A Turquoise Overdose!

I finally finished a whole set of turquoise button-type stuff. Here it is:

The Bracelet (sold--but I'm making another one)

 

 

(Little verdigris copper heart by Missficklemedia)

The necklace:

The Necklace (I just said that, didn't I?)

And the earrings:

Earrings

 
I've just started another similar bracelet (custom order) that will be BIGGER and BETTER!! Because bigger is always better. And my collection of button/disc/ruffled disc beads is burgeoning. Like muffin tops at an IHOP. So look out!!!

All Excited About My New Thing

I never know what to do with disc beads, especially the ones that are cooler on the flat side than on the edge. Just sort of hanging them hasn't appealed to me, and often the holes don't afford much room for the heavier gauge wire which I prefer. I was recently asked to do a tutorial (haven't done it yet, I'll let you know when and where once it's up) using some glass disc beads, and had to puzzle over that for a long time before I thought of a way I could make the most of them. I went over and over the "engineering" in my head for a while, and decided it might work. I thought I would do a prototype with base metal, and some disc beads that have been sitting on my work bench FOREVER (see, keeping them where you can see them is important--if you keep looking at them every day, you'll eventually get an idea) first, just to make sure I could make it work. It worked! Here's my prototype below:

I'm a little underwhelmed with the photo, it makes more of an impression in person. I'll need to retake the photos with a different background--I was in a hurry this morning and didn't have time to paw through my backgrounds like I usually do. I also forgot to take a picture of the backside, which I wanted to show you. It looks like the backside of everything I've ever tried to embroider. Let's say the backside is very "abstract" and "organic" looking. I can't decide whether to put another little doodad inside that sort of empty space in the middle, I can't find anything that doesn't make it look too busy. Maybe just a spray of ball headpins in there. I might change out the chain as well for something with bigger links that would be adjustable. I don't have anything like that so I'll have to make it.


The swirling discs are raku lampwork discs from Blue Seraphim on Etsy--I love the navy blue with the latte color. There's a little purple, lighter blue and green in there too. There are large wood discs underneath them from Beads and Pieces. They are attached to the base (an abstract shape in brass wire) by hand-forged 20 gauge yellow brass ball headpins that have been antiqued in ammonia fumes and then hand polished. The focal section is attached to the rest of the necklace by 8mm Czech glass rounds in Montana Blue, with my brass beadcaps, also antiqued in ammonia fumes and then polished with steel wool and my Dremel. Four strands of brown Greek leather on each side are attached via handmade brass coil ends, and these attach to short lengths of chain.

I have some other disc beads I'm dying to do this with now--some gorgeous turquoise discs I've had forever but not used because just stringing them seemed such a waste (the flat side is gorgeous), and I couldn't figure out how to use them flat because the holes are so small. I think I'll make another piece like this with them. I have some other slightly different turquoise discs that would mix well with them. I've also gone on a ceramic button-buying spree, with the same idea. I think maybe I'll just make a whole collection of this kind of stuff. It'll be My Thing.

I'm a Born Slacker, Baby

Goodness, I haven't run my mouth on here in 11 days. I've been giving myself permission, daily, to do nothing terribly productive. Spent the weekend on Flathead Lake (our usual summer haunt) camping on picturesque islands with friends, rafting up with a slew of buddies on their boats, and watching large men catch fish. Forgot my camera. You'll just have to take my word for it. The water is still 58 degrees which is below my swimming threshold (by about 17 degrees), but lovely to look at. Unearthly vivid blues and greens, like chrysocolla...OK, I'll stop taunting you. Not really fair without photos. I'll take my camera next time.

I did do this the other day though. I quite like how it turned out.

I used my new pewter crimp ends from Fusion Beads--LOVE them! So easy and has a nice finished look. 

I am so into this turquoise/brown/cream thing! Fortunately I acquired a surreal amount of stuff in those colors so I should be churning out this palette for quite some time. This one features a huge roundel of turquoise (not magnesite, this is the real deal), coupla big wood wheels, coupla burnt horn rounds, and some glossy bone rounds too. Nickel beadcaps made by moi. And more of that fabulous cocoa deerskin lacing from Magpie Gemstones. Horn and wood from Beads and Pieces, bone beads from Happy Mango Beads.

I also did this, with my new strand of rainbow soochow jade and my second order of pink jasper nuggets. Love this with the dark brown brass.

I did these little earrings to go with them. I belatedly noticed, as I was uploading the photos to Etsy, that they look like little pink boobies. Hope nobody notices.

Well, that's all for now. I do have to tell you that I just now (literally, like 20 seconds ago) remembered the brass beadcaps I had steeping in ammonia fumes. I went and got them out and they are JET BLACK and glossy! Wow!! Not what I was going for but how cool is that? You're probably going to see a bunch of goth stuff on here now. Just in time for the 4th of July.

More Casualness

Ivory raku lampwork by Blue Seraphim on Etsy, wood wheels, Czech glass roundels in a green lumi finish, hamdmade nickel beadcaps, silver plated beads and spacers, tiny matte cocoa brown seed beads, and antique-silver-plated ladder chain from Lima Beads. So casual you could practically pass out in your bean bag chair. Right there in your sweat pants. And your dirty hair. In front of the tube. Just hangin'.

To get your cas on, CLICK HERE.

Leather: The Path to Casualness

Plowing through more of my stash of lampwork--these again by BeingBeads in an amber and blue granite pattern. I wanted to do something a little more casual and rustic-feeling, so I got myself in the mood with some deerskin lace in cocoa from Magpie Gems. I started out with some very lightly oxidized brass beadcaps, but they added too much glitter to it and just weren't giving me the rustic feeling I wanted. So instead I used the same beadcaps, but deeply oxidized in ammonia fumes to a dark bronze. I added more of my teal quartz (wish I had bought four strands instead of two...), a little wood, and some nifty fluted dark brass tube beads I got locally. The connectors are the ring halves of some little brass toggle clasps. I wrapped the leather ends in oxidized brass wire and finished it off with a hand-formed brass S-clasp. It's about 19" long.

Snakeskin: The New Neutral

So much lampwork gathering dust on my work table (I'm phobic about using it in a piece that just doesn't measure up)...these little "snakeskin" gems by BeingBeads on Etsy have been keeping Kelley's "Azure Islands" beads company for the last several months. But I've plucked up my courage and by golly, those lampwork beads are going places. I decided to use them in some simpler necklaces, rather than putting them in multi-stranded coronation neckpieces with glittering gem-encrusted breastplates. This was as simple as I allowed myself to get. (But I have more! I'm thinking of using leather as a way to force myself into casualness.)

This wonderful lampwork is by Pat Redinger of BeingBeads on Etsy. It's combined with teal blue quartz, yellow turquoise (in olive green), wood, and Delica seed beads in a fabulous gray-lined light amber. Hand-formed, hammered brass beadcaps.

The rest of my lampwork beads have targets on their little glassy heads. Pretty excited about the boatload of glass tile beads and heavier gauge silk thread I just got from Fire Mountain, and all the seed beads I've been collecting from Fusion Beads--time to conquer my fear of both casual/simple AND blue and get busy. I'm going to be very knotty again this weekend.

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.