Mid-Week Mutterings - Another, "I Need Something to Wear for Work" at the Last Minute Post

Monday the weather got cold enough to get out a sweater. I wore a white cotton cable knit over a gray polo and topped that off with a gray and white tweed blazer. I decided to wear my Toolbox Treasures pendant with it.

The remaining question was what other accessories to use. I have to wear a badge for work and, of course, I try to always wear one of my own creations as the lanyard for it. I wasn't crazy about how any of the ones I'd already made went with the necklace. So, with about 30 minutes left before I had to get out the door, I opened up my gunmetal chain box and stared at the choices for a minute.

Decided on the chain I wanted to use, which I bought at Michael's ages ago - from the Lost and Found (Blue Moon) collection. To make the lanyard, first I put a gunmetal jump ring and lobster claw to each end of the chain - I don't remember for certain where I got these, but they are both available at Rings & Things and I think these were from there, too. Then I put a gunmetal split ring on an extra large gunmetal lobster claw, (both definitely purchased from Rings & Things - I kept the labels), to hold the badge loop. By hooking both of the small lobster claw finished ends through the split-ring, I now have a badge lanyard necklace that took probably 10 - 15 minutes at most to make:

For earrings, I just took two small sections of the leftover lanyard chain and hooked them to ear wires. This took about 5 minutes, at most.

All I needed now was a bracelet. This time I used the same chain (more Lost and Found by Blue Moon, purchased at Michael's) that I'd hung the Toolbox Treasure pendant on, added the jump rings and lobster claw clasp. To finish it, I put two Tim Holtz Sprockets, picked up on a whim at Michael's the other day, on a large oval light gunmetal (looks more like pewter, actually) jump ring and strung the two chains through the jump ring. Ten minutes? Maybe a tad more if you count hunting out all the right parts from the boxes I store them in.

I made it out of the house in time, by the way.

The whole set:

I'm probably going to re-work the earrings and the bracelet - thinking of maybe adding some small clockwork/gear bits on the earrings, and something colorful to the bracelet. If I can remember to get to a hardware store for nuts and bolts and washers, those will be incorporated. Haven't decided on whether I want to change the lanyard, though. I kind of like it as it is. I'll post pics of any re-work when it happens.

See you tomorrow!

Tuesday Tidbits - Day 2 of 3: Not Quite There Yet Necklaces

Right now what I have is a choker length necklace, simply because I only had enough of the silver open 'cage' beads to go this far. While I could stop here and say 'done', there's a nagging voice in the back of my mind whispering to me that it's not. Unfortunately, what Nagging Voice neglects to volunteer, is what else I should do. That's Nagging Voices for you - all critique, no ideas. I am trying to encourage Nagging Voice's shy cousin, Flash of Inspiration, to step up and pitch some ideas. I'd be satisfied if the other cousin, Impatient to Move on to the Next Thing would just chase off the other two. I'm considering options I've come up with no thanks to the crowd in the back of my mind - putting something inside the open bead cages, maybe? Adding drops to hang from the jump rings is another idea, but it's not at the top of the list.

While the voices in my head are busy (or, perhaps, asleep) I'll just babble a bit about the beads I've used.The black bead in the necklace is an interestingly faceted piece of pressed jet black Czech glass from the Halcraft Beads Bead Gallery collection at Michael's. By the way, I went to the Halcraft site to see if I could find the bead and the site is ponderously flash-heavy. You can't link to one particular thing, even if you find it.

On top of that, each page (and there are 4 in the 'glass beads' section once you finally get that page loaded) takes forever to load. Well, ok, 30 seconds, but that's forever in internet time. They need to fire their web-designer. While I've given you the link, I wouldn't recommend a visit unless you have the patience of a saint. Do not go there if you have a slow connection.

Since after my fruitless visit to the Halcraft site I couldn't find an example of the bead to show you, I'll have to try and describe it - plus if you click the picture above you might be able to see enough detail to get the idea.

The facets on the bead are long thin stripes cut or pressed into the bead at an angle from top right to bottom left, the shape of the bead is oval viewed from the top and the center of the bead is thicker than the sides. There's a kind of wavy look to the shape if viewed from the sides as well. It's a pretty interesting bead, approximately 10mmx14mm in size.

The silver cage beads are made up of strips of silver plated metal with a braided, patinaed pattern on them. There's a pin with looped ends through it and each end comes already connected to a jump ring. Made assembly much easier. They're from Sterling Effects which I found in quantity at A.C. Moore last winter when I was in Fayetteville, N.C. Haven't seen them around here anywhere, though.

Last night my Artbeads package arrived - I used the 20% savings offer available over Labor Day weekend to really stock up on different sizes colors and shapes of CRYSTALLIZED™ – Swarovski Elements (many of which you can still get for 15% off until the 22nd at Artbead's "Crazy for CRYSTALLIZED sale) and bead caps. I've quite a nice assortment to work with and since I really need to beef up my inventory of things like earrings and bracelets for the show in November, I felt it was a good use of the opportunity.

Tomorrow you get Day 3 of 3 - and I have made it to version 2 of this one, you get to see some pictures of the changes on this one.

See you then!

Mid-Week Mutterings - Chrysocolla and Copper Necklace Part 2

Not that long ago I wrote about this lovely chrysocolla I'd received from The Beadin' Path - the large oval from the May bead club and the smaller coins from a promotional package that included vintage Lucite that I blogged about a the end of July and first of August. I'd started stringing it with some copper beads and one half of a flowery copper toggle.

I was thinking about, perhaps, working some kind of lanyard idea with it, or maybe I'd wrap something to the loop end...then I got another idea entirely.

The clasp needs some work - it's not yet fully bent correctly because it's a bit DIY - I took another floral toggle part and cut it so it had an open "hook" (now I have the two orphaned toggle bars to figure out what to do with). I'll also need to crimp off the beading wire (Beadalon Satin Copper, 19 strands) when I've finished the hook, but I think I really love this design. Adding the little glass disk spacers and copper wreath beads started me going, but the copper 'shells' beads were the final just right touch for me.

Do come back tomorrow for my review of the ConsumerCrafts.com site and promotional coupon purchases I made from them. I don't know if I'll have time to finish a piece with the purchases, if not, I'll save that for another day. On Friday I'll reveal my latest The Beadin' Path "sea glass" necklace (and the bracelet & earrings).

Monday Miscellany - Re-work

Vintage images courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

I've been doing some re-work this weekend. I had only used two of the three Renewal Trios colors in the necklace below, so I started working on how I might incorporate another color. I've added mother of pearl, shell heishi beads and some glass bicone beads and replaced the silver charm with a Keith O'Connor Porcelain Scallop Shell from The Beadin' Path.

Before

After

Then I happened upon a jasper (leopardskin?) and copper necklace I'd made some time ago and not only hadn't ever worn, hadn't ever listed or photographed. I decided it was time to re-work it.

I had used jasper beads and simple copper loops to form a chain, then I created a focal with more jasper and a copper wire Wig-Jigged into a looped form. I added some oval copper beads on simple loops, took a few beads and the focal and moved them up, plus a chain of smaller oval copper beads. Here's the current iteration:

Tomorrow I'll show you a mixed media earring project I'm trying...assuming things work like I hope.

Hardly Looks Like the Same Necklace Now

Vintage images courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

Ah, Saturday. Sleeping in. Lazing around. Well, at least sleeping in. I have so much stuff to do this weekend and next weekend my daughter is visiting again, so I'll not be getting much done then. I have a special order necklace to make, pieces to finish, and so many ideas to try. But, you're probably here to see what I've got to show for myself for today...

On Wednesday I showed a work in progress using Romance Trios from Soft Flex. This is what it looked like then:

I've been fiddling...here's what it looks like now (click picture for closer look):

It hangs a bit longer than shown - the bust is a bit short so I had to pull the chain down in the back. I like this much better! There are still some finishing details I need to do - a crimp cover here and there - but this is pretty much it.

I think you can see where I snipped the wires and crimped them to create the wisps? vines? that were once part of what Tish called the bow tie, then I made a loop at either end of the beading and fastened two twisted wire rings through them to connect it to an antiqued silver chain (from Accessories Susan). The clasp is made from a twisted wire oval I bent into a hook.

I think I may have 3 or maybe 4 entries to send in to the Flex Your Creativity contest - if you're thinking of entering (and I hope you are!) don't forget that you only have until Sept. 1st.

As I didn't get anything listed on Art Fire, per goal, neither Thursday nor Friday. I'm going to have to do three today to catch up. Fortunately, it's Saturday and I have 1) sunlight for photography and 2) all day to do it!

Here are the eight new ones I've listed so far - I'd be very interested in your candid comments about them - photography, setting, price - whatever:

Dawno

Buy Handmade

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for Wandering Around the Beadosphere!

An "I'm Not Really Here" Saturday Post

I'm visiting with my family this weekend and won't be able to do a 'real time' post, so I've prepared this in advance and am setting it up to publish automatically today (same goes for tomorrow's post, too).

On Wednesday I put up a picture of my little laptop DIY workbox with some pieces I was fiddling with. They're still works in progress and here's where I currently am with those same pieces.

This first one is the copper choker frame and peach glass drops. The circles and wire wrapping just didn't work out right, so I unwrapped the copper wire and took off the circles, put on these copper beads as spacers between the peach glass drops on the vintage copper coated steel chain.

It felt unfinished still, so I tried stringing the choker form with chain. Hmmm. Nope.

The beads may have to go...I've put this aside for now so no more version pictures today, will update next week.

The second necklace had one pearl between two copper spacers. Then I remembered I had these gorgeous Swarovski faceted briolette drops in Mocca. I unstrung the beads and put a small middle-amber hessonite bead after a pearl then the briolette, another hessonite bead and another pearl. This I really like. Now I have to get more briolettes, I didn't have enough, on top of wating for the rest of the spacers to come (they shipped today).

Since I will have given these to my sister by the time this posts, here are the earrings I made for her using Champagne color dyed freshwater pearls I bought at the Rings & Things road show in March plus a green coin pearl, also from Rings & Things. The ear wires and eyepins are gold filled and they're set on a gold plated curb chain I got from Rings & Things, as well.

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend so far. Come back tomorrow for Dawno's Weekly Wanderings Around the Beadosphere post!

Monday Miscellany - Re-work Finished, Maybe...

If you read my Saturday post, you might remember I mentioned I was going to do some re-work on this necklace:

Before

Unlike the gunmetal and garnet, I didn't take intermediate pictures, although now I wish I had. The design went through several trial and error phases before I settled on something. Here's what it looks like now.

After

I took over half of the lilac cathedral beads off of the necklace, replaced them with round faceted Czech glass beads, added extra vermeil spacers and glass roundell spacers between them to go around the side and back of the neck. Then I positioned and re-positioned those lilac cathedral beads into various configurations using gold filled eye-pin links and a few clear glass beaded links as well.

This was very tedious work, but I think worth the effort. I've put it out of sight for now and will give it a fresh eye in a day or two before I declare it 'done'. Now I have to go de-list from Artfire since the original no longer exists!

Speaking of ArtFire - I posted on Saturday that I'd listed my lava stone and red ceramic necklace and put the word out on Twitter as well. Then I got busy doing stuff (mostly the necklace above) and didn't visit Twitter or check my email for several hours. I took a peek at Twitter and saw that PandorasBones had left me a tweet saying she'd bought the necklace and forgot to ask for the extender chain option. Call me gobsmacked! I'd never sold something so quickly and that I could attribute directly to mentioning a post on Twitter about! Needless to say, I'm pretty glad I use Twitter.

A Slow Starting and Lazy Saturday

Started off waking up a bit late, was a cloudy morning, I'm exhausted from last week, and the DH planned a movie (Ghost Town - lovely movie, funny and romantic) and pizza lunch, so it's 2:30 now and probably won't get much done creatively today.

I do have my Patti Stoll Starry Night Sunflower beads sitting out, the ones with the bright yellow sunflowers and swirly sky of blue and white above them. I cannot for the life of me decide what to do. I want to use the two small beads as earrings and the larger one as a pendant. Other than that I'm stumped.

Maybe Russ Troll will inspire me? Yes, my Russ Troll bead showed up the other day. Here he is examining my photo studio and being examined by the cats. Lying down and "playing possum" was probably the right thing to do with my fierce felines.

(Pudding at left, Jello at right)

I am got a bit of photography done today and listed this necklace that includes brown lava stone beads from Rings & Things that I've named Hale-a-ka-la is Dreaming. I've had this out at both shows this year, gotten lots of compliments, but no sale yet. Not sure why, but I'm going to put it out on the web, maybe it'll find a home.

Update, Saturday Night: Wow! The power of Twitter - this piece is now sold!

I'm also going to re-work this one, showed it at BayCon and got some positive reaction, but there's something about it that's just not doing it for me yet:

Do come back tomorrow for the weekly round up: Dawno's Wanderings Around the Beadosphere!

Update! Update! Update!
Russ Nobbs shares the Russ Troll Story!
(promoted from comments)

Russ Nobbs said...

Wonderful pictures of your cats with my ceramic likeness. Literally made me laugh out loud!
Those "russ troll" beads are one of the best and funniest things we've ever done. They've created laughter amongst beaders all around the globe.


Exactly why the the design came about is shrouded in mystery. *we can't remember* Some years ago, Michelle, who now heads our problem resolution and quality control sections, asked her dad to do a caricature of me. No one remembers exactly what for. Just for fun? to use in the catalog? To throw darts at? Whatever..... He did a cute one. I do remember using it in a catalog as a coloring contest. I still have some of the better entries. An airbrush artist even sent in a T shirt with the design airbrushed on it. It happened to arrive while I was in the hospital trying to survive an allergic reaction to sulfa drugs. The wonderful shirt went a long way towards restoring my health and sanity.

I think the hands are behind my back just because it's hard to sketch hands if they aren't doing anything. Maybe I should be fondling some beads?

A few years ago, Kim and a couple of the buyers got together with another strange bead icon, the guy who has the ceramic beads made down in Peru. They thought up what was supposed to be a surprise for me - a hand painted ceramic version of the Russ "troll."

As it happened, when the picture of the prototype bead came in most of the people who were in on the plot were out of town. So they asked me to "approve" the sample for production. After I stopped laughing, I said "Yeh! Sure! Why not?" It took a few months and now we finally have them "in stock" available for sale to anyone. Even our competitors are allowed to buy them for their dart boards or to hang from their cell phones.

There's talk of making a few more styles.... one with the worn out denim cap I like, one with my glasses propped tackily on top of my head, one with our logo on the shirt, one with a huge strand of chevrons, that sort of thing. Then we'll put it out there that it's cool to collect the whole set.

I hope this one inspires you!!!!