Fun with Focals: Chain!

chain bail

Here is another necklace design- created for Heather’s Fun with Focals blog challenge.
check out all the submissions so far, in the Flickr group!

I’ll be putting this one in my shop tomorrow morning.
I used some very small brass cable chain to attached the ceramic donut from Elaine Ray, to the Vintaj Brass decorative ring. Then up the left side, I wire wrapped some nice little brown ceramic coins. Up the right side, I attached a piece of soft leather cording and tried my hand
at one of those messy little nesty things around the center of the leather section. Added some little teal blue seed beads, bronze drop beads and bronze cube beads. The chain is rolo chain from Vintaj. That’s gotta be my most favorite chain from Vintaj and I really wish I had a lifetime supply of it. I feel like I am running out of it every time I turn around!

Speaking of Vintaj, check out their blog- they featured one of my bracelets there today!

chain closeup

Bead.Porn. Feast your eyes on some CERAMICS!

Lorelei: ” Squeeeeeeeeeaaaaaalllll!” Thank you so much Mr. Mailman!!
Postman: Thank you for the job security Lor!”

hehehe! this was the conversation outside my house at lunchtime today when the mail arrived.
As you can see, I got some gooooodies!!
Above are some ceramic lovelies from Gaea. She sent me some really pieces, I can’t wait to play with them. I was jonzing for some shapes, stuff that isn’t typical, or just rounds.
She picked out what she sent and I couldn’t be happier!! I mean, look at them!! The hearts! The Skulls! the Flowers!! yay!


A little late to mention these but some of the beads pictured here are goodies I won in last weekend’s Beads-of-Clay Open Studios online! I won 5 of the giveaways! I know! I was L-U-C-K-Y!

I got that Rust Ceramic leaf from Erin,
the Wish Beads are from Diane Hawkey, The twisted shards are from Marsha Neal Studio, the Lovely caramel pendants are from Chinook Jewelry! And then the 2 beads sets up the upper left corner, I bought from Summers Studio! I’m waiting for beads to arrive from Mary Harding, too! Some lovely heart pendants, featuring her awesome nature presses.
A little obsessive about the ceramic beads lately. I can’t help it! I go through phases and it’s a ceramic phase right now.
Fo Shizzle!
Sometimes it’s lampwork, sometimes it’s polymer… Looking forward to playing around with these newbies.

Fun with Focals!

Playing with Rings

I’ve been playing along with Heather Power’s blog challenge of Fun with focals. This is the necklace I created for yesterday’s challenge, using jump rings in the focal.
Click here to see my other entries in the Flickr group!

The hammered copper washers- I MADE EM! I’m dabbling in a little more metalworking and I didn’t oxidize these but I plan on trying that next. Had a blast hammering the crapola outta these rings. More fun that I had imagined! I don’t think they look too bad without oxidation. But I did buy some of that cool patina gel from Fundametals.net. I hope to try it out this weekend.

My necklace has returned!

The Necklace Round Robin Group 2 has come to a close and I received my
necklace back on Thursday! I am so pleased with
the outcome of this little venture! I recommend
doing this type of swap, it’s a fun collaboration, and it tests
a designers limits, which I think is pivotal in making jewelry designing FRESH
and EXCITING!


Isn’t it outstanding?
I just love everyone’s additions.

Click here to see the progression.

And then click here to see what Kerry added.

Click here to Mary Jane’s additions.

Click here to see Barbe’s additions.

Tutorial: Necklace using chain and ribbon

I created a tutorial for using ribbons and chain in a piece of jewelry. A suggestion that was left by Mel Mel in the comments from the Bird bead giveaway a couple of weeks ago. This is a really simple necklace. I’ve photographed each step. Let me know if you have any issues or questions.

What you need: 1 polymer clay pendant, the one I used is from Heather Wynn. You can use anything coin shaped that is top-drilled.
18 inches of copper chain
18 inches of pale purple silk cord
18 inches of multi colored silk ribbon
2- 4″ pieces of copper wire (22g) – I used darkened wire, you don’t have to.
2 copper jump rings (7mm)
1 copper toggle clasp
4 copper head pins
4 beads in coordinating colors ( I used crystal and glass)
4 copper seed beads

Let’s get started:
1. You are going to start out by attaching 1 end of the 2 silk ribbons to one of the copper jump rings.


2. You’ll need the 2 sections of copper wire. String the ends of the ribbons through one of the jump rings. Slide the jump ring up the ribbon about 1- 1-1/2 inches.

3. Fold the ribbon over like this, and hold it with one hand.

4. Take a piece of copper wire. Hold the end of it in the same hand, grasping it tightly.

5. Start wrapping the wire around and around the ribbon right below the jump ring, like so. Make sure to overlap the end of the wire that you are holding. You’ll wrap it about 3 or 4 times.

6. Now you’ll have this. 2 tails of wire to deal with.


7. Snip the wire that is coming out of the center of the wrap, with wire cutters, keeping very close to wrap.

8. And wrap the other tail around and try to tuck the end in a little, with your chain nose pliers.

9. String the pendant onto the pale purple silk cording. A trick I use, is to use a small piece of wire to push the cording all the way through the drilled hole so it helps guide it all the way.


10. String the pendant down to the middle of the cording.

11. Repeat steps and wire wrap the other end of ribbons onto the second jump ring.


12. Now what you have, will look like this.


13. To add the chain, open the jump rings and slip the end link onto the ring, and close the jump ring tightly.

14. Repeat on the other end.

15. I added some embellishments. You don’t have to, but if you like how that looks, you’ll need 4 head pins, 4 copper seed beads, and 4 coordinating beads.


16. String 1 copper seed bead, and 1 faceted bead onto a head pin. Start the wire wrap …


17. But first, attach it to the chain- I attached this first bead to the center of the chain and then added other beads to either side of it.
Wrap the loop. Repeat with the other 3 beads.


18. You’ll attach each of the beads about 1 link away from each other, like this.

19. Now you’ll have something that looks like this.


20. To add the toggle clasp, open the jump ring and attach one end of the clasp. Open the opposite jump ring and attach to the toggle end of the clasp. Close each jump ring tightly.


21. Here is the clasp attached.

And VOILA! You have yourself a 3 stranded necklace that incorporates chain, ribbon, copper, wire, and polymer clay! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! It was fun to make. I really came up with the design on the fly. I’d love to do more tutorials. Any suggestions, feel free to leave comments on this post!

Button Ring Tutorial

1. Start out with your favorite button, a brass ring blank, and an 8 inch section of brass 20g wire.
(this button is from one of my favorite Etsy ceramic bead makers: MA CARROLL)


2. Bend the wire in half.


3. Thread the two ends into the 2 holes of the button.


4. Thread the ends of the wire through 2 of the holes on the ring blank. I choose to use the 2 center holes on this blank from Michaels.

5. Shown here, the button on the wire, is thread through the holes all the way up to the button. Make sure the 2 wires are pulled out from the sides of the ring.

6. Bend each wire straight out to the left and to the right.

7. Take one of the wires and start tightly wrapping it around so that the wire tucks in between the blank and the button. Keep wrapping it all the way to the end of the wire.

8. Do the same with the other wire. Wrap it around and around. It’s okay if it looks messy. You can’t see that part anyway.


9. Now tuck the ends of the wire in with your chain nose pliers.

10. VOILA! A new button ring!


It’s also fun to layer the buttons, like this. This is a fun and easy project, and be forewarned. It can be quite addicting. You’ll think, oh, I’ll make a ring. and then before you know it you’ve made 6.
I hope you liked this little tutorial. Tune in tomorrow for a necklace tutorial that incorporates ribbon and chain into a design!

Enchanted Adornments Giveaway Winner is….

It is that time again to announce the winner of this weeks Enchanted Adornments pewter bead giveaway!

The Random Integer generator picked comment number 25 which was

EMANDA J!

Congratulations Emanda!
Send along your mailing address and I will send your lovely pewter hearts on their way today!


Thank you to everyone that has been following the giveaways and trying their hand at winning for the past 2 months! I enjoyed hosting this giveaway extravaganza!!

I hope you all have pre-ordered your copies of Enchanted Adornments! The release date is quickly approaching! From what I’m reading in all of the reviews, this is one of the HOTTEST jewelry books of the year!!

I’m going to be pre-ordering a copy and will give one copy away to a random winner in November so stay tuned for that!

Bead and Jewelry Blog Round Up

Some nice color inspiration! I took this picture yesterday. This is a plant
that I have in my little flower garden. The colors are just amazing, I am not even sure
what this plant is, exactly! The foliage is just as amazing as the flowers.

Check out what’s new and exciting in the world of bead and jewelry bloggers:

A Bead A Day Does a simple design equal a “Zen” experience? Lisa would love to hear your thoughts on when simple designs are able to make an impact.

About.com Jewelry Making After posting a new jewelry book review for a very cool mixed media book, Tammy is looking a head to other reviews coming up very soon.

Art Bead Scene You’ve heard of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants? Well, this Sisterhood shares bracelets.

Barbe Saint John – New Jewelry from Forgotten Artifacts Barbe gets tangled up with Chain Style book review

Carmi’s Art/Life World Carmi decided to finally use her bead stash from Paris.

Cindy Gimbrone aka the Lampwork Diva Cindy’s got some new findings from Ornamentea. What’s she going to make with them?

Earthenwood Studio Chronicles The inspiration for Melanie’s Machinery of Nature necklace comes from science, steampunk, and nature.

Jean Campbell Jean struggles through the creative process while bezeling some unusual crystal shapes

Jewelry & Beading Little beaded flowers are addictive to make, and before you know it, you’ve got enough for a complete necklace!

Katie’s Beading Blog Check out Katie’s ideas on making your old beads new again- and make some affordable gifts along the way!

Lorelei’s Blog: Inside the Studio Better get on board, Lorelei is having the last of the Enchanted Adornments giveaways. Leave a comment to play!

Snap out of it, Jean! There’s beading to be done! Jean has a little Boo power going on for her in this hand made Halloween bracelet!

Strands of Beads Melissa shows off metal clay goodies from Rings & Things

The Writing and Art of Andrew Thornton Andrew revisits a bracelet design and creates six others.

New work for the shop

oct25

Yesterday was a blast in Saratoga. I went early and did a little bead shopping at Saratoga Beads. They have a nice selection. It added up quite fast though, as you can imagine. I spent more than I had intended, isn’t that always the case? I found some cool beads though, and was happy with my selections. I didn’t photograph it all- but I did use a few new things in the pieces above.
These are some new bracelets and earrings that are going into the shop today.
In the bracelet at the left, I used some new glass pearls that were in this cool potato, shape…mauve, pale blue, and sage green. And then the bracelet on the right, I used a really
cool recycled wood bead as the toggle bar. Both of those came from the shopping yesterday.
I also ended up getting a cool ceramic frog pendant, and a handmade copper heart pendant. A couple of strands of Bali glass beads. Some various Czech glass tubes. Some matte finish seaglass type beads…and some of the coolest metal beads from Greece… these are my favorite and I really could have bought the store out!
I then headed over to the restaurant and had a delicious lunch with Beth and George.
After lunch we spent some time walking around downtown Saratoga, went to a couple of shops. It was POURING cats and dogs unfortunately so we were quite drenched by the end. But it
was really nice spending time with them anyway. I wish so badly that they lived closer.
Beth and I get along so well and I could imagine us hanging out or going shopping, or getting
together with our husbands for dinner a few nights a week.
Now if I only I can convince them to move to NY. 😉

A Rainy Saturday

i made this necklace a long time ago. And it sold. But I was sad to see it go.
It was a favorite, for sure. So I thought I’d show it off again today.

The forecast for today: RAIN RAIN AND MORE RAIN. Which kind of stinks since I’m headed out to Saratoga Springs for the day to meet Beth and her husband for lunch. BUT it rained last year too so I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. They are coming up from the Philadelphia area to watch their daughter race in a crew championship. We are headed to the Ripe Tomato for some lunch. But! Before we do that, I’m headed to one of my favorite bead shops in NY state.
Saratoga Beads! They have a nice selection of well, everything!! So I’m pretty excited about going and picking up a few cool things. They have the nicest selection of vintage glass strands of anywhere I’ve been.

I’m also looking quite forward to tomorrow. If you’re a blog surfer like I am, you’ll probably already know that the Beads of Clay group is having an open studio blog tomorrow!
A bunch of beady friends are participating and sorts of fun things are planned!

Here is a list of participants! (sorry, they are NOT linked)

MarshaNealStudio http://www.marshanealstudioblog.blogspot.com/
MaryHardingJewlery http://www.maryhardingjewelrybeadblog.blogspot.com/
Chinook Jewelry http://chinookdesigns.blogspot.com/
Diane Hawkey http://dianehawkey.blogspot.com/
Marsha Hedrick http://porcelainart.blogspot.com/
Joan Tucker http://offcenterproductions.blogspot.com/
Indian Creek Studios http://pampots.blogspot.com/
Lisa Peters http://lisa-petersart.blogspot.com/
Kristie Roeder http://artisanclay.blogspot.com/
Tracy Isley http://tracyisley.blogspot.com/
Melanie Earthenwood Studio http://earthenwood-beads.blogspot.com/
Winchell Clay Works http://www.winchell-clayworks.com/
Summers Studio http://summersstudio.blogspot.com/
Jessica Sharrah http://jessicasharrah.blogspot.com/
Creative Impressions in Clay http://www.claybuttons.blogspot.com/
EveryHeartCrafts http://everyheartcrafts.blogspot.com/
Donna Kornegay http://blingbeadsandjewelry.blogspot.com/

Sharleen Newland http:// www.shaterraclaystudio.blogspot.com.

Read the BOC blog to learn more about the schedule for tomorrow! And hopefully I’ll see around the blogosphere!