Week 19-Snidely Whiplash Owl Pendant

The theme for this week is "Round and round". This is something I was playing around with the other day and it comes closest to fitting the theme with it’s round belly and round eyes. It’s an inexpensive glass cabochon that I wrapped with square copper wire. Then I wired a piece of brass wire under his body to represent a branch and some feet. Where I got stumped was trying to give him a beak and some cheeks to close the gap between his body and eyeballs. I’m not happy with that part. I think he looks more diabolical than whimsical-hence the name Snidely Whiplash. LOL If anyone has a better solution, email me a sketch!

Earrings for Donna

Last month I had a little open house at my home and Donna, one of my best customers, picked out this necklace and wanted earrings made to go with it echoing the center motif. So after much messing around this is what I ended up with. The orange beads are mystic quartz and the blue ones are iolite with little tiny pearls. I'm going to drop them off this afternoon and hope she likes them.

A Couple of New Artfire Listings

I've actually gotten a number of new pieces made in the last couple of weeks but I can't post them yet because they're all Christmas presents. So I'll have to settle for posting a couple of things I'm listing in my Artfire shop. I've been saying that when silver hit $30.00 I was going to go through my jewelry boxes and turn some old stuff in for scrap. Sure enough, silver went over $30.00 the other day so I started rummaging. In addition to coming up with over a pound of old jewelry, I also ended up with lots of sterling beads, clasps and some other fun components. One of the things I ran across was an old ankle bracelet that had sections of the coolest chain. It looks like a tiny foxtail with little sections of coil inside the links. I've never seen anything like it in my internet travels. There was enough to make two simple pairs of earrings. The pendant is a rainbow moonstone from Magpie Gemstones wrapped in a loopy, beaded setting.

Ornate Key Pendant

Continuing my fascination with old keys, I'm trying to get them smaller and smaller. This new one is about 2". For this one I used an 8mm CZ in a snapset and 22 gauge square wire. I think I'm going to try it again in round wire. M
It still needs some work but maybe I can get it to the point where it would make a good tutorial. And next time I'll remember to remove the Sharpie marks before I take the pictures. :D

Week 39-Don't Torch When You're Tired

I started this little owl guy last Thurusday at metalsmithing class. He was turning out so cute but he had one solder joint that didn't take. So I went back to the torch to resolder it and....oops. I melted part of his wing off. The moral of the story is don't solder if you're tired, in a hurry, or not too familiar with acetylene torches. LOL So now I need to figure out what I should do with him. I could try to solder another piece of wire in there. Or I could make a smaller branch out of brass wire and cover that part up with a leaf. Or I have some little carved tourmaline leaves that I could use. Opinions?

Week 36-Silver Tassel Pendant

This pendant was inspired by Lynne Merchant, an artist who has probably been an inspiration for most of the wire jewelry makers of today. I've always admired her beautiful tassels and challenged myself to try something similar. I did solder the largest outside ring that the loops and dangles hang from. The top part is a spiral which I thought I would do in a manner similar to Iza's bead cap. But I was trying to do it from memory having only done it once years ago and just couldn't wrap my head around the weave. Plus I don't think I really had enough spirals to do it effectively. So all I can say is it's held together. :D Now if I just had Mary Tucker's stick-to-itiveness, I would work on this until it's perfect. But making one wore me out. LOL

Week 31-Bouquet Plume Agate Pendant

I bought this bouquet plume agate cabochon from Stones That Rock at www.cabochon.ws along with several others equally as gorgeous. I didn't want to use the traditional cab wrap or anything that would detract from the stone so I tried my hand at a woven bezel. When I started I had no real plan as to how I was going to secure the stone in the bezel from the back. I though about netting it in but I was able to figure out a way to use the two back bail wires that looks good and seems to be secure.

I had some requests to see the back of this so here it is. As you can see I ran a little short of wire or I would have made larger spirals on the back. But that's what happens when you don't have a plan. :D

Week 51-Malachite Pendant

This is something I was playing around with while trying to come up with ideas for class projects. It was inspired somewhat by the work of Huan Pham, an amazing artist who uses a lot of loopy elements in his designs. There are still a lot of details to be worked out before I'm ready to teach this but I think it has possibilities.

Week 49-Poppy CZ Pendant

This is the only thing new I that I managed to make this week. At a recent show a lady really liked the red CZ pendant that I posted in a previous week but when she came back to buy it, it had already sold. So this is a special order for her because she's in love with this color. This particular CZ measuers 22mm X 30mm. I hope you enjoy it, Lynn.

Week 43-Red CZ Pendant

I've been busy getting ready for the holiday shows coming up and got behind in YOJ. This a little cubic zirconia pendant that's a beautiful shade of red for the holidays.

Week 42-Lampwork and CZ pendants

I took a few days off from jewelry-making this week and it actually felt good to let my self relax and just read a book for a change. But I do have Christmas shows starting in a couple of weeks so yesterday I was back to work. These are made with lampwork beads by Brenda Hynes of Dancing Hedgehog Studio, lots of 26 gauge wire, and a cubic zirconia dangle. Thanks for visiting.

Week 40-Druzy Pendants

I have a strand of these fun little druzy beads but they're 1/4" thick so traditional wire wrapping wouldn't work with them. I would end up with a gazillion wires at the top to deal with. So the idea for the woven bezel came from Dianne Karg Baron's celtic band ring. People are loving druzy right now and I get comments every time I wear this so I wanted to make something that would be saleable in a reasonable price range. So the new ones are set in slerling silver stamped and soldered bezels. I have them available in my Artfire and Etsy shops.

Week 39-Bowline Knot Pendant

This is something that I was playing around with this weekend while I was at a show. I have seen this knot tied with a single wire before but I wanted to try it with two wires woven together. I'm always impressed at how Corra can manipulate wire into knots and I wanted to see if this was doable. My problem was I had a picture of a bowline knot but didn't really know how to tie it. Fortunately the wire forgave me and I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out. The wire is 20 gauge and 26 gauge and I used a 6mm snapset on the end. The total length is 1 5/8".

Week 36-A Tale of Two Pendants

When I started to wrap this 20x30mm black CZ, I messed up on the first attempt and got the prongs too far apart. That afternoon this neat 32x15mm pyrite included quartz came in the mail from Greatcabochons.com. I pulled the first piece out of my scrap and used it to do sort of a combo wrap on the quartz. I think it turned out kind of cool. I love it when I can salvage pieces out of my scrap box.

Week 35-Copper Viking Knit with Kazuri Pendant

When I'm at shows I often work on a piece of Viking knit to keep my hands busy. I ended up with this long piece of copper so I pulled it and pulled it until it bacame a neck chain. I made the end cones with 18 gauge wire wrapped around my round nose pliers. I added a slide made with a Kazuri bead and a large smoky quartz drop. Then I lightly oxidized everything. If you're not familiar with Kazuri beads, they are fair trade beads from Kenya. The company was started in 1975 by Lady Susan Wood, the daughter of two British missionaries. Today they have a factory that offers employment opportunities to single mothers, widows, and people with special needs. They offer good wages, favorable working conditions, child care and health care. Some women are supporting extended families of up to 20 people on what they are able to earn there.

I am now officially caught up!

Week 34-Netted Pendant

I had some requests to teach a class on this pendant but I had to modify it because the original was soldered. I did a fancier version of it with garnets but decided that it couldn't be done in a three hour class. So I went back to the original and this is the sample that I made with mystic quartz beads-not a really good choice because they don't show up. I also had to make it again because I totally forgot how I did it. :D This measures just a tad over an inch in diameter.

Week 28- Druzy and Amethyst Pendant

Ava's recent postings motivated me to dig out this little piece of druzy that I've had for years. The stone is 15mm X 20mm and it changes color from purple to peacock depending on the viewing angle. I usually wrap with dead soft wire but since I knew I couldn't tumble this I used 22 gauge square half hard instead. I find it frustrating to shape half hard wire around small pieces so I used one of Rick's Bezelforms which helped a lot in getting the the top and bottom joins even. The dangles are amethyst.

Week 22-Flower Medallion

I've never seen Edward Scissorhands so I'm going to ignore that theme as well. There are a couple bugs in this design that need to be fixed and I'm not 100% happy with the bail. But I'm thinking about using this for a class project and maybe doing a tutorial. Someone experienced with wire will be able to figure it out by looking at it but I'm hoping it might make an interesting project for an intermediate wireworker. This one is 1 3/8" wide but I want to make some smaller ones for earrings. Thanks for looking.

New tutorial-Victorian Key Pendant

I swore I would never make this again but never say never because I finally got motivated to do the tutorial for this. It took about 40 hours of labor for this baby to be birthed. It ended up being 33 pages long with 96 high resolution pictures. This is similar to one I posted earlier but I've changed the shaft and simplified the construction just a tad-although it's still an advanced project. This one measures 2 1/4" long by 1 1/4" wide. It requires some patience to complete but the result will be a romantic pendant worthy of becoming an heirloom. You can see it in my Artfire shop

Week 14-Another Key

I seem to have given up trying to follow the themes. I'm still playing with keys. This one started out as a simple celtic knot at the top, then I wove the ends together and embellished the top (not as neatly as I'd like). After a couple of hours of staring at bright silver, the old eyes get tired. What I still haven't worked out is a good way to finish the end. But I have a another one on the drawing board that may work out better so tune in next week.