My Name is Keirsten and I'm a Tutaholic

It all started, I think, with Barb Lewis' "Painting with Fire" tutorial. The instant gratification (I wish ALL online purchases could be emailed), the new (largely theoretical) vistas opening up...After that it was Shannon LeVart's "Color Drenched Metal" and "Hand Formed Links." And that softened me up pretty good for the next email I got from Eni Oken Jewelry Lessons--by now I had an unquenchable thirst for tutorials, even if I wasn't even going to do them (indeed, I have no immediate plans to do enamel, I just wanted the tut)--and I stumbled headlong into the Jewelry Lessons site like a broke drunk who just found a fiver on the sidewalk stumbles into a liquor store and started snapping up whatever I could find that seemed remotely do-able.

Well, that's maybe an overstatement, I bought two. I bought one on making wire-wrapped briolette flowers, because I was so inspired by Melissa Meman's gorgeous flower earrings but couldn't figure out how to do it (I don't have the engineering gene), and one on how to make little calla lily-shaped beadcaps out of thin metal sheet. (And then of course I had to buy the metal sheet). And somewhere in there I also acquired a tut on making kidney earwires from Natalie Girard, a Canadian jewelry artist on AtrFire. I've wanted to do those too but didn't have the patience to figure it out on my own. Sometimes I just like to be spoon-fed. Especially about measuring things.

So this was my fourth (or fifth?) attempt at the briolette flower. (I was a little alarmed with attempt no. 3 because I seemed to be getting WORSE with practice, but I stopped and thought about where I was going wrong and kept trying). I've had these kyanite spears FOREVER, they were one of the first things I bought when I started making jewelry but they didn't fit into my initial designs and I didn't know what to do with them after that.

This one below is also using the briolette wrapping technique (mine is still kind of messy, can't figure out how Melissa gets hers so perfect! Have to keep experimenting. I got a little wild with the one below and forgot where I was at with the over and under). Little sea opal drops and rounds, with copper rollo chain, and some great tiny ladder chain in antiqued copper. I can't remember where I got either chain--it was either Ornamentea or Lima Beads.

I'm pretty excited, this means I will have a way to use all those top drilled teardrop beads I keep buying but don't know what to do with. I have PILES of such beads so you will be seeing lots and lots of flowers. I may open a second shop called "All Flowers, Every Day, All Day Long."

This last thing didn't require any new tuts at all, just knots. A casually-shaped cube of boro lampwork glass by Bebesglassbeads on Etsy in "Ocean and Sand" hangs from cold-forged copper rings and a strand of knotted matte denim glass beads, with a few amber glass beads thrown in to tie into the lampwork. Front closure toggle clasp with hand-forged toggle bar.

Well, that's all I got. I got through about half my to-do list this weekend. And oh, gee, it looks like I didn't get to the icky stuff. Golly darnit anyhow.

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.