembled it.

First, I put one Swarovski 4mm bicone from the Rings & Things Kokomo assortment and one gunmetal bead (I am not exactly sure where I got them - I have the bag, but there's no supplier logo or name printed on it!) on a headpin.



I trimmed the head pin by about a quarter inch. I don't actually measure that with a ruler, I use the distance between my fingernail and base of my left index finger as a gauge for the length I cut off, but I decided to actually measure it for this post. Then I made a simple loop, hung it from a Black Lace matte black jump ring and moved on to the next color Swarovski to do the same again.

As you can see from above, I'm making all the dangles first, then I'll "string" them on the rubber tubing.



I also made a couple "black cats on a wall" beads using two oval wooden beads, Ranger jet black archival ink and black embossing powder (purchased at Michael's). I used just the top part of a rubber stamp from Alpha Stamps (Feline Expo) by covering the bottom half with tape before I inked it.

These oval beads plus the round wood beads are recycled from a beaded belt I've had in a 'junk bag' for years. I really don't remember how I ended up with a wooden bead and faux leather string belt. Must have been some fashion delusion I had in the 80s when I had a waistline...

Anyway, I was not happy with the way the crystal dangles looked because of the way they were clumping together when I held the necklace up as if hanging from my neck. I had hoped for a cool, swinging type of attachment, but that was not to be. So I un-strung the whole thing and took the dangles off the jumprings. All that careful effort for naught. Such is life.

Here's where I am now - dangles hanging directly from the tubing. It's definitely not finished. I just haven't been hit by the right particle of inspiration for what I'm going to do next.

Any ideas? I did consider embellishing the wooden cat/moon pendants, but I'm kind of liking the folksy bare wood look. By the way, the "line" on the pendant that creates the cat's leg - it's carved straight through the wood, not drawn on or burned in. Nice touch. I have a lot of these, I plan on making some earrings soon and listing them on ArtFire.

Come back tomorrow and read about some magazine contest stuff I've participated/am thinking about participating in.

FTC compliance disclosure notice of material connections: All items referenced in this post, with the exception of the Kokomo mix Swarovski crystals and Baby Wubbers, were personally purchased for the express purpose of creating this necklace.

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!