A Dove Brought Me an Olive Branch Just Now

I have no idea where he got it, there's no olive trees within miles of here. Like about 5,581 miles. But as far as I know this means it's going to stop raining. And I'll be darned if there isn't some blue sky outside my window.

This puts me in the mood to talk about bracelets.  There's something about sunshine and bracelets.  Or maybe it's sunshine and short sleeves, and short sleeves lend themselves to bracelets.  Especially these bracelets:

This is a custom order, based on my other copper bracelet with the mauve-fuchsia-coral palette. The customer wanted some yellow, turquoise and aqua, and I was pretty excited to have just the thing in my stash of lampwork! The beautiful lampwork above is by Pat at BeingBeads, and the sea green glass discs are recycled glass from Africa via Happy Mango Beads. I think the copper beads are from Magpie Gemstones. The rest of the copper components I made myself (beadcaps, toggle bar, the bases, connector rings and jump rings, and the decorative wrapped rings between the beads), with the exception of a few links of rolo chain.

This bracelet below was made with some nifty German lampwork from the local bead shop--I just love those big polka dots! They feel sort of 60s to me. I've combined them with dark red lampwork spacers by Pinocean, and mostly nickel with some sterling silver.

Oh Behave!!

The upper and lower sections (both the underbar and the part with the beads on it) are made of nickel, as are the beadcaps and wrapped connector ring. The jump rings, the rings between the beads, and the toggle bar are sterling silver. There's a short section of silver plated steel rolo chain attaching the toggle bar. The nickel polishes up really nicely in either the tumbler (probably want to do at least a few hours in there) or the Dremel with some jeweler's rouge, and it really matches the color of the sterling silver nicely. It's harder to work with though. (The underbar here is 12 gauge wire, which gets pretty stiff when you hammer it. I won't probably ever try anything heavier.) I got this nickel sheet (for the beadcaps) and wire from Monsterslayer. I get all my wire and sheet there, in fact. Nickel is really affordable.

Well, it looks like the dove lied. It's raining again. Shifty bastard.

Three Bracelets

I am pursuing my "hinged" bangle bracelet design. Finished these over the weekend but I was too tired to photograph them until yesterday:

"Azure Islands" (or, "What I wear at my posh Grecian villa.")

Found some matte crow beads in my stash from Happy Mango Beads that matched perfectly. (That's always thrilling.) These luxurious lampwork beads are by Kelley Wenzel. I'm calling it "Azure Islands" which is coincidentally what Kelley called her beads. Hey, why reinvent the wheel, right?

This one is all about worn jeans and beat up leather boots. Like Thelma and Louise.

Dangerous in Denim

Ceramic focal bead by Mary Ann Carroll. Burnt horn rounds, with a mixture of nickel and sterling silver wire.

This one will look familiar to you. I got some more of these swirly sunset colored beads from my friend Pat (BeingBeads on Etsy)--these have a little more fuchsia and purple in them, and I added some wrapping to the rings I use between the beads:

A Wrist Pop! Lickable.

Well that's it. I have one more half done. Hopefully I can show it to you in the next few days!

Who Put a Quarter in Me?

Because I was weirdly productive this weekend. I made two pendants, finished a fish necklace, made an experimental bracelet (see below) and a pair of earrings to go with a pendant from last week. That's got to be some kind of record for me. (It's a good thing I'm not trying to pay the bills with this or I'd be in a refrigerator box with a McDonald's gift certificate from the Methodist church clutched in my grubby hand. And when I wasn't in my refrigerator box I'd be at the library talking to myself. And thinking, "What's that smell?")

I wanted to show you my experimental bracelet. The last couple weeks I've been itching to try a bangle bracelet, or a least a modified one, in two parts. I thought it would be a fun way to use up my awesome lampwork stash. (At first I did it up with these really rustic looking ceramic beads from Michael's, but after I got it partway together I thought the beads were just not durable enough for a bracelet and I took it apart and started over. They seemed about as durable as malted milk balls. You get what you pay for, right? Damn. Now I want malted milk balls.) At first I though I might be defeated by my lack of a steel bracelet mandrel to hammer it on, but then I spied the neighbor's steel fence pole and I was in business. I ran out with my hammer and shaped the underside piece of my bracelet on the pole. It was very clangy. They're hollow and they make a terrific racket. I think I might need my own piece of steel pipe. Time to go shopping at the hardware store!! (Or sneaking around at night at a Department of Transportation construction site.)

I decided to start with some wonderful sunset-colored (like an LSD sunset) beads from BeingBeads, by my friend Pat (who lives like 15 miles away!! how lucky am I?).

Into the LSD Sunset

Of course it cried out for copper.

At first I attached the underbar (that's my word that I just right now made up) directly to the top piece with large jump rings, but it didn't really fit right. Part of the problem was that the underbar wasn't long enough. I thought I would have to start over with a longer underbar. But then I thought, maybe what it really needed was to be sort of hinged on the sides, to make it easier to put on. So then I put a connector ring in between on the one side, which ended up balancing out the short bit of chain on the other side. Et voila! I think it would work the other way too, with a longer underbar.

They look like CANDIES, don't they? Strawberry, boysenberry, watermelon, grape...

I totally did not measure, I just started making stuff. Thinking about math makes my mind hurt. (Although I impressed the heck out of myself by actually WRITING DOWN the dimensions when I was done. So unlike me.) That's the beauty of copper: Doesn't fit? Ugly? Doesn't work? Eh. Toss it in the "to-be-taken-to-the-recycling-center-in-10-years-when-I-have-enough-scrap-to make-it-worth-the-gas-to-drive-it-over-there-Box." (Of course someday soon some asshole speculators will start buying up all the copper in the world and it will be $100 an ounce (but that would probably only be because the dollar had fallen to a value of 12 cents...) and we'll have to switch to string made out of recycled grocery bags. It will make annoying crinkling sounds when you wear it. Your cat will steal it and play with it under the bed while you are trying to sleep. ALL NIGHT. (And then promptly retire to the basement to sleep all day once you are off to work.)).

I'm so excited by this new thing I am already losing interest in my button thing. But I have all these new buttons coming from Hong Kong, Israel, Canada and Singapore so I have to just soldier on and do both. What I think is totally cool is that I can make UNDERBARS in the car. Well, if I can find some steel pipe. (I'm still feeling too cheap to buy a mandrel.)