Accessories for the Serious Man-Eater

Leopardskin jasper is THE thing to wear this season when you're Going on a Man Hunt. It really does evoke the coat of a leopard, but in sexy shades of brick red, crimson, and coral. And black. Pair this with your favorite four-inch stilettos and leopard print catsuit and teeter around like your Bad Leopardess Self. Or maybe just sit.



The necklace features hammered copper washers linked by figure 8s in copper (check out Sharilyn Miller's "Ethnic Style Jewelry Workshop" DVD for instructions), brecciated jasper, hematite, mahogany jasper, copper beads (check out Sun Country Gems for awesome solid copper beads) and hand-forged chain in a twisted figure 8 pattern. It has, of course, a detachable extender chain so it can be worn long or short. Without the extender chain it's just shy of 21" long, and can be adjusted to shorter lengths; the extender chain is 5 and 3/4" long and is also adjustable.



Because of the hematite, you will be ever so slightly magnetic. If your significant other/prey-of-the-day has a pacemaker, you might want to take this off before you jump him.

More Word Verification Gems

Been collecting these for you:

cronchbo--fizzled successor to Tae Bo involving only Kegels.
traddl--like straddle, but with a harelip.
scrinc--the sickening sound of your keys falling into a sewer grate.
insier--"my belly button is insier than yours is."
schin--shin, in Germany.

Every Day

is Bead Porn Day at The Cerebral Dilettante. Because I'm just not that organized.

Today is devoted to Pewter Porn.

I stopped by the knitting shop (finally) to pick up some pewter buttons because Erin Prais-Hintz dared me to use a button in something. (Because I mentioned I really needed to learn how to use buttons). FINE. Here they are:



No, they're not terribly button-like. I'm starting out slow with the button thing.

And I got another dang email from Happy Mango Beads about another one of their silly pewter sales so I had to buy these pewter totem beads:



Pictured clockwise from upper left are an owl (upside-down, sorry), an orca (also upside-down), a frog, a raven (again, upside-down), a salmon and another salmon (both naturally upside-down), and two suns in the middle. I'm thinking a bracelet or two, maybe some simple knotted necklaces. Not sure I will be able to resist the impulse of turning the two suns into earrings. Really heavy earrings.

I Know What I'm Doing This Weekend

Making bead caps!!! My doming block set came today. And I have my copper and brass sheet and my metal punch and my pin vise drill. Going to have to fire up the tumbler with some Dawn and the stainless steel shot I got and see if that will clean up the burrs I am sure to have on the edges of my discs before I dome them. Eventually I will get around to trying out the tumbler for polishing, but I've read so many different accounts about mystery deposits on metals and black sludge that I'm chicken to try. I am going to be seriously pissed if this bead cap thing doesn't work. I don't have room for all this crap I bought.

If I've made some fatal conceptual errors regarding making bead caps this way I'll have a giveaway and YOU can try it!!

Purple Cactus Studios

I stumbled across this clay artist on Flickr the other day when I was uploading photos to the 88 groups I'm in. I was just blown away by her work! The colors seemed electric! And the patterns in her clay are just phenomenal. Psychedelic! I've never seen polymer clay quite like that. Like my most favorite fluorescent Crayolas. In her blog she also explains that she works as a muralist and faux finisher as well. I asked if I could feature her on my blog and she said sure. So here are some of my favs from her Etsy shop! You can also follow her blog, Purple Cactus Studios. I did.

This is a bangle! Looks like it was made out of a psychedelic snake!


Isn't this AMAZING? I just love it! The background for the photo makes me think these are little mushrooms you definitely don't want to eat. Or definitely DO want to eat. Depending on the kind of, ah, experience you're looking for.


Look at all these individual little petals!


And this is just way cool:


I could put like 40 more photos from her shop on here but Blogger won't let me. (Her Etsy profile indicates there are TWO artists, Amber and Laurence--one makes the clay beads, the other turns them into jewelry.) Bravo! Drop by for a visit!

P.S., you can also visit her website where you can see photos of her mural and faux finish work.

My Best Inanimate Friend

This is my beloved little mini vise. I call him Hermann. Hermann
fits in my purse better than a chihuahua. It's $7.99 at Jewelry Supply. (How many people can say they have a vise in their purse? Or eggs?)

Here is a picture of Hermann in action, holding a pendant ready to be wrapped with wire.



Hermann really is MINI. The opening only goes to 1 and 1/4", and the table top you see (it's one of those cheapie laminate desks from Staples) is pretty thin and that's about the limit for that vise, it won't fit on a heavier table top. And as you can see, it isn't very deep either--the pendant that's pictured there is pushed all the way down and that's as far as it goes. For larger items you would need a bigger vise. But I've never found I needed anything bigger for jewelry. Best $8 I ever spent. It's amazing how much better my wrapping turns out when I have TWO hands free--I can use one hand to hold the loop at the top steady so it doesn't twist when I start wrapping, and I can use the other hand to wrap the wire. I can wrap a briolette or pendant really fast with Hermann. With no cussing.

Color Inspiration!

I've really been knocked out by the copper pieces Esther of Mes Illusions Baroques and Mary Jane of Maire Dodd have been doing, with lots of rosy tones, peaches and lavenders, so I decided to haul myself out of the green-and-copper rut. Rifled through my bead stash and found some stuff I forgot I had bought (hmm, bead "blackouts", might have a problem)--really loved this peach aventurine (I got at a 75% off going-out-of-the-bead-part-of-our-business sale) with the copper, and then just had to stick the garnets in there. Couldn't bear to leave any unadorned links. I've really loved the purple-pink-peach-copper palette so many other artist bloggers are doing, HAD TO COPY IT!!! I really hate wrapping briolettes, so this was my desensitization therapy. I wrapped 8 of the little bastards. Rule No. 1: Always use a mini vise. Unless you have three arms. (But from what I've seen, third appendages tend to be more decorative than functional. Even if you have three arms you'll probably still need a vise.)

Made the chain yesterday while I was pretending to watch football (go Griz) with the BF and his offspring. It's like knitting. Except with a hammer.





OK, off to make earrings to go with this before my brio-wrapping-aversion reasserts itself.