Seems I Keep Getting Inspired Around 10 p.m.

Was up late last night making this, those teeny tiny wrapped links are tedious but worth the effort, I think. I have to put on a really strong pair of magnifying glasses for them.

For an idea of scale, the large silver ball at the bottom is the same diameter as a penny, or about 20mm. The topmost chain is 16" before adding a clasp and I plan to put an extender chain to give it another inch or two. The tiny wrapped loops are sterling head pins that have a tiny ball at the end, the chain is sterling double links, beads are faceted Czech glass and the fancy swirl spheres are sterling silver plate by Sterling Effects that I got at A.C. Moore when I was in Fayetteville, North Carolina last December. The final large sphere has a sterling headpin with an ornate puffed design.

I'm thinking about, but only perhaps right now, adding another draping chain or maybe two...possibly one from linked beads.

10:30 a.m. update - one new chain added, one to go, used a 3 loop clasp!
1:30 p.m. update - sticking with the one additional chain...what to do with that extra loop on the clasp?
Here's the ver. 2 picture (click for detail):

I'm very excited about tomorrow's Wanderings post - I created a little header logo just for those posts and I gathered a lot of great links this week. Even so, if you know of a blog I should be reading, tell me and I'll make a point to visit and mention it next week. Post will go up at 6 a.m. Pacific.

I don't remember if I mentioned it, but I submitted four pieces to the BeadStar competition in the crystals, glass, pearl and stone categories. I'm only the tiniest bit hopeful, I know I have a long way to go, but it's all part of the journey.

For all to whom it applies, I hope you have a Happy Mother's Day tomorrow!

Beachcombing Necklace

Used some of my new beads last night - shell heishis and little whole shells, with tiny freshwater pearls, amber shell beads and brass Artistic Wire.

Reminds me of summer days spent at the beach, searching for little shells, chasing waves. I decided to make this with a rustic look. I used 26 gauge Artistic Wire in an antique brass finish to link the heishi shells and make the dangles.

See some additional closeup angles at my Art Fire shop!

Dawno

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More on Etsy Photos

Here's a new lanyard and a bit of a different take on the "teaser" picture - approximately shown the same size as on Etsy.

And here are the thumbnails:

I kind of like the "teaser" picture, but is it too busy?

Here's my newest necklace - aquamarine roundelles and polished large chips in sections created with sterling wire, sterling beads, connected with sterling jump rings and finished with a hand made sterling wire hook clasp. It's 26" long. The section shown at the bottom of the first picture features sets of stone and sterling beads with wrapped wire loops at the bottom of the necklace. The end picture features the simple loops and single stones that go around to the back of the neck.

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.

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!

Peridot Glass "Gems" and Filigree Work in Progress

Only one of the small peridot colored glass 'gems' has been set in the filigree and one in the center oval, but I'm liking how this looks so far. Not sure how I'm going to finish it. I've done a couple wrapped link peridot colored glass beads but they seem so plain in comparison, I'm not sure if I'll use them in the piece. May have to find some faceted beads, thinking briolettes, and maybe a chain tassel...I guess there's a trip to the bead store in the near future.

I used four filigrees to frame the center oval piece. The two between the large eight pointed backing and the large visible oval frame are practically invisible, but add to the depth and detail.

If the test setting for the small gem on the outer filigree is solid enough, I'll do the rest of the gems tomorrow. If not, I'm going to have to puzzle out how to add them. Right now I'm using the E6000 glue suggested in the 'how to' section of the Accessories Susan site, we'll see if it holds.

I Hope it Doesn't Get to be a Habit

Missed posting last night, too. Again, busy with other stuff and very little of it was beading. I did finish stringing the gold glass and pearl lanyard, just have to add the hardware now.

I got an email from Accessories Susan saying they had the large copper lobster claw clasps I've been looking for in stock, so those are on their way now. Many thanks to Accessories Susan, not only for taking customer requests seriously, but for great service. I'm looking forward to playing around with design ideas this weekend and hope to make a few vintage style pieces I can show off.

I also found a source for tablet cut rectangular beads to match some of the ones I bought at the Arts and Wine festival last weekend so now I can make sets - thank you Mermaid's Cove! One set I bought from Mermaid's Cove was just beads I liked, no mates from the festival purchase, these are "Seafoam Opal" and I'm really inspired by the colors - thinking about matching them to some of my hemimorphite stones.

Still practicing loops - found a bundle of thinner brass wire (might be 21 or 22 gauge - it's not on a labeled spool) stashed away and have run about 8 loops with beads in a string. I'm still very clumsy, wasting a lot of wire, too, but the loops and wraps are looking better and the wrapped end is pretty snug to the bead. Before I start doing work with sterling wire (thinking about Argentium Sterling) I want to be confident and certainly not waste any of the wire - that stuff's expensive. I can't even think about gold filled yet.

There are two beading techniques I still want to learn - one is knotting. A number of my favorite purchases from this and past festivals have been made with lovely knotted thread instead of wire or chain. I'm going to wait to learn and practice that until after I feel accomplished enough with the wire loops. Lastly is chain maille. I have also seen some lovely work using a Byzantine pattern as well as some jewelry that has beads or pearls inside little cages of links, and I'd like to learn to do that, too.

Well, I'm going to finsh off the hardware on that lanyard and maybe play around in my beads until something inspires my next design.

I dislike it intensely when I miss a night posting - but last night I was very busy with a number of other things I needed to do and didn't get to either beading or posting.

I tried to practice making wrapped wire loops again - this time with the brass wire and some 'toy' gold-colored painted plastic 4mm beads I dug out, and I can't remember why I bought, but have had for ages - probably some craft thing I did back when I wasn't beading. I really need to get a smaller gauge wire, though, the 20 gauge is too heavy and stiff for wrapping and I'm not getting the kind of practice I need.

I've also completely dis-assembled the rhodonite choker and been playing with some re-working on it...still not sure where I'm going with it.

This evening I decided on a change of pace and am stringing a badge lanyard. I'm using gold colored fresh water cultured pearls, gold faceted square glass beads and gold faceted bicone glass beads with large gold-plated spacer beads between them. It's got a very lush look, I think.

About 8 - 10" to go still, but it's late and I'm going to bed soon - so here's a work in progress shot taken on a beading mat that's lying on the floor:

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.