Little Fishies

Water, water, water, everywhere water! That must be why I'm thinking of fish. And bright fish in tropical colors at that! It's a bit dreary here in the mountains right now, so this must be a spot of self-help therapy. I'm dreaming of warm tropical waters and sunny colors...

Here I've entertained myself with a cheerful little tableau of three whimsical glazed ceramic fish buttons (by MuddyMuse on Etsy), navigating their way through a sea of glass and gemstone "bubbles" in fresh, summery (I'm guessing here, "summer" exists for me on a purely theoretical plane) greens and blues. I've attached them all to a solid copper base via hand-forged headpins in a random pattern, and used short lengths of silk ribbon in "faded denim" by Flamekissedartglass to attach the focal to copper rollo chain.

Happy Little Fishies

The wonderful little sage green lampwork spacers are by Pinocean, and the larger spacer in periwinkle blue is by Studiorent. (I also recently found another lampwork spacer shop on Etsy, TheSpacerQueen --loads of colors, both opaque and transparent, all about 5x8mm each, perfectly freakishly uniform. Quick shipping and great prices. Check her out!). Other beads here include denim lapis, some seed beads in matte powder blue and lime green, little matte blue glass discs from Happy Mango, fancy jasper and one lonely moss agate.

OK, time for me to go take some Vitamin D and sit under a light bulb. I'm starting to look like Gollum.

Last Weekend

Here are some pictures from our island camping at Flathead Lake last weekend, on Bare Belly Island (no, I do not know why it is called that, but I wish I did). We docked up with some friends in the north cove and spent a couple nights there.  There was a brilliant, nearly full moon and cloudless skies.  I didn't get a good picture of the moon because I never learned the manual settings on my camera to do a prolonged exposure.  It was like a giant spotlight.  Coulda read a book under it.

From the bow approaching Bare Belly from the north.

The north cove.

The view north.

The flotilla.

The flotilla from on high.

The view south.

Some flora.

Nighty night!

Kelley's Beads: Azure Islands

These beads by Kelley Wenzel have been sitting on my work table since February. I kept looking at them, wanting so badly to do something with them, but I just didn't have the right accompaniments for them.

I finally found the right counterpoint: BONE. Yeah, that's right. Big, fat bone beads. Just look at them. A nice warm ivory, like white sand beaches...so right with the pale Caribbean blue of the lampwork. A little blue opalite, some blush-hued golden jade roundels, and more BONE!!! Bone tubes. They're from Africa, so maybe it's wildebeest bone, kudu (lesser or greater), or maybe eland. Maybe even okapi. Or maybe steenbok. The dik-dik and klipspringer are probably too small. Lotta goats in Africa. Maybe it's goat bone. "Goat bone" has a real ring to it.

The photos don't do the lampwork justice--there's a surprising amount of blush pink in the beads, hence the peachy-pink golden jade. Perfect with a Mai Tai.


This item is sold.
 

"Early Summer" Pendant with Summers Studio Lentil Focal

Inspiration FINALLY struck for one of Leann Weih's gorgeous porcelain lentil beads. I've been hoarding this, and another similar one, since last September. (You can visit Leann's Etsy shop HERE). I had some ideas knocking around in my head, but none of them felt right. I was absently pawing through my pendant collection again on Saturday, and opened Leann's package again. I had an idea, grabbed some aqua terra jasper beads, and decided that's what I would combine it with. I started on it this morning, and I had already wrapped one jasper bead when I thought it was missing something. I wanted to include some blue in the piece, to bring out the subtle washed denim hue in the focal. But gee, what did I have in that color? Gosh, how about that big fat ziplock bag of denim blue coral roundels? Oh yeah, those! Well, I laid those out together and I liked it. And then the aqua terra jasper didn't work anymore, but it still needed a little green. So I grabbed a couple of the matte finish Chinese jade I picked up locally--the color matched the green glaze exactly, and I threw in some green button pearls I tarted up with tiny antiqued copper bead caps. I had a couple of these floral copper toggle clasps I bought ages ago because they were on sale, never really thinking I would use them, but they were perfect for this piece--the flower is even kind of similar to the flower on the lentil focal. A teensy bit of antiqued copper rolo from Ornamentea, and it was done.



The bead caps on the blue coral and Chinese jade are more of mine (looks like I'll be spending another lunch hour at the office with my metal punch). The necklace measures a little shy of 18" long, but because the wonderful rolo chain from Ornamentea has open links, it's easy to change the length of it without having to cut any links. Oh, and by the way, fired up the propane torch--the little button-like thing at the base of Leann's bead is a hammered ball of copper I made myself with my torch!! I can't believe I waited so long to fire it up. It was easier than opening a bag of chips. Unscrew the top, pop on the head, turn up the dial, click the starter. Voila. Fire. The copper melted beautifully. I'm looking forward to melting all of the copper I have.

Kelley's Bead No. 1

Today I finished my first piece using one of the fabulous beads Kelley Wenzel of Kelley's Bead Studio sent me. Her bead is a plump egg shape, mostly clear with a graceful swirl of diaphanous sandy ribbons inside. The "ribbons" inside Kelley's bead reminded me of the web-like pattern of sand-colored veining in aqua terra jasper, and I thought her glassy clear bead would be a nice contrast to the opaque and semi-matte jasper.



I thought an asymmetrical necklace would work best, as I thought the visual weight of the lampwork bead could carry one whole side of the necklace by itself, and giving it its own space would make the most of it.



I used the last of my most recent batch of copper bead caps, more aqua terra jasper in big 12mm rounds, a little amazonite roundel on the lampwork side to bring the sea green into that side, and four strands of Ornamentea's fabulous "borneo" rolo chain in copper. The little fluorite round was mostly added as a spacer to get it to the length I wanted, but I think it looks nice. Turned out to be about 17 and 1/2" inches. The length is a bit of a challenge, because you have to remove even numbers of links when using double strands of the rolo chain, as the links alternate orientation.



I don't know which of Kelley's beads I will use next. I'm really drawn to the one (see two posts ago) with the swirls of mauve, lavender and green on a sand background. I'm ALL about sand right now. Probably because it's winter and I despise winter. Winter is seven months long in Montana. Summer is one month long. Spring and fall are just minor variations on winter. I live in Montana for complex psychological reasons I am not even going to begin to try to unravel (i.e., my Mommy lives here).

OK, time to make more bead caps. I am SO not in shape for that kind of thing right now.

All Tarted Up With Nowhere to Go

I recently went through my shops and noted which items weren't really attracting any attention. This one wasn't, and I was dismayed by how anemic and pathetic it looked to me. Even the photo was bad:



I removed it and tarted it up and relisted it:







But alas, I think I probably missed the "summer" boat with this one. I tried to suggest the idea in my listing that it was actually a "winter" pendant (i.e., to wear during your mid-winter island getaway) but I'm thinking that probably isn't going to fly.

There are many other exemplars of my early work in my shop that are likewise anemic and pathetic and will have to be tarted up. Especially the earrings. I hate making earrings. Does anybody really buy earrings online? Maybe in multiples. 3-for-the-price-of-2? Half-price if purchased with coordinating necklace?

I have also had to go back and completely redo some of my early wire-wrapped pieces. Clearly I did these prior to purchasing my first pair of reading glasses or perhaps I was wearing mittens. Rather gratifying though to see how much my motor skills have improved. I've also quickly gotten over my aversion to wasting sterling wire, as my most crap-tastic pieces were of course done in silver. It's the cost of learning--learning curves are always a little expensive.

Better Than a Poke in the Eye

One would hope so because that sounds awful. These bracelets I made are better than a poke in the eye, but maybe not better than fur handcuffs. I guess it depends. On a lot of things.

This one is made from the same materials I used in my Eritrean house pendant and the other bronze pearl necklace.

I added two more of the double cone beads from that pendant, and a couple antiqued brass round beads I found at a bead shop in Whitefish, Brought to Life Beads. (They have some awesome stuff--some Vintaj even--it's great that such a great shop is so close by). I just love this palette. It would be so lovely against dark skin. Maybe an Eritrean woman will buy it and repatriate the beads!

This bracelet below is my early work (Wednesday, I believe it was) in asymmetry. Asymmetrical designs are surprisingly hard to do. I've attempted them before and they looked to me like an upended junk drawer. Lorelei Eurto is the Preeminent Empress of Asymmetry, and I am once again stumbling along in her footsteps. Bracelets are much easier to do in an asymmetrical design because they slip around and around your wrist all day long anyway and who can tell which way is up. This bracelet isn't terribly asymmetrical, just a little. I'm stuck on the wood-and-amazonite thing right now. Just seems so summery--you know, cabin by the beach kind of thing. Wood and water. And bone. Something summery about bone too, can't put my finger on it. (Stumbling across remains in the woods at Kamp Karefree?) The little ivory colored spacers are made from bone. I don't know what kind. Best not to ask. I think they're from Africa, so perhaps wildebeest. Or goats.


This one turned out kind of gothic looking, or perhaps Old Spain. I guess just because of the dark steel wire. The stones are "pineapple quartz" glass, and just lovely. They are really made to mimic the irregularities of quartz and they practically glow when the light hits them.

This collection of beads and pearls sat around on my glass top Japanese-style workbench for a few days before I strung them together. I'm really drawn to dark, rich, wintry, melancholy kinds of colors so this kind of thing is a stretch for me (can't wait to make stuff for the Christmas shopping season). Too damn happy. But the world is full of happy people, who can tan, and one of them will buy it, love it and wear it.


Phew! I'm really fried now. This must be how pizza guys feel about pizza at the end of the week. Doesn't even look like food anymore. I've lost my desire to wear jewelry. I don't want to see another bead as long as I live until at least Tuesday. I'm going to go throw a sheet over all the crap on my glass top Japanese-style workbench and read a Jack Reacher book and maybe fall asleep.