Tree of Life

I put this little bracelet together yesterday with one of my new ceramic buttons from Beadfreaky. I just love the rich colors in the button! It's a great size for a focal, about 1 and 1/8". Copper seemed to be the thing, and I did my new technique with a repeating S-shape in copper wire underneath. I attached a few beige glass spacers and a couple roundels of brecciated jasper too. Silk string in cinnamon and deerskin lacing in buckskin finish up the bracelet, along with one of my toggle clasps.

Not having a lot of luck finding nice flat, disc beads so I think I'm going to have to go the button route a lot more. Woo hoo! I love me some buttons.

Oh wow, somebody just bought this. But you can see it in my sold items section in my Etsy shop!

Experiments in Fiber and Something Off the Cuff

A while back I became captivated by Jamn Glass' "watercolor" dyed silk strings and ribbons and bought a couple delicious lengths, not knowing what I would do with them. Figured it would come to me one day. A few weeks ago I hauled out the "fairy whispers" string and selected some stones for it. I was thinking copper. Or brass. And there it sat.

I started making a bunch of wrapped, hammered metal rings in the car on my lunch hour (I don't solder yet and Shannon LeVart had provided a little lesson somewhere about wrapping jumprings and such to close them and I thought, well, heck, solder schmolder) and after I had antiqued them, I liked the way they looked with the silk. But how to incorporate the silk? I muddled over this for about a week, strung it this way and that, and nothing worked. I was frustrated. Threw everything in my tool box and took a damn nap.

Thought about it some more, and I thought why don't I turn those big fat rings into some big fat chain. Then maybe I could weave the cording in there. Lo and behold it worked. I even stumbled across a way to finish off the end with some of my smaller rings without having to tie a knot or use wire crimp coils or anything. Here it is:

The stones include picture jasper, moss agate, teal quartz, purple aventurine, fancy jasper, and matte Crazy Horse Stone. Copper plated pewter crimp ends. I just love the tawny colors in this silk--when I get the 12 gauge brass wire I just ordered I think I'm going to make another similar bracelet with brass rings, and draw out the tawny colors more.

I also did this. A couple of these snow quartz coins were lying around and I just LOVE them (I'm so into lozenge and coin beads, but just to fondle usually. I love the way they clack together in my hand. Like money.) And an idea that was not on my to do list seized me. Took me about a week to finish it--I just got sick of it after a while. It always needed more dangling beads and I got tired of making the headpins. It was a mofo to polish. GAH. I think this was what I was working on when I got my hair caught in the dremel.

The red side of the bracelet is actually a base of black deerskin lacing but you can't see it because of all the stuff I covered it up with. I interspersed sterling silver coils along it and added the dangling beads between them. Mostly I dangled the beads from jumprings (I realized belatedly that this was a better idea) but some of them are just wrapped right onto the leather.

That fabulous red, black and silver lampwork bead is by Kelley Wenzel. I'm hoarding the rest for now. Maybe a pendant too. The rest of the beads are little rainbow moonstone coins, black glass coins, a blackstone nugget, and loads of red bamboo coral nuggets. Nifty pewter rings from Happy Mango Beads.

Phew. Time for bed. I'm old.

My First Button

I've been intrigued by buttons in jewelry for quite a while, but had been putting off designing anything around a button.  Well, I was finally forced to use my first button last week out of sheer necessity--the eventual wearer is very sensitive to metals, and the buyer and I settled on a button and loop closure in lieu of a traditional clasp to avoid as much irritation as possible.

I found this sweet little resin shank button in brown and oatmeal in the shape of a poppy at the local knitting store--even the shank was plastic so there's no metal at all in it. I created the loop from glass tile beads in peridot.  The necklace is strung on two different gauges of brown silk cord. I hid tiny little silver daisy spacers deep between the wood wheel beads where they won't touch the wearer's skin, but they add just a little bit of shine. 

The beads include ice flake quartz in olive green, porcelain in olive and black, amber, glass tile beads in peridot and a soft whiskey color, tiny glass seed beads in a matte cocoa finish, and lots of wood. I like it best twisted a little.

It was a little challenging to make; I thought half a card per strand would be enough (1 meter) but the knots took up a lot more length than I expected and I had to add a length of thread to one of the strands about 3/4 through to finish it off.  (It's about 19" long). Worked out fine, but I had to do some engineering.  Changed my mind twice about three or four strands, and eventually settled on four.  Phew.  I was nervous because you can't really undo those knots without wrecking the thread, and once you're started, you're committed.  The only way to change your mind is to cut it up and start over.  I'm kind of surprised I didn't have to do that!!  Lesson I learned: if you put enough crap in it, it'll look fine no matter what.  The buyer loved it, hopefully her birthday-girl friend will love it too!

I really want to do another piece like this with another button--I have an idea percolating, inspired by our stormy, glowering lilac-charcoal skies and the vivid trees with their tiny, brand new lime green leaves.  Might have to do some button shopping.