Too Tired to do a Friday Pick

Public Domain Image from Wikimedia Commons

Yep, long week. Too tired to try and do a pick - really do want to get back to it, but I'm just worn out. So, instead, I'll tell you my books did arrive today - yay! Also thought I'd show and tell about some quick projects I did this week.

On Tuesday or Wednesday, the week's a blur, I tell you, I wanted to wear my charoite and sunstone necklace but I didn't have anything else to go with it. So before I left for work, I grabbed the box lid that all the materials I used to make the necklace (except the chain) were still in, a couple headpins and the chain I'd used, and whipped up earrings and a bracelet. Took about half an hour all told. I again bent one of the twisted wire links into a hook fastener and, voilà - bracelet finished. Earrings were done with headpins and the beads/bead caps.

Then this morning I decided I was going to wear a lanyard with howlite and amazonite to go with a cute camp shirt I had. I had this white turquoise* bracelet and pendant I'd gotten a few years back, when I was still buying jewelry and not making my own, to accessorize with the lanyard.

the lanyard

Couldn't find that pendant for the life of me. Spent half an hour searching before I gave up. Still wanting to accessorize, I grabbed my howlite nuggets and made earrings and a pendant. That took maybe 15 minutes. Sometimes it's just better to make something unique anyway.

*I very firmly believe this white turquoise is howlite, it doesn't look like any of the Native American pieces purported to be white turquoise, which through Googling, seem to be not really a type of turquoise at all. At the time I bought this for a fairly high price at Nordstrom's, I didn't know anything about semi-precious stones - but I did like the way the stones were set, so I grabbed the bracelet and missing matching pendant. It's amazing how much I've learned in the last year or so! I have to give a lot of the credit to the Rings & Things Gemstone Guide - both the book and online version.

So, who else makes last minute accessories before dashing off to work or out with friends?

The Non-creative Side of Business

Today I did paperwork. Got my sales and expenses spreadsheet all finished up from my saved receipts and other docs. Went to the online state sales tax site to see if I could do my taxes online, but it wouldn't accept my info. Will have to call the franchise tax board on Tuesday (Monday is a state holiday).

Then I went upstairs to read for a while and fell asleep and got up a couple hours ago. I worked on a couple of my pieces in progress - a knotted one with rhodonite and ecru Gudebrod FFF silk, and a jump ring chain and howlite necklace and a byzantine chain. I've moved back and forth as I felt like it on these for a while now. The byzantine chain in particular will take a while to finish. All of these reflect how much I like tiny stuff, which is why I put the quarter there. I usually prefer to work with 3 and 4mm beads, tiny bead caps, tiny jump rings. I have to wear a stronger pair of reading glasses for working with the tiny jump rings.

Turquoise Nugget Mystery Partially Solved

Last night I was wondering what I'd had in mind when I bought the turquoise nuggets, tonight this is what I decided to do (click for larger view):

The gold spacers are Tierracast Pamada Beads from D&Y - they are really lovely gold plate with even and neat antiquing and finished with a bright shine and no tags or snags or seams on them. It's going to be 17" when I put on the final bits.

I still have plenty of turquoise nuggets left, so I may see how they go with the white howlite nuggets and some silver beads next.

The Mystery of the Turquoise Nuggets

Got these turquoise nuggets in the mail the other day. They're a pretty good size as you can see from the quarter in the picture for scale. I am fairly certain I had an idea in mind when I bought them. I have no idea now what that was. I think I'm going to have to document my order receipt print out from now on with "I'm buying these to make X"

Normally I shrink the image a lot (and you can always click it to see it bigger) but I left this one fairly large (sorry dial up friends and visitors) because I think the veining and bright mineral specks are very interesting. Also because, see that nugget in between 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock to the left of the quarter? On the reverse it's pretty thoroughly veined, but on the side that's visible in the picture it's almost pristine and I'm almost tempted to see if there's something I can do with a setting to feature that side of that nugget as a pendant.

I have some large white howlite nuggets and also some tiger's eye that I'm now considering using in a chunky necklace with the turquoise. Who knows, maybe that was what I was thinking all along?

Tonight's work in progress is a piece using green ceramic beads joined with a hand made wrapped loop chain - it's time consuming, so I doubt I'll finish tonight or even tomorrow night.

This shows the sequence of the pattern I'm using. I'm also thinking about making it a multi-strand, so it might be a couple weeks (next week I'm traveling out of town and won't be beading) before I have the whole thing done.

If you have been to any really special places in or around Orlando, Florida you think I should visit to bead browse, leave a comment!

Less Talk, More Pictures

First, here's a chain using silver loops, jump rings, howlite nuggets and small round howlite beads. I made it so it could be worn with the toggle through any of the small loops, like a lariat or at the back.

Next a peridot glass necklace lanyard using the roundell and larger bead pattern.

And lastly, my vintage style peridot glass gem and filigree necklace. I may move the larger brass filigree bead that's near the neckline down a bit, but otherwise, I'm done.

Thinking About Vintage Style Jewelry

Finished the wrapped link piece - definitely a first effort and not for sale - but I think I might wear it with the necklace lanyard I did today, that I'm tentatively calling Zephram's Dream. It's 33" long, hemimorphite and howlite with sterling beads. I selected out the howlite that was entirely white or had the most minute gray veining on it for the lanyard.

Here's the lanyard necklace and linked necklace together.

My favorite kind of jewelry has always been pieces with a Victorian/Edwardian retro look, I've been fortunate enough to collect a few lovely silver and sapphire Edwardian pieces, 2 small brooches and a necklace so far. Some other examples of what I like are Michal Negrin (although mostly the simpler pieces - some are too ornate for my taste) and and the 1928 Jewelry Co. styles.

Today I was wandering around the web and happened across Accessories Susan a site that specializes in supplies for making Victorian inspired jewelry. Needless to say, someone should have hidden my credit card. I'm looking forward to experimenting and creating my own designs. If I like what I've done, I may add them to my pieces for sale.

The other place I discovered today was Beading Daily - seems to have some interesting items, so I bookmarked it and joined the forum.

Well, I've got an idea rattling around in the back of my mind and 4 or 5 hours left 'til bedtime, so I think I'll publish this post and get to it.

Seems Like About an Inch an Hour

The wrapped loop chain experiment is progressing at about an inch an hour - well, I've actually done 12 inches, so I guess I'm going a bit faster than that. My hands are a bit sore and my thumbnails are trashed. I may not be doing this in the most optimal fashion.

The loops are getting a bit smaller as I go along. There's no wiggle room between loops for the stones now, either. The other thing that seems to be going well is less wastage of wire; I'm 'eyeballing' the lengths and seem to have figured that out.

I'm using a rather soft 22 gauge "non-tarnish silver" from Artistic Wire, which makes it a bit easier to manipulate, but I'm not sure of its durability. The stones are 6mm round howlite and ~15x8mm amazonite rounded rectangles. This shot makes the stones look more blue than they actually are - they're a lovely pale sea-green color with white streaks.

And I'm Back!

After a long break from blogging, (but not from beading) I'm back. I've done a lot of new stuff but since my "photo studio" is my daughter's bedroom and she was visiting from college, I didn't have a way to take pictures of the new stuff...well, enough with the excuses, I didn't post, now I am.

I did a display at my company's Juneteenth crafts fair, sales were disappointing but I learned things. I'm going to have to invest in some better signage, drapes, displays, etc., if I'm going to compete with people who are regular vendors at shows and fairs. I had thought there would be more employees showing who wouldn't have the fancy set ups - but I'd say a majority of the vendors were not employees and very practiced at display. My product is the right niche for selling at a venue like that, but my location was towards the back and right at the door was a huge (lovely) display of jewelry that included badge lanyards. By the time they reached me, anyone who wanted one had bought one. The best thing about doing that event was that I finally got my state seller's permit so I could participate. It was easy to do, filled out the form online, got there early and was done in under an hour.

I'm probably going to play catch up with some of the stuff that's been made since early June, but here's a brand new piece I just finished, in howlite. I've got another one just like it, nearly done, in snowflake obsidian.

.