These Buttons Are Really Pushing My Buttons

My "Buy Now" button!! I must have these.

Cindy Lougee has opened a new Etsy shop---CalDESIGNNaturals "Bits 'n Pieces", and is stocking it with the most fabulous bronze and silver buttons. They are scrumptious! I'm all about buttons these days, and when she told me she was planning to start making some buttons in bronze I thought HURRY!!!! Because I just realized I need them. Just now when you told me you were going to make them. I need them.

Check out the rich patina on these tasty little morsels!!

Round buttons--look at the color!!

Leaf buttons

Triangle buttons

And check out this already-sold (DANG) sweetness:

Flower buttons!--I'm loving these

Fine silver leaf buttons

Fine silver square buttons--are those not cool?

Aren't they gorgeous? Think of the design possibilities...Go to her Facebook fan page and beg her to make more!! I am.

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.

My New French (Speaking) Lady

I was delighted to discover the other evening that my blog has acquired another French (or French-speaking) lady. I love French (and/or French speaking) ladies. I would like more. A French man would be very nice too. Yes indeed.

Welcome to Isabelle di Martino! I poked around on Isabelle's brand new blog and her shop to find out more about her, but to no avail. She may be Swiss. Or perhaps Belgian. Or perhaps Senegalese. Dying to know!!! I need a Belgian lady. And an African lady. And a Swiss lady. I don't think I have any.

Anyway, I invite you all to stop by her brand new blog and give her a follow! She has some very unique and exquisite bronze and copper pieces on display, with a really modern, organic flavor to them; her post of today includes some really beautiful pieces (I especially love the first one, pictured below, with the mother of pearl insets).



I hope Ms. Di Martino isn't upset that I put one of her photos on here. Looked for a way to contact her but I would have had to set up an account on the site where she has her shop and there was just too much French. I didn't want to accidentally subscribe myself to the Crepe of the Month club or something.

Pimped More Earrings

Check these out. Riffed off the silver ones I did, these are with lilac bronze pearls and pale amethyst rounds. Started kind of from scratch with the color, never made mauve earrings before. I'm going to do a bunch of earrings with the same design, but different metals and colors. Next up: copper.

Keep Doing the Same Thing Until It Isn't Cute Anymore

I made a bracelet a few months ago with bronze and steel lock washers from the hardware store, coin pearls and steel wire. People really seemed to like it. I eventually sold it to my boyfriend's sister who now wears it proudly in North Carolina. I've been meaning to make another one, along with a pendant and earrings, but have been putting it off. Wrapping the washers and polishing the steel was a bit of a chore. But I did it this weekend and it wasn't so bad. After I finished the pieces, I took a tiny paint brush and painted the steel wire with acrylic floor wax (formerly known as Future here in the US) to protect it from moisture. Read this tip on the Internet--can't say how protective it is, but it does go on nicely and once dry gives a nice shiny finish that doesn't rub off.

Here is the pendant:




And the bracelet:


And the earrings:

I really like how these turned out.

If somebody buys these I'll make them again. And again. Until nobody likes them anymore. Actually I'll probably keep making them beyond that, because you don't know that nobody likes them anymore until you make the last one that doesn't get any love. And then I'll wear that one myself. Or send it to one of you guys.

Handy, and pretty too

FINALLY put together my first two hardware experiments. Hit the wall the other night and napped instead of producing. But last night I drank a bottled Starbucks Frapuccino and sequestered myself with the mini vise and a handful of delightfully hammered bronze lock washers. And some steel wire. And this bracelet is what I came up with:


I'm pleased with the way it turned out. Really does a lot for the pearls. I especially like the steel wire, the matte-ish texture really sets off the bronze and the pearls.

I made this the other night but hadn't had the energy to photograph it until last night:

The pendant is made from a hammered bronze lock washer with one of my hammered brass wire flowers hanging from it. That particular flower (made in the car) was oxidized with the ammonia fumes method. I put the item in a little open plastic container inside a ziplock back with a rag soaked in household ammonia, and seal it up. (Don't get any ammonia on the items, and try to keep moisture out of there or it will get black or green spots). Go about your business and come back in a couple/few hours and the brass will have turned a nice reddish shade of brown.

Barring another energy crash tonight I will try and make some more. I have some other washers in a different hue (I guess from being treated somehow), but I don't know if they're soft enough to hammer. Might do that tonight too.

Delicious Booty from the Sack of Troy

No, no, not THAT kind of booty, you pervert. PILLAGING booty. The spoils of war. My friend Alan said he thought the pendant pictured here looked like something pocketed during the sack of Troy. And by golly it is. Yes it is. Yeah. I bought it from a Turkish collector of antiquities for ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

Nah, actually I made it. The other day. I disassembled a pendant given to me by an Eritrean woman about 11 years ago (thank you, Meaza). I loved the little house pendant, and wanted to combine it with something really stunning. I adore these bronze pearls and thought that was just the ticket. I made another necklace, sans pendant (since there was only one) with more of the oxidized metal beads and pearls. I like that one too. The chain is hand forged by moi, also oxidized, just so, by moi.



I have lots more of the little metal heishi beads from the original pendant, and I think four more of the large metal beads. I don't really know what kind of metal they are--I'm thinking maybe a copper alloy, possibly bronze. Bronzes are fairly common in Africa, and I can see a lot of copper in the pendant. Could also be brass, as brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. But who knows, they don't really have a lot of safety legislation in Africa. Could be plutonium. Don't let any babies chew on it. And maybe you don't want to chew on it either. I wanted to but I didn't.