Valentine's Day Idea #13 - Rhodonite Heart Bracelet

24 Days until Valentine's Day!

Tonight I really only had time for another relatively fast and simple design. One of my favorite colors is pink - didn't use to be, but later in life I discovered that it's a good color for me. Because of this, I have a lot of pink beads, especially Rhodonite. So, for this one I used Rhodonite beads and a Rhodonite heart pendant with silver beads and a silver heart toggle on medium Premium Satin Silver SoftFlex.

You can find the Rhodonite heart pendant and heart toggle at ABeadStore.com. The silver roundel beads and round beads are from Artbeads. The other Rhodonite beads were purchased at my local bead store, Global Beads.

Don't forget, if you'd like to win a cute Valentine's Day bracelet, all it takes to be entered is a comment! Say "Enter me in the bracelet giveaway" on any post between now and the end of the month. If you're on Twitter and RT any of my tweets this month you'll get another entry. If you're a fan or become a fan of Dawno's on Facebook and leave a comment on any post there with "Enter me in the bracelet giveaway", you get another entry - so there's a total of 3 entries you can make towards the giveaway.

Random drawing will be held on January 31st - and if selected, you'll get the bracelet in plenty of time for Valentine's Day!

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!

Monday Miscellany - The Day Job, New Necklace

Today through Wednesday I'll be attending a conference in San Francisco, related to the day job, so I won't have much time to make anything or share much here. Since it's relatively close to home, I won't be staying at the conference hotel and that means getting up early each morning to get ready and drive up to the city. Because I'm not a morning person, it'll be a challenge. I'll still try to get something posted, but apologies in advance if it's not up to my usual output.

I've been working for a few days on a triple strand necklace with rhodonite beads and pendant. I had to re-work it several times (thank goodness for Scrimps!) but I'm pretty happy with the final piece.

(click to enlarge for detail)

At first I didn't have the spacer bars in it, but I didn't like the way the lower strand hung with the heavy pendant so I dug out the 3-hole spacer bars and re-strung the whole thing. Then I had to play around with the lengths of each segment to get the right curve in it.

The thing about this work that is quite different (for me) is that it's almost entirely rhodonite stone - no silver spacers or beads which I would normally add. I just wanted the colors, textures and shapes of the stones to be the focus.

Here's the clasp - I've had this for quite some time waiting on just the right piece for it.

Hope you took some time to read the Sunday Wanderings post - don't miss them every week, add yourself to the followers list or subscribe via RSS.

Finished Five New Pieces Today

I was very productive today! This morning I was thinking about what else I could do with those light topaz beads I had used with the blue yesterday. I decided to go for a darker contrast color, and after a bit of pulling out this and that, came up with olivine deep cut nugget Czech glass (I just did a review of this bead and noticed that Artbeads is having a 20% sale on their Czech glass through Feb. 5th - sounds like a great time to stock up!) and garnet (stone) beads.

The spacers are from a necklace I bought 4 or 5 years ago and wore maybe twice in the first year and it's been hanging on my necklace tree ever since. I decided to unstring it and make other jewelry from the parts. I'm not sure what metal the spacers are, but after all these years they're still bright and tarnish free. They're also pretty heavy for their size.

Then I was wondering what else I could make with the olive beads and pulled out some 'green lace stone' (really, that's all it says on the label) and was going around with just those two colors but it lacked something, so I started pulling out more this and that. When I got to the rhodonite beads, I knew I had found what it needed.

The green lace stone came in a set with the squares and small round beads, so I took the round ones, more rhodonite and some pale olive faceted bicones to make the next one. After that I remembered I had some yellow "turquoise" cubes with a diagonally drilled hole and thought those might be interesting with the remaining green lace stone. Again, it needed color, so I pulled out some amethyst glass bicones.

I liked the amethyst and green, so I used the remaining olive glass beads with the amethyst bicones for this last one.

I did some photography and have three of these up on Etsy. Tomorrow, more photography and more listings, possibly more beading. I'd like to know what you think of the photos I used in the listings - if you have a moment, please look and let me know.

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.

Should I Name it "Captain Hammer"? And What About the Anvil?

I actually did a bunch of beading related stuff last night (before and after watching some TV) but didn't make anything new, although I did finish the blue glass linked necklace I posted about on Tuesday. I think it turned out pretty cute.

I'm still pondering the re-make of the rhodonite vintage style piece (it started as a choker)and still trying to figure out how to set the peridot colored glass gems in the other vintage piece, to say nothing of how I'll finish it off. Did get some peridot colored faceted drops for it in today's mail, so they definitely will be incorporated.

So what do I do tonight? Start something new! I'm linking light amber colored wavy diamond beads in two alternating sizes, with large antiqued brass links and smaller jump beads. I really don't have enough of them to make a very long piece, so I have to decide if it's going to be part of something with multiple chains or if I'm going to try and find more of the bead mixes that these came in. I'm pretty sure I bought all the stock at one Michael's, will have to go to the other one that's further away, I guess, and see if they have them.

In the package with the drops, I also got a small anvil and chasing hammer - want to flatten some of the ear-wires I've made to make them look more finished. I'm leaving marks on the practice wire, though, so I will have to scour the internet to find out how to keep from doing that. There are some other things that I've seen done where the wire has been flattened, too - for strength as well as for the look of it, so I figured it was a skill I need. What started as a little hobby is so fun, fascinating and satisfying, it's turning me into a serious student of various jewelry crafts. Well, you know what they say about idle hands...

Caf or DeCaf?

Made a beaded badge lanyard necklace that compliments the eyeglass chain I posted about yesterday. All glass beads, the small cream beads are Czech druk, the lozenge ones are from the local Global Beads store as well as the flat oval light mocha colored ones. I'm temporarily calling it "Cafe au Lait" but not sure that will stick.The silver beads are glass seed beads and silver-tone disk spacers, that I use a lot and hope I can keep finding them.

Here it is with the eyeglass chain - I think they make a nice pair.

I'm working on something with my vintage style beads and some very nice faceted disk rhodonite beads and small rhodonite oval beads. I have a couple rhodonite cabochons as well, they may work with a filigree setting...we'll see.