Week 4

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This weeks piece was inspired by a pattern I found in the Best of Beadwork. I changed the colors up. It actually came out a bit more masculine in color than I had intended but I enjoy it very much. The original pattern called for 2.5-3mm Crystals in the center of the bracelet but I instead chose to add 4mm cubes. It really feels wonderful on. I had planned to do another chain piece next week, but I may decide to give another one of these a go with new colors. I am very happy with how it came out. I did make it just slightly too large though. That is something I need to work on. I find it difficult to properly size things.


So week 4's bracelet is made with four colors of seeds and size 4 miyuki cubes. This Wednesday passed I went shopping and cannot wait to start using the things that I have bought. I got 10 seed hanks, in a mix of 11's and 15's. I got a couple of colors of cubes, some citrine, some tiny crystals, some fossil coral, and some BEAUTIFUL opalite. I'm very excited. Oh! I also treated myself to a new beading mat, and bought a necklace sizer. It was a good shopping day.

Week 3 - Take Flight

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This week's piece did NOT start out as a theme piece. I am going to a renaissance faire next weekend and wanted a small necklace pouch to wear. I have made one before in copper. It was featured in an earlier post as it was one of Roger's Christmas gifts. The weaving of the bag was fairly simple. 20g 1/8" ID worked up very nicely in a 4in1 weave bag. However... This piece nearly took flight several times from my desperately wanting to launch it out a window. The embellishments KILLED me. Granted, they are pretty basic, but I think they are rather pretty. The problem came about the only thing I had in a silver color was some nickle. I am insane. It was sooooo hard to work with. I thought I had 20g but it was actually 18g. It was hard on my hands, it wouldn't DO anything I tried to make it do. In the end I spent several HOURS just rigging up the long bars so the bag would keep its shape and then embellished them with some blue glass drops that I am rather fond of. I tell you what though... just making sure that bar in the front with the blue drops on it was hanging properly nearly made me tear my hair out. The picture is not fantastic because It's a scan so it looks all scrunched up, but the piece does look pretty cute when its hanging.




As crazy as I am, this is still a prototype for a piece to come. It won't be next week because I am pretty sure I will be doing a beaded piece next week, but perhaps the week after. I am going to be making a wearable fashion purse. I am very excited and of course there will be more details to come... when the time comes. :) Until then, here is week 3's piece... Take Flight.

Mistake in the Mist

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So this was the piece I created first for the week 2 YOJ. However, it never seemed to work. When it finally felt 'finished' I Still didn't like it. I think the main problem was, the original idea i had for it wouldn't work. I had intended to string smokey black seed beads, and gold accents with some silver tossed in for glitter on beading wire, and then weave the wire through the links of the chain to give it an airy misty feel. But the chain kept bunching and it just looked terrible. So in the end, I created 2, 2-2 chains. one in copper and one in bright aluminum. I Connected them together giving it a swag appearance. Then I used short pieces of beading wire and silver crimp beads embellished with black, gold, and silver beads. It was still missing something after that, so I added long blue bugle beads with glass crystals at the end. While it's shape turned out elegant, I just don;t like the finished piece. As it stands, I shall be taking it apart to salvage the chains which I do like separately. But just to show I do learn from my mistake I present.. "Mistake in the Mist"

Kisses in the Mist

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Once again I have completed this piece quite a few days ago but have been trying to get photos of it. I just couldn't get a scan of it at all. Since I could not fine my digital camera, I used a friends. But unfortunately on their camera, there was not a macro setting. So, the pictures do not show a lot of detail. When I do find my camera, I will re-shoot everything.


This piece is called Kisses In The Mist and was inspired by the theme in YOJ. Since I submitted the theme, I thought I should try and work with it. It's a bracelet and earrings set. The earrings don't have their ear-wires attached yet because I didn't have any in the right color. When I am able to get to the store and pick some up, I will attach them and hopefully be able to take a new picture.


To me, the theme suggested something dark, and silvery, and sexy, and sort of mysterious. I started with a byzantine bracelet. I've been wanting to try the weave anyway. It's 20g bright aluminum 1/8" ID. I found the weave itself to be surprisingly easy and I adore the look of it. I can't wait to make another one. I really enjoyed it. I then embellished it with some large beads I had been holding onto for a while. I am not sure what size they are though. They are all a grass green color. Two of them are just translucent. Two of them are lamp-worked beads with white and black bullseye's and dots. There are also two matching lamp-worked ones in about an 6 or 8 mm size that I used in the earrings. The beads to me felt like the mist, but there was something missing. I had a few dolphin charms that were brightly silver colored. So I put the dolphins around the breads. They didn't really want to fit so I had to really work to try and get them attached to the bracelet. But I finally did. To me it looks like a silver dolphin is jumping up to kiss the moon out of a misty swirling sea. The bracelet is heavy and feels good on.


To round it out I made a pair of byzantine earrings to match the bracelet. I made one section of the byz, put a bead and then one more section of the byz. I am pretty happy with this piece.

Rogers Christmas Gift

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This was my first experiment with maille recently. It's a copper dice bag for when we play Dungeons and Dragons. It was a gift for Roger and unfortunately the rings didn't arrive until after Christmas so he got it a little bit late. It's 4 in 1 20g copper 1/8" ID. I made the bead bail ring wrapped loop things myself with a little trial and error and out of 20g copper wire. They are black glass as near as I can tell. The straps for the bag are 2 in 2 chain. I really REALLY like it and I am thinking of making myself a necklace out of the copper in the 2in2 for myself. To make the bag be able to hang from his belt, I made a ring of copper 2 in 2 and attached it to a retractable cord that has a belt clip on the back. Then I attached a lobster claw to the ring of 2 in 2 so he could remove it from the cord if he wanted to. I also included here a picture of the dice he keeps in the bag. I really enjoyed this and am going to be trying to do one in bright aluminum next.

WEEK 1 - YOJ

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So I finished my first piece for the YOJ challenge at the Creative Wire Art Forum at Delphi. I actually had it finished on the 2nd of January, but I have been procrastinating putting it up this whole time because I wanted to photograph it with my digital camera. Unfortunately, we cleaned for the holidays and now I can't find the camera. So, I had to scan the earrings.

For my first project I made a pair of maille earrings. They are large diamond shapes done in the 4in1 weave. (I am almost positive, that shows how new I am at this). I can't really afford to use Sterling Silver yet, so I did these in bright aluminum. They are so light I might actually be able to wear them. I copied this design with much variation on how they are embellished, from a pair I got on clearance at an outlet store. But the ones I picked up, purely because I love the look of them, are MONSTROUSLY heavy... much to heavy to wear. So I am really pleased that these are light. I like the look of them too, they just don't sparkle like silver does.

Anyway, they are embellished with Swarovski crystals in amethyst and crystal AB. They worked up very fast and I did notice that the aluminum is much tougher to work then the copper I had been working with over Christmas. I wasn't prepared for how much more effort it took to get a really good closure on the rings. That is my goal to work on now. I want to get perfectly closed rings every time. It's easier with the copper, but I can see I am going to most likely be using aluminum for a lot of my starting projects.

What I did discover, is that I desperately need another set of pliers. I have been using on chainnose and one jumpring tool. I very much need a set of flat nose pliers and maybe a set of bent nose too.

Oh, the rings are bright aluminum, 20g 1/8" ID. I had to get them that size for a different project I am working on, but in future, I am going to try and get my rings in metric sizes.
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