All Wired Up Beads.com

I want to mention the recent wonderful service I received from All Wired Up Beads.Com. I had been eyeing the Wubbers bail-making pliers they offer for awhile now and heard from Sharilyn Miller's blog that they were offering one of her latest books and DVD's as a bonus when you order three pliers from them, for a limited time. that very day I sent my order in and within four days I received it! I have only had time to glance at the photos in Sharilyn's book, but the projects look fantastic and the bail-making pliers look to be just what I need for the many pendants I am wrapping right now.

Especially appreciated was the care with which my order was packaged, this is sadly lacking in some mail order companies and their special touch of a hand-written note, wishing me "happy Wubbing" on the invoice by the person packing it was a very nice touch!

New Mexico Stone 3

I am surely having fun using my New Mexico stones I have polished and wrapped. This one has such nice color streaks. As in the pendant below, one cannot do a classical, traditional wrapped frame around it as it is asymmetrically-shaped. But I like the organic nature of these stones; especially since I collected, tumbled and wrapped them myself!

I will start wearing these to test the market and road-test them for comfort and see how well they do. I have lots more raw rocks to tumble!

New Mexico Stone 2

This is another of my stones I collected, tumbled/polished and then wrapped into a pendant. Since it is smooth and has no drilled holes it is a challenge to wrap well, but I am getting better at it! This stone is not cut and shaped, it is what it is as it comes out of the tumbler, so I decided to go with a funky, asymmetrical wrap since that is what the stone seemed to need.

I apologize for the reflection on the stone as it is much richer in color in real life than is shown here.

I received my order of square and half-round copper wire from Parawire and was very pleased with their service so will order from them again. Here, I used their antique copper square wire for the frame and wraps. Nice stuff!

Stone Duo and Purple!

 While shopping at Gem World in Quartzsite, I found some of these luscious purple drilled cabs. When at art shows I frequently hear "do you have anything in purple?" So, I jumped on a few of these and like the combination of purple base with magenta flecks.

These are such fun drilled stones, they go together nicely and seem to be popular at sales. I am glad I stocked up  on the wire neck rings while in Quartzsite!

Definitely hand-made, all the way!

I can't remember whether I mentioned that my friend, Bob Hale (with whom I share a "rocky" relationship) recently sent me a care package with five wonderful cabachons for wrapping. I promise I will show you all these as I get them wrapped, but in the meantime I have to practice more with wrapping very smooth, sometimes asymmetrical stones to be able to do justice to the ones he sent.

A couple of years ago Tom and I discovered a place in New Mexico where the jasper stones are prevalent, particularly red and yellow jasper. We collected them, hauled a box of them home and I tumbled and polished them. I have chosen a few of them to work with for simple pendants. This one has some red jasper inclusions in the yellow jasper base. It is a very smooth result from the tumbling and polishing and I liked just holding it in my hand! It is about 2-inches long and had no rough edges at all to start my wrap. But, I found that by using half-round brass wire that I was able to get the basic wraps done for security and form the bail and then twist the "tails" together to form the simple swirl for accent. I don't want to overdo the wrapping on these as I want the stones to speak for themselves, as I think this one does.

PS...To my friend, Woodie, who recently challenged (he may prefer the term "inspired") me to do something more artisinal than just buying stone pieces and beads and then wrapping them, here you go! Can't get much more hand-wrought than rock-hounding the stone, tumbling and polishing it, then hand-wrapping it. I will give credit to God for the raw stone itself as I had nothing to do with that part, but from there on it is all mine!

SOLD

Turquoise Pendant 2

During a recent quick trip to Quartzsite, AZ I picked up some more turquoise donuts, pendants and cabachons (plus a few) other goodies! This was one of the donuts I saw and liked. I have lots to work with, gotta get busy now...

Arrowhead Trio

Due to home circumstances of either me or my husband's unhealthful state (mainly blaming my broken leg!) I have not been able to go back to Quartzsite to Gem World since before the holidays in 2010. When calling them last Friday I learned that they would be closing the following week...for the summer! So, we did a spontaneous trip to QTZ and Gem World so I could feed my inventory of good stuff before the summer. Tom noticed a basket of jasper arrowheads that I had missed seeing and I am so glad he did. I bought ten of these, now I wish I had bought the whole basket! They are rough-hewn  and lovely pieces of jasper. I am going to try for a very minimalist wrap for most of these since I want them to speak for themselves and have only enough of a frame to be securely wrapped.

Now, to see if there will be time to sneak back down there again before next Saturday. I can always use a few more goodies..yikes!

Newest Neck Rings

 At my recent jewelry sales, I am becoming convinced that my "bread and butter" pieces will always be my copper earrings and my neck rings with simple pendants, such as these. After my last weekend's sale, my inventory of both pendant neck rings and copper earrings is sorely lacking so I am dreaming up new designs and looking for more stones.

I think many ladies like to wear pieces that are of natural stone, but dislike the heaviness of a complete necklace made of the focal pendant piece and stone beads. Also, these are interesting and make wearing jeans look like you are being somewhat elegant, but casual. I am hooked on them myself! Casual but cool.

These last two are made from turquoise stones and embellished just a bit more on the neck ring. The earrings with this one were just hooked onto the ring for the photo, they are not placed there when wearing!

As I said, elegant but casual, too.

SOLD

Gettin' Ready for a Show

I am adding to my inventory of jewelry for an upcoming show at the Sun City Grand Art Faire this coming weekend. I am going crazy over these neck rings,  I just think they go with everything, from casual to dressy.

I have had this glass focal bead for awhile and found that I had a strand of smaller beads that just matched it perfectly, so voila!

These are from a piece of copper I torched to bring out colors, and unexpectedly got such an amazing array of reds and silver tones. torching copper is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates...you never know what you are gonna git!

I had made a beaded-on-beading wire necklace out of these stone beads which were admired by quite a few customers, but when they tried it on they all felt it was a bit too heavy for their comfort. So, after considering what to do, I decided to take it apart and repurpose the beads into this neck wire ensemble. I like the lighter look now, too.

This set will not be available for sale, it will go into a private collection.










The necklace below was another one of the torched copper pieces that, as it was turning interesting colors, I finally said stop! I just loved the dark blues, violets, greens and reds that happened when torching this one. I don't think the true colors show up as well in this photo as in real life, but truly it is gorgeous. As Forrest said above, ya just never know!
                                                                            SOLD

Finally, new jewelry

 I know I promised to start posting more of my jewelry projects as I create them, but I foolishly fell down four weeks ago and broke my leg! I have not felt very creative as I have been starting to heal. Anyway, here are a few of what I have been working on.

The copper triangle earring on the right is convertible in that the gold tone portions of the earring are on a post which can be removed from the copper triangle and worn as a dangle by itself or with the copper piece behind the dangle.

You should try using a sawhorse in the master bedroom to pound copper while your leg is propped up and you are sitting in a wheelchair! Interesting visual, huh?

 My twin sister has requested that I make her a necklace and earring set with red beads, not warm color red beads but cool color red beads. I had coral beads that matched this request so used them, although in the photo they show up as being a bit orange; which they are not in real life.

These are some earrings requested by my sister to match a shell necklace she bought from me earlier. It is great to have a twin who likes what I make and requests specific pieces be made! Yes, I am giving her a family discount.....

Three New Pieces

 As promised (at least to myself) I have photographed three newer pieces that I had finished but not posted. I need to improve my posting of jewelry pieces to this blog! I am preparing for an artwalk at Toscana at Desert Ridge in a few weeks and wanted to have some new special pieces for my display.

This is another of my copper calla lily pendants. This one has silvertone accents. The others like this I have made have had turquoise beads for accents and I wanterd to do something different.

SOLD

 This pendant is a stone I have had for awhile but didn't have what I wanted to use to make a necklace from. I did find some howlite stone beads and used those, linked together in sections, to make this necklace.

This is something really funky I decided to try. I downloaded a free tutorial by Judy Freyer-Thompson from the ArtJewelry online website. It involves patination of metals using a process that in different steps involves the use of Kosher salt, white vinegar and ammonia. I really love the free-form designs on these discs, which I will use for some earrings. I am not sure how I will design them, but I do know I don't want to cover up this patination with anything fancy, it should stand on its own! I am thinking ahead now to pendants using this method, how cool is this?!

SOLD

Jewelry Give-Away

I am always interested to see the generous nature of those who give paintings or jewelry away on their blogs. Right now, Tish McDermott is giving away a lovely pair of earrings to the lucky one chosen from the comments section of her blog. Just click on over to her blog and enter...her pieces are lovely and so imaginative.

I promise to start photographing the pieces I am working on and begin posting them here again. I have neglected to do that for far too long!

Aubrey and Grandma Time!

We had the pleasure of a few days' visit from our youngest son and his family. This included my Ms. Aubrey! After raising only sons, it is such a pleasure to have a girly-girl to play with and have her participate in our activity planning! She came with her plans of what she and Grandma could do together. This included painting, bracelet-making and I surprised her with a chocolate chip cookie baking session. We had to have the energy to do all of these activities together!

She is developing a sense of design, whether it be painting or jewelry. She wanted a bracelet that matched the poorple in her pretty new dress. Of course Grandma had just the perfect beads in her growing stash. We both had a great time and created more wonderful memories together.

Vintage Treasures!

This past weekend, the ArtChix had an art and artisan jewelry sale. During some of the down time, one of the ArtChix brought out two huge bags of vintage beads and jewelry to sort through. What fun! She is a member of the DAR and they are involved in a service project, working with the schools, and selling this donated jewelry/beads is part of their fundraiser for this project. So, for a donation, I had the extreme pleasure of sorting through both bags and choosing lots of treasures to turn into modern jewelry with vintage charm. We sat for two hours remarking things like "look at this...I can make three pairs of earrings from this one bracelet", etc.

I am always torn, when receiving vintage jewelry, between leaving them as they are or tearing them apart to modernize them to be worn today. I usually lean towards making them wearable today since I think these treasures deserve to be worn instead of stored in boxes in a closet. Add to that the fact that I (and I think many others) cannot bear the discomfort of wearing screw-back earrings with my pierced ears so something has to be done about that! The workmanship, even in the costume jewelry, is amazing by today's standards and I just marvel at that.

Here are the first few I have been working on, I just could not wait one day past the weekend! I might also add that I don't think these will be available on my sale tables since I like them so well I want them for myself. I will have to be less greedy than this as I work through these treasure bags and make more jewelry from them since I do want to sell (I mean share!) them with others who enjoy the vintage looks as much as I do.

 This is a lovely old brooch, all metal settings, done in black metal of some sort. One of the larger stones was out of the setting, but it was found in the bag of mixed beads and jewels (phew!) and I repaired it, cleaned up the brooch, removed the brooch pin, made a bail for it and hung it from a black neck wire ring. Cool, huh?

These were my fav's before I even got them home! Look at that filigree on the long drop earrings! Do you see why I am keeping these?! The rhinestone earrings were taken from a choker necklace where these were some of the focal pieces. Thankfully, I was able to snap them from the rest of the stones cleanly and add the posts to them without incident. These are now all on posts. Lovely filigree silver in these.


Stay tuned as I continue to work my way through these bags and make these treasures from the past into Fav's for Today!

Got the Book!

I want to show you all that the book I won on Lisa Crone's blog arrived and I am now perusing it. I want to try some of the projects she provides as they look like such fun pieces of jewelry. She is a very inspiring person!

Some Days You Lose, and -

- some days you WIN!!!!! A few weeks ago, I entered a blog give-away offered by a blogger I follow every day...Lisa Crone of A Bead a Day. I love her daily blogging because it always contains the latest news of beads and things that everyone is trying now. She was giving away one of her new books on beading and jewelry making, so I entered a comment on that day. As Fate would allow, I was the winner! So, I am now excitedly awaiting the shipment of my great new book. I'll post a review of this when I get it and read it. It is so exciting to have your name drawn above all the others who entered!

Copper Piecrust Pendant with Chain

I decided to turn this pendant into a larger piece by using turquoise beads with chain and some silver pieces. I like this and hope that someone who loves large jewelry will like it also!

SOLD

Copper and Silver Two-Tone

I just got back some of my jewelry from Chama and will start photographing it. I want to be prepared for the Oktoberfest sale at Sun City Grand on October 9 and wanted some of my inventory from there. It is like seeing old friends to go through my stash of finished jewelry now.

Copper and Turquoise Links

I made this pendant a few weeks ago and have been mulling how to suspend it until yesterday when I found I had some matching turquoise beads to pair with it. I like to separate the stone beads with hand-made links since it cuts down on the considerable weight of these natural stone beads when wearing. Plus, that makes for more copper to show!

SOLD

Copper and Sodalite Pendant

I cut and hammered this pendant base yesterday and added the beads this morning. I like the pairing of the copper with its complementary color of blue beads.

I am mulling taking off that bale component and trying something a bit different for that part of the piece. I have some more ideas, anyway.