It's Great to Be Home Again

Got back from my travel to Chicago today. It rained hard Thursday, was overcast but dry on Friday and beginning to warm up today with blue skies. Of course I was headed to the airport by 8:00 this morning, so I didn't get to enjoy the day in Chicago. It was 90 degrees here at home, today.

While in the Chicago area I did stop by a Michael's and picked up a few things to play with including some glass bead mixes in clear, amber, red and pink - sorted them, and there were some fun beads. I'm working now on the necklace I started there using gold tone wire, light and dark amber colored glass beads and some gold tone links. I'll finish up and post a picture tomorrow.

I gave out a few of my cards at the conference and got some nice comments about the lanyards I wore. When I got home and unpacked I saw that the TSA had left me a note that they'd looked inside my luggage. I suppose the wire, metal findings, beads and tools were the culprit. Everything was fine, the packed items didn't look disarrayed and nothing was missing.

I'm quite tired, but trying not to go to bed too early. This weekend is the Arts & Wine festival in my town, and we try to go every year. I'm not sure we'll make it this year, but we'll see how we (that's my husband and I) feel about it tomorrow.

Holiday Beading - Started Working in Silver

I've begun working with my 20 gauge silver wire. I'm making much smaller loops with very small beads in white, ecru, beige tones and connecting them with silver jump rings. I'll keep going until I run out of jumprings or the right size/color beads, which ever comes first. Hope to have something long enough to actually wear when I'm done.

Will finish it off with some silver chain and a lobster claw if it's short and make it an eyeglass leash if it's long enough - I'm at 12" right now (need about 24" for a short one). This morning I also finished a red glass bead necklace with copper links, 24".

Detail of silver chain, red/copper & silver chain full length:

click picture for larger view

Will be traveling on business this week, not sure how much updating I'll be able to do - thinking about taking some stuff on the trip to bead with in the evening, have to make up my mind soon as I leave Wednesday morning.

Now With New and Improved Loopiness!

I have been practicing making wire loops using with 20 gauge copper wire. It's pretty flexible wire and the gauge is small enough to go through the beads but large enough to be easy to see. I'm using glass beads from a bag of 'assorted glass beads @ some very cheap price per strand' - most of them are junk, but there are some pretty cool ones in the mix. The chain of beads I've made so far is surprisingly pretty for the quality of the materials

I've figured out a few things that are really helping me make neat, round and consistent loops. The how to guides I've read haven't suggested all these these things, but I'm happy to share.

#1 Mark the round nose pliers so you make the loop at the same spot each time. This gives uniform sized loops. I painted the bottom of the pliers up to the point where I want to bend the wire for the loop with some bright pink nail polish I had sitting on my desk.

#2 Before you start the full bend around the pliers, just using the very tip I make a small bend - this way I don't end up with a flat bit in the loop - they're turning out very round.

#3 Measuring to cut the wire for the second loop - this has been a challenge. I used a steel mm calibrated ruler for a while but I've pretty much figured out how to eyeball it using the width of my left index finger. I guess I could put a little mark on my finger with a Sharpie to be even more precise...

#4 I'm using my nylon nosed pliers to bend the loops when connecting them together and avoid tool marks. I bend the loop up from a completed circle, add the loop on the next bead and then bend the open loop down to close it - keeps the nice circle I've created from getting flat or otherwise distorted.

Here's my little practice set up:

And here's a close-up of the most recent loops:

Later this afternoon some of my family from the L.A. area are coming into town to see my nephew play football against our local university team, so this may be all the beading I get to today.

Sometimes I Think I Should Just Stick to What I Know

I have this urge to make a necklace using wrapped wire loops. I am practicing. I am wasting a lot of wire. I think I need to take a class.

I have also been visiting various lampwork glass artisan sites. Somebody hide my credit card - I could do it a lot of damage, the ones I've visited have such lovely beads. One in particular, Air and Earth Designs, by the artist, Kandice Seeber, has me especially ga-ga. The flowers she adds on top of the beads are fabulous - to say nothing of the colors.

Made a necklace lanyard tonight, though, so I did finish something - the wire wrapped loop necklace will probably take several years at the pace I'm going.

I used faceted glass cubes in clear and light blue with an iridescent finish, tiny silver seamless round beads, faceted blue glass bicones and teensy tiny dark blue iridescent seed beads. I think I will name it "Resistance is Futile".

Still haven't heard from the LosCon folk. I hope that doesn't mean anything except they're very busy with Real Life stuff and haven't had time to get back to me.

One Last Bit of Convention Business

Patti (and I hope I'm remembering the right name) you dropped one of your earrings at my table on Monday when you were showing me some of your lovely beaded work - please email me (see contact info in sidebar to the right) so I can mail it to you!

I'm still not organized in my beading workspace but I do want to work on something new tonight. I often have to get everything just so before I start work, but I'm too tired (still) to tackle that task. I haven't even gotten all the stuff out of the trunk of the car yet. Fortunately it's just two of the smaller totes in there, so I'm not missing a lot of beads.

My beading wire arrived today, so I finally have plenty of the right size wire to work with. I'll finish a piece I worked on yesterday as I sat at my table and then ponder what to do next. There wasn't any real pattern to what sold, although the genuine stone pieces did well. I think just continuing to make stuff I like and would wear is a good plan.

(Not) Working (Well) With Wire

I recently started trying to work with wire to make rings and perhaps move on to pendants and other items. I'm wondering if I'll have the patience to keep at it! So far my early attempts take forever and, well, mostly suck. Here are three of my better efforts - but I'm not entirely happy with them.

Copper and leopard skin jasper - the wire setting for the pendant was made with 20 gauge wire and a Wig-Jig.


Next are a couple rings in silver. The first is three spirals in a V shape.

This is a tiny pink faceted Czech glass bead wrapped wire ring.


I'm doing better with making loops for connecting beads together or to chains and that's taken me some serious practice. I may just have to convince myself not to give up and eventually I'll get better at it.

I've made three sales via Etsy this year. If you're not familiar with Etsy, it's a great community and there are so many wonderful hand crafted items for sale there.

I went to one of the workshops they provide the other day, and had my shop reviewed. Took the advice I got, too. One of the things I was advised was to post a "teaser" type picture first rather than the view of the lanyard on a bust or the full sized mannequin. The top items listed in the shop are using new teaser pics, lower (posted earlier on) ones are the ones I haven't re-shot yet. What do you think?

Today I finished the piece shown below. It's lapis lazuli with silver and gold metal bead accents. This one uses the most expensive materials I've used so far, so I don't know if it's too pricy for my shop at this point. Besides which, I love lapis and don't know if I can part with it.