Monday Miscellany

I think Monday posts are the hardest to do. I guess I'll just take a page from Modern Literature class and do "stream of consciousness" - although I think this is more organized than most of the stream of consciousness writing I read way back when.

Although I have a new goodie bag to work with from Rings & Things, I did just use the Indian Pink Swarovski's I got in the last pack in this necklace - aren't they the perfect color to go with the rhodochrosite heishis I got recently from Lima Beads? This is very petite - just 16", the heishis and eight of the Swarovski's are 4mm, so it's quite delicate looking when on.

Below is a piece I worked on last Saturday night, still have some finishing fiddly work to do on it, but (I think) the design is done. Necklace is around 16", the center detail is around 2" long. Swarovski pearls, Swarovski crystals from Global Beads, gold fill wire, gold vermeil daisy spacers from Artbeads. Took about 4 hours to complete. *whew*

Of course the center bit was the first thing I added to the basic strung necklace, then I decided it needed even more bits, and just like Topsy, it growed. I finally resisted all temptation to do anything else to it Saturday night, which is when I took the picture above.

I have Thursday and Friday off this week (yay!). Thursday I go to the Rings & Things Bead Tour (that psychodelic-y banner has me flashing back to my youth and I never even touched LSD...really!) and get to visit with a new friend of mine while I'm there, since it's about midway between where I live and where she lives.

I met her at the SF convention, Potlatch. She's also someone I know online at Live Journal. She asked me if I still had a pair of earrings I'd shown but she didn't buy there -she called them "those orrery looking earings" and you know, the way they move, it is kind of like an orrery. Anyway, I told her they were still available and we're going to conduct that transaction, see the bead show and have a lovely time. I'm really looking forward to seeing her, as well as the beads.

Friday I'm going to have lunch downtown with another friend who I met through work and lives in the same town I do. She's not at my company any more, so I don't get to see her in person as much although we found each other on Facebook, so we try to keep up there. I am so glad for places like Live Journal, Facebook and Twitter helping me stay in touch. I'm terrible at writing chatty letters/emails or making phone calls so those sites are great for letting folk know I'm thinking of them or for sharing little bits of news.

Then it's work work work on my pieces for Bay Con. Tags, display, new stuff - next weekend will be very busy.

Black Sand Beach Bracelet

Before anything else, I'd like to thank Lisa at A Bead A Day for picking me as her featured designer this week - I'm so honored she liked my work!

Also, there are still some Rings & Things gluable challenge bracelets showing up here and there - Katie Hacker of Katie's Beading Blog (and lots of other great sites around the web) showed two ideas earlier this week.

There are lots of great kits and tutorials out there - I just bought one from Rock Creek Creations at Art Fire - and the Beadalon site has some good ones as well. Sometimes though the concept is what inspires me more than the actual item being taught.

Like back when you were a kid, and it was time to sit down for Arts & Crafts at camp or with the Scout troop, were you one of the people who listened carefully, checked the step by step drawings often, and at the end of the hour had a perfect replica of the craft's director's sample? I was one of those more often than not.

When I was a teen I worked for the summer recreation department and taught swimming in the morning and arts and crafts in the afternoons. I had a set curriculum and the department provided the supplies. I never varied from the program and there wasn't much opportunity for the kids to improvise, either - just didn't have the materials and I couldn't afford to bring in anything extra, either.

When I got older, I often volunteered to be the crafts teacher for various summer recreation programs, all the way into my early 30s. There were often themes to these programs and the crafts usually aligned with the themes. I didn't create the curriculum for the crafts and pretty much followed the instructions given. Not that I didn't encourage the kids to improvise somewhat if they wished - I tried to supplement the standard pre-packaged kits with some different materials, so the ones who wanted to be unique to some degree, could.

Today I was reading blog posts on my Google reader and saw that Katie Hacker had posted about a new Beadalon wire SilveRose and that there was an animated tutorial posted, so I checked it out. Cool tutorial and a lovely necklace. I wanted to try the idea, but decided to go in a different direction and made a bracelet with some black Soft Flex, gunmetal findings and black Czech glass beads.

I believe I'm going to get some other colored beading wire and make more like this - it's a fun look!

Now a message from our sponsor:

Dawno

Buy Handmade

Polyclay experiment #1

I should have taken pictures, but it was late* and just I dove in and didn't think about the camera until it was too late. I am using Sculpey III clay. I learned that it gets very soft and sticky. I kept having to stick it in the refrigerator to get it a bit less squooshy for the cutting parts of the design I tried.

*I hadn't felt well earlier in the day, so I took a nap and that meant I wasn't able to get to sleep at a reasonable hour, so I just started experimenting with the clay

I wanted to make polyclay patterned disks to glue onto the gunmetal bracelet form. I decided to use black and pearl and shades of gray from mixing black and pearl. I got out a book I'd purchased and flipped through until I saw a picture of a design I liked. Kaleidoscope canes. Looked ambitious, but I jumped right in anyway, 'cuz that's what I do - and I have lots of experience in making things that didn't work out right at first, but learning a lot in the process.

Besides, how hard can this be - making snakes and triangles and stuff? (famous last words, huh?)

Made dark gray triangles, put snakes on them going from darkest (black) to lightest (light pearlized gray), put a sheet of medium gray over the snakes and triangle. Reduce the cane. ummm...

Read up on how to do that and thought I'd reduced it pretty successfully, cut it in half, re-assembled the halves into a new triangle per instructions, added more snakes, this time going from light to dark, needs another sheet over all that - hmm, made a pink-ish gray by mixing in a little red, just to add contrast. Cut again and re-assembled.

It was huge now. Read up again how to reduce. Tried it. Didn't do such a good job this time. I think the problem was that I used too many snakes in the canes, so I ended up with barely a pattern in the reduced cane that didn't show much detail, so it just looked like grayish streaks. Oh well. Will try again tomorrow, I decided. Put clay cane in baggie and went to bed.

Today I played around with the cane, making different slices at angles, lengthwise through the center, flattened the slices, made cuts and re-arranged the pieces - I could see how there could be potential designs out of the concept in some future effort, but this one got chalked up as a learning experience.

I now have a good sized lump of an odd purplish-gray color - I hope I can eventually use it - probably will have to mix it with another color to get something prettier.

I'll try again some time soon. I found a detailed 'how to reduce' tutorial at Polymer Clay Central and hope that, plus fewer, larger snakes is the key.

Tonight I may just read and relax and try to get to bed early, only got 5 hours of sleep last night and am already fading a bit.

Spilled Beads Do Not a Design Make...Yet

So, I knocked over my box of aventurine and jade beads - the nagging mom voice in my head told me that it shouldn't have been sitting on the floor on top of other things on the floor, and should have been more tightly closed. After saying some bad words to the nagging mom voice (which by the way, isn't remotely like my mom's voice - it's more like my own, nagging at the kids, but much surlier, voice) and grumbling to nobody about having to get down on the floor to scoop them up and more grumbling and bad words said to myself in general about having to sort them, I was on my knees with a tablespoon* ready to scoop them and sort them back into the box when I really looked at the random pattern of the colors and sizes.

*yes, that's what I use to scoop spilled beads off the carpet and it works really well - happens often enough that I keep one in my tool box with the tiny souvenir (probably not what they intended to happen, but it somehow *cough* fell into my carry-on luggage) Singapore Airlines spoon I use to sort small beads I've used and are now all jumbled up on the bead mat

"Hmm," I said to myself - possibly out loud, as I do talk to myself out loud, quite more often these days since I spend a lot of time alone in my workroom, and I guess I kind of miss the sound of human voices, or I'm just going insane, which wouldn't be a bad guess either - "that would be an interesting look for a necklace."

So instead of sorting and putting them back in the box, I dumped them into one of the shoe-box tops I've lined with a small piece of thin foam packing material for a DIY lap-desk and grabbed the bead stringing wire.

Strung about 20" or so - not happy. Tried adding some silver spacer beads, didn't like this try:

So I took off all the roundels and spacers until I just had two roundels and one spacer. Nope. (didn't take a picture of it)

Added some contrasting colored glass beads and some amethyst beads - still not doing it for me. Will continue to play with this until I get something I like. Knowing me, I'll probably end up with a pattern. I'm not that good with random.

Oh, and one other thing, I've had this silver leaf pendant almost a year now and still haven't figured out what to do with it. I considered using it on the necklace above, but rejected it, too. I do think it needs to be on something big and bold, it's 2 and a quarter inches wide and almost 2 and a half inches long.

As always, your opinions, comments, sympathy and humor are greatly appreciated :-)

Latest ArtFire listing:

Dawno

Buy Handmade

I Finally Made Something Else for the Gluable Challenge - Rectangular Frame

Finally, a sunny day! Got out the MagicGlos and one of my Rings & Things Gluable Challenge frames.

I used the Rectangular frame (Stock#: 49-440-0 Approx. 52x13mm rectangle brass picture-frame charms, 3.5-3.8 inner diameter loop. 1.3-1.7mm thick. Fits 48x9mm image. Back is textured.)

I cut out a piece of the label from my favorite drink, Arizona Diet Green Tea, and glued it to the frame with Mod Podge, smoothed to remove air bubbles underneath. Then I took some 26 gauge brass wire, bent it around the picture, hammered it lightly and set on top of the picture. The reason for the wire is that I plan to use cloisonne beads in the necklace, so now the picture has a cloisonne-like look, too.

Coated it with a thin layer of MagicGlos, took it outside. Learned how quickly Magic Glos sets in sunlight, had to sand with a fine grit sandpaper under water to remove the lump I created, put another coat of MagicGlos on. Needs work, but it's a start. (click to enlarge for detail)

Thanks to Carmi's Art/Life World blog for her post about using MagicGlos - gave me the nudge I needed.

One of the Twitter-folk I follow, mySA_beading, mentioned a contest - Step by Step Beads Colorworks Challenge.

Enter the first Colorworks Challenge!

Tertiary Colors

The orange-purple-green tertiary triad presents a challenge of bold and striking contrasts. Create a piece of bead jewelry (or a bead in any medium: polymer, beads, glass, etc.) using the triad from the color wheel. Black, white, or clear are welcome, but the predominant colors must be the orange-purple-green triad (any shades of those colors).

As it happens, I'd begun work some time ago on a strung piece using those colors and copper. I won't show the whole piece, just in case I decide to enter, but here's a bit of it:

The workspace is a wreck, so I'm going to listen to City Arts and Lectures with Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen as I tidy up.

Just Checkin' In

Hi - sorry I've been quiet for yet another week. I am still a bit blog-challenged and have not been in a very creative place lately. I appreciate all the great new connections I've made recently through your blogs and Twitter, and really want to keep the conversation going, so I'll try a bit harder!

I've started messing (and that word is quite appropriately descriptive) around with the gluable bracelet forms - here's one work in progress so far. White metal bracelet form with gluable discs and hammered links to which I have, so far, added 5, 14mm long by 10mm wide hemimorphite beads. there are 7 links in the bracelet, but the final link on one end is the clasp link and the other end is the loop link through which the clasp locks so I couldn't add the beads to them.

and here's how I did it

Supplies

• glueable bracelet form (Stock#: 40-337-1. 7.2" disk-and-loop bracelet forms for gluing. Hammered oval loops. Length may vary +/- ¼".)
  
• soft silver tone metal wire (used what I had for experimenting, an inexpensive 20 gauge from Michael's, no metal info on the spool, which I bought to practice wrapping and making loops),
  
• flush cutter,
  
• chain nose pliers,
  
• oval beads small enough to give some 'clearance' inside the link and the 14x10mm beads fit fine.

Snipped about 3" of wire and shaped a "t-pin" shape using the chain nose pliers (and flush cutter when I had excess to snip)

make a right angle bend about 3/4 inch long

bend back over itself about 1/4 inch from the center (long end of wire)

turn over, bend the other side the same way - there's a bit of overlap, trim with flush cutter

flatten the folds as much as possible

Now, for the assembly stuff

1. Open the connector bit on one of the gluable disk links
   
2. Remove the oval hammered link and thread wire through the vertical opening in the opened connector bit (I bet there's a technical term for that)
3. 
4. Put the oval link back in, making sure the bead and the wire are on "top" of the link, otherwise you have to thread the wire back through the link, and the less bending the better because (as I'm sure everyone knows but I tested the concept strenuously, and often, to the failure point...) soft wire gets brittle and breaks the more you work it
5. Close the connector bit (there I go with those highly technical terms again) over the wire pin and link - it's a tight fit and will make the bracelet a little less flexible, unfortunately.
6. Thread the wire through the open connector bit on the next disk.

This part is extra tricky. I had to do all the folding and bending and trimming of the wire that I was able to do easily when it was just holding and folding the wire, inside of the open connector and then close the connector over it and the oval link. After finishing, it sometimes stuck out too much so it showed on the right side of the piece, and I either had to try and squish it in, or open the whole thing up again and trim it then bend and squish a much smaller piece of wire, inside the tight confines of the connector.

Then I closed up the connector bit on the other side.


Finished work - so far.

Still need to decide what to do with the gluable disk part. I'm thinking about investing in some resin and molds and trying my hand at little round resin domes with something embedded in them - not sure what to embed (but edging closer to a vintage-y concept), nor what kind of resin to get. I have the MagicGlos stuff, but I need a cure light for that. Also thinking about polyclay, but I need a better working surface than I have right now, which would entail lots of re-arranging the office/beading room and purchases of things I need not be purchasing right now, like new shelving and a nice long worktable/bench (that I've been wanting for some time now).

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.

More Photo Background Ideas

Pulled out a couple new background ideas, shown at thumbnail size - these have texture but because they're white and beige, would they be better than using color or pattern?

Here's a set showing the different uses, but flat instead of on a bust like the ones shown in my previous post.

Here's another idea I had, in 3 versions - does adding the bag (just for the teaser shot) detract?

Comments appreciated!

A Bit of Success, a Bit of Failure, but Learning Is Always Like That, Isn't It?

Lots of experimentation going on trying to figure out small things. I've broken a couple calottes trying to finish off a knotted necklace - I need to bend them back fairly far to get a good tight knot but when I bend them back to close the calotte, they break at the hinge. Either I need to find stronger calottes or figure out how to get the knot flush without opening it too far.

In the process of experimenting I've wasted a bit more silk thread than I would have liked, as well, since getting the knots un-done isn't worth the effort sometimes so I just cut at the knot and start over. Now and then I'll search the web for tutorials and hints, but mostly it's just trial and error, patience and persistance.

I have found that nail polish at the tip of the thread makes the beading easier since I don't use a needle. I have also tried beeswax, which doesn't always work with the smallest beads, since it seems to come off and cause a bit of blockage as it's going through smaller beads, but does keep the tip from fraying.

Got a package from Rings & Things today with some gunmetal chain, assorted 4mm Czech glass spacer disks and assorted pressed Czech glass shell beads, which I thought would be fun for summer lanyards.

Between experiments and the day job extending into my evenings, I've missed a few days updating, I'll try not to do that too much.

Constructing New Pieces from Sale Purchases

I've had a cold for the last several days, which makes me a bit fuzzy brained, so I haven't had enough concentration available to blog about the pieces I've been working on lately.

I saw some bracelets on sale at a department store in the mall in Fayetteville, made from large silver metal links connected by small rope patterned open links in gold metal. I didn't particularly like the bracelets, but the links gave me ideas for some jewelry I would like, so I bought four to disassemble and use the links.

This first necklace uses the large silver links, silver jump rings, and Brazilian "flashy" kyanite stones I bought back in the summer, on silver eye pins.

I also wanted a more delicate piece with the kyanite, so I made this one using the Bead Gallery silver circles as bead frames, like I did in some previous pieces, for a small round silver bead, silver eye pins connect all the bits and pieces. I really like the kyanite - it has depth and a lovely shimmer; I hope I can find more of it.

The next one uses the large silver links, some smaller silver ones I've had lying around for a while, and two gold jump rings to connect them.

This last one uses the gold rope pattern links and silver rope pattern links from Sterling Effects. I like the double chain look, although I kind of wish I'd had enough to do a triple.

Each of them were made to sit at approximately collarbone length. In my next post I'll show some gunmetal and hematite pieces I've been working on.

I'm hoping to feel better in the next day or so and do some major reorganizing of my workroom. I particularly want to create a workspace with a longer surface that I can set up some specific areas for the tools and equipment I need to start trying things like poly clay, metal clay and resin.

Trying New Techniques With Copper Wire

I'm doing more practicing with various wire designs. I saw a picture of a necklace made using what the designer called "spring links" and thought I'd give it a try. I assembled my bracelet by first making a long coil of copper wire on a Beadalon jump ring maker. Then I cut jump rings to make the double link chain portion and sections of coil for the springs between them. To make the spring link you bend up half of the final loops on the coils. It's harder than it looked, I had to toss several attempts, although I cut more jump rings from the portions that were still intact enough. I decided to stop at bracelet length, added imperial jasper ovals on embellished copper headpins and made a simple hook and eye clasp from copper wire to finish it off.

The next thing I decided to try was a simple design link of wire between bead sets with wrapped wire loops. I used round nose pliers to create the four-leaf link. It took some experimenting but I finally figured out how to make them to my satisfaction. I have a small Wig Jig, but the pegs are pretty tiny and I was looking for a larger loop as I deliberately choose a larger size for the wrapped loops since the square bead is substantial and I thought the larger loop looked better. Normally the loops I make are pretty small, so I had to keep reminding myself to start the loop lower on the nose of the pliers than usual.

The square glass beads were among my Fayetteville purchases, the other beads are small and medium black glass Druk beads and a copper disk bead with a simple black pattern I bought at Global Beads. I'm going to make it about twice as long as shown. I'll probably finish it with a final four-leaf link and a copper hook like the one I made for the bracelet.

Absent getting all the materials to solder the links on both pieces, I'm going to have to figure out how to secure the open links and jumprings somehow, because the copper wire stretches and I don't think the loops won't hold up all that well.