Week 8-Peruvian Pendant

This week's theme was godesses, specifically Freya, who is a Norse godess. This pendant is more suitable for an Incan godess though. It consists of a large citrine colored hydro quartz brio wrapped in a sterling silver Peruvian inspired frame. The dangling beads are iolite. I'm not feeling the color combination though. Maybe it's because I graduated from Michigan State and these are U of M colors. LOL Maybe I would like it better with amethyst. Or maybe I should oxidize it. Opinions?

I'm Loving Coral This Week

I never wear red and it's never been one of my favorite colors. But a couple of folks on the forums I belong to were destashing some red coral beads and they all of a sudden appealed to me. So I played with these beads all last weekend. With the exception of the first pair of earrings, these are all done with copper wire. I would love to pair some with silver in a necklace but I find myself being stingy with my silver wire lately. I'll have to get over that-it's not going down.

Week 7-Eni Oken Style Bracelet with Pearls

The last week has been so busy I haven’t been able to get any new pieces made. Between metalsmithing class, Euchre club, a retiree's dinner, going to Ann Arbor to see my favorite band, and the death of my best friend's mom, I couldn't get much done. One thing I did do was sort through old work and inventory. Some things got recycled for scrap, some taken apart for the components, and a few things got donated to a charity. This bracelet is a rework. I made the centerpiece of this bracelet years ago early in my wire adventures from a tutorial by Eni Oken. I orginally made the bracelet with some purple jasper beads. But I never liked the way it laid so about a year ago I took it apart and replaced them with these large pearls. Then I didn’t like the closure on it plus it was too big. So this time I made a new hook and eye closure for it. It’s a pretty huge bracelet, measuring about 2 1/8″ wide so it needs to be a little snug to keep it from flopping around. I probably could have made a fancier closure but I just wanted to be able to finally wear it after all these years. So what do you all do with your older inventory?

Week 6-Amethyst Stalactite Necklace

Here's the stalactite that I got stuck on last week. The stalactite is set in a Margo Farrin O'connor style. I had started this at metalsmithing class trying to solder all of the wires together. But I wasn't happy with my solder joints so I ended up wiring them together with half round wire. Quicker, easier and just as strong. The necklace is somewhat inspired by Emily Gray. I used amethyst and labradorite rondelles above the stalactite, and the larger rondelles holding the chain are paraiba quartz. I ended up cutting off a couple of the rice pearls after I took the pics. I'm not sure about the pearl drops on this. It's one of those things I have to look at for a while before I decide if I like it that way. The pearl drops are actually a natural lavender color although they look a little peachy in some of the pictures.

Week 5-Solar Quartz and Copper Necklace

This isn't the project that I was working on for this week. I had prong set a beautiful stalactite slice and had a vague vision of what I wanted to hang it from. So I got out the copper wire to play around and instead found myself channelling Gosia Domanska and Mary Tucker and bending little leaves in the wire. It wasn't what I had in mind for my stalactite slice so I added some green tourmaline and vessuvianite beads, and hung a cool solar quartz pear briolette from it. I'm not sure about the addition of the keishi pearls but I felt like it needed something to echo the white.