Baubles & Beads Design Team Reveal

Earlier this summer I was invited to be part of the Baubles & Beads Design Team. I accepted! First on the agenda was a challenge using a packet of supplies sent to the members by Baubles & Beads last month. Here's a picture of what I received:

I took the picture above as a "teaser" shot, so I didn't capture everything. Here are the other items:

(Yes, there was a pair of the square brass elements. I might have experimented on the other one with a hammer...) The spool is copper core wire in "Vintage Bronze."

I had intended to do two pieces with the items, but so far I have only been able to finish one of them (this one is mostly done):

Of course I can't bear to leave a piece of metal unaltered, so I flattened out the brass bib, transferred a digital pattern from Aesthetic Addiction to it with Press N Peel and a household iron, and then etched it. I love the weight of this component, it's a more than generous enough gauge (18 maybe?) for etching, and of course the edges are all nicely rounded and finished, so no grinding or sanding necessary! It's raw brass, making it perfect for etching or patina work.

After I etched it, I added holes and tube rivets at the bottom to hang things, and antiqued it in ammonia fumes:

Then I colored it with blue and green dye-oxide Swellegant patinas from B'Sue Boutiques, adding several coats of Age-It from Sculpt Nouveau to make it look a little older, and eventually sealing it with multiple coats of Permalac and Renaissance Wax:

The teal and olive green cording were the inspiration for the whole piece, so I used the cording to make tassels (my first tassels ever!). I used vintage brass beadcaps for the tassels, ammonia fumed to black and then lightly colored with gilder's paste, adding my own agate, kyanite and Russian amazonite beads. I added a couple of the brass cubes from Baubles & Beads to the dangling beads.

For the strands to hang the bib, I knotted turquoise and jade onto olive green Irish waxed linen, and finished them off with more of the little brass cubes (I love the way they look knotted onto cording). No clasp yet, but it's almost done!

I have another project in mind for the remaining items. Can't wait to get started on it! It will involve more tassels, with the other two skeins of cording (this silky, supple cording is perfect for tassels! And since it's nylon, you can even seal the ends with a thread burner if you wish), and I'm envisioning some texture and patina on the square and round lattice brass elements.

Check out the links below to see all the other designs created with the same kit in different color palettes!

You can also sign up for the giveaway to win your own kit and use the 20% off coupon code BPSEP through September 30, 2013 at the baublesandbeads.com shop.

Michelle Mach
Lori Anderson
Marie-Noel Voyer-Cramp 
Erin Prais-Hintz 
Jean Yates

Two-Faced

That's how I like my pendants!

This side:

Verdigris Gypsy

That side:

(With amazonite, larimar, pearls, copper and leather)

This side:

Sunset Clouds

That side:

(With fire agate, amethyst, red aventurine and golden pearls--oh and a little drop of peach moonstone too)

This side:

Firefly

That side:

(With carnelian, amber, and jade)

This side:

Sunset Gypsy

That side:

(With amethyst, red aventurine, cherry quartz, carnelian, charoite and leather)

This one is reversible, but I don't think I took pictures of the other side--they look identical! You'll just have to take my word for it:

Red Creek

(With red creek jasper, green marble, amber glass, hessonite garnets and leather)

This little bracelet goes with the pendant above. It isn't reversible. Unless you count being able to wear it on either wrist:

Red Creek Part Deux

(With red creek jasper, lampwork glass, Czech glass leaf, and waxed linen. And copper (duh))

And with that, I bid you good night.

Clean Your Plate, Then You Can Have Dessert

The "dessert" being NEW designs--so I "cleaned my plate" and turned these etched tabs that had been lying around into more tube bail earrings (even though I was already bored with the idea, kind of like being bored with your peas):

Hippie Princess

The wonderful blood red dotted ovals are Czech glass from ArteBellaSurplus, and the rustic striped multicolor beads are Indonesian glass from Happy Mango Beads.

The damask pattern on these earrings makes me think of wallpaper in a posh old-timey Hollywood hotel. I decided to go monochrome, with champagne-colored beads--the big citrine ovals have the barest hint of color, and the pearls are a lovely pale sand color.

Champagne Cocktails with Grace Kelly

For some reason these make me think of Grace Kelly.

These below were more of a "foldover" bail I call it, that I flipped upside down for earrings. There was something sort of Incan about them (I'm sure an Incan would disagree, don't ask me how my mind works), so I added some chrysocolla. That seemed kind of Incan. Somehow.

Just sold, sorry

I seem to have a vague memory that some ancient Central American kingdom made their king wear a hat like this. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

I knew it.

Not so crazy after all.

These are the same design as the first two, but lightly colored with gilder's paste. These have fluorite and hessonite from Lima Beads. I really wish I had gotten a full strand of the fluorite.

Sold to a Canadian, sorry

These are hessonite and amethyst, also from Lima Beads. I am now a huge fan of hessonite. These remind me of a Chinese dragon.

Lilac Dragon

These turned out very girly. Pink and blue! The beads are angelite and moukaite, with Czech glass on the earwires.

My Grandma's Quilt

This last pair feel very Art Deco to me--like an Art Deco sunset!

Also gone, so sorry

So now I am done with the tube bail earring and I can move on. I did my usual thing--when I made the first couple pair, I was so excited about them I cut out a zillion of these tabs thinking I'M GOING TO MAKE A MILLION OF THESE!!! and then promptly lost interest. But after leaving them lying around forever I decided to do the grown-up thing and finish what I started. Now if only I could do that with my Roman shade project.

Clouds and Keyholes

Kimono Clouds

I created this double sided focal eons ago, and this is the third color scheme I've tried on it. The first--a traditional patina--didn't take at all, so I went to gilder's paste. I didn't like the first thing I did with that so I took it all off with paint thinner and sandpaper and started over. I heated the metal to a deep orange with my clothes iron, and applied just a light wash of color over that with the gilder's paste using my finger. I was thinking of clouds when I designed my shape, and these traditional Japanese wave and cloud patterns seemed just perfect for it!

The beads include (from the bottom) bronzite, rainbow moonstone, angelite, copper beads, blue sponge coral, tiger iron, more angelite and moonstone, and then little roundels of denim lapis. Finished off with round leather cord in a rich cocoa and short lengths of chain. I've had the bronzite and moonstone forever, and discovered today I also had tiger iron! I vaguely remember buying it. I like using forgotten beads from my stash.

I am really enjoying etching, and making these double-sided, tube-riveted focals. I get to color TWICE! I am trying to think of new shapes to do. I am thinking of some house shapes.

I also finished these earrings yesterday, using the first pair of charms from my Gardanne Beads haul I told you about yesterday. Little tiny pumpkin keyholes! With the striped Indonesian beads they feel Gypsy-like to me (of course those striped beads are from Happy Mango Beads; blue etched lampwork spacers are from Julie Miller Glass on Etsy). I don't know why, whenever I use those striped beads I think of Gypsies. Do Gypsies wear stripes? Where did I get that? Maybe I'm thinking of striped circus tents. The little keyholes could be on the door of Cinderella's pumpkin coach.

Pumpkin Keyholes

Well, that's all for now. I'm tuckered out, time to hit the couch!

Etched Metamorphosis

I was recently thrilled to have discovered the right tweaks to get my Press n Peel sheets to work for transferring printed images to metal. I've been an etching fiend ever since! I found some fabulous digital damask collage sheets at Aesthetic Addiction on Etsy and got started creating some things with an exotic feel. The raw pieces above are based on a tube bail I had made, but miniaturized, flipped upside down, and modified for earrings. Here's the result:

Gypsy Festival

This pattern made me think of a gypsy caravan for some reason, so I had to make it colorful! I started with amber and iolite, and added some peridot. Juicy!

Another set of these had a more distinctly floral pattern, with flowers that made me think of sunflowers. I couldn't get a saffron color out of my head for them, so chose some deep golden coin pearls as the central color, and fished around in my stash for what seemed like hours trying to find the right companion color. I wired on two sets of beads in other colors, only to cut them off in dissatisfaction. I tried going a little out of my comfort zone, and I was surprised how much I liked cool iceberg blue amazonite with the coin pearls. It was really vivid, and made me think of a French country house all done up in sunny yellow and robin's egg blue:

Haystacks in Provence

It also put me in mind of many of Van Gogh's paintings, especially "Haystacks in Provence."

I was really thrilled with the color in the copper in this pair--after I etched it, I had to anneal it to make it workable, and then pickle it. That took it back to shiny pink. Before I formed the tube shape, I antiqued it in liver of sulfur to bring out the pattern, and then heated it with a hot clothes iron to bring up the cherry/orange colors. It has a really warm glow now.

This last pair sports beadcaps I've been thinking of for a long time. I had sketched them eons ago but didn't know how to fit them together--and then I discovered tube rivets! So the other day I decided to give it a try. I had some textured copper strips lying around for other uses and so I just did them up really fast. They look kind of medieval to me!

Medieval Spring

I used them with a pair of Alisha White's hollow lampwork globes in taupey-mauve, some Czech glass in olive and lime green pearls. I have some more of these hollow beads and will probably do a similar design with the rest of them--I love how lightweight they are, and yet they have such presence!

I have one more set of etched copper tabs like the ones at the top of the post (the ones at bottom left), and the pattern seems to be telling me "Purple and Red!" so keep your eyes peeled for those!