Coming Soon........

Hello!!

First of all, today I am supposed to be a part of a group of bloggers taking part in a challenge with beautiful oak leaf copper jewelry components from Jo at Daisy Chain Designs.

Unfortunately, I am stilling waiting to receive my package, with the oak leaf, that seems to be delayed in the mail.
These are the beautiful copper pieces I am waiting on.....

In the meantime, please check out the Daisy Chain blog & website, as well as all the bloggers participating in the challenge:

Jo Tinley of Daisy Chain Designs

Melissa Meman of Art, Life, Love

Niki Sayers of SilverNikNaks

Amber Boorman of Larksong Studio

Rebecca Anderson of Songbeads

As soon as my oak leaf arrives I will post my design. I have had a design idea in my head since I saw the oak leaves on Jo's blog, so I cant wait to get started!

Experimenting......

Over the last few months I have been experimenting with some new materials, trying out new ideas, taking some online classes.

I am not doing any Fall shows like I normally do.  Instead I thought I would have an open house in December with lots of new items.

Here are some sneak peeks from classes I have taken and some new products I have tried out.

This heart charm was from an online class I took at Beaducation, in PMC. 

I had worked with PMC (Precious Metal Clay) before but hadn't really pushed myself to make anything like this.  It is 2 hearts joined with copper spacers and brass hex nuts, then riveted.

The class gave me a lot of confidence with the PMC and some great ideas for new pieces.

I put the piece in Liver of Sulphur to age it, and then was sorry I did since before that the metals were bright and there was a lot more contrast.

I am still happy with it!

I have also been playing around with some enameling.

Those are some of the first beads I made.  I am using Barbara Lewis' kit and book, "Painting with Fire"  and it has been very helpful.

Yesterday I got into a bit of an earring making spell.

Here are two pairs....I cant show you everything....need to save some for the open house!

I love the enamel earrings, below.  They remind me of the ocean.

I'll pop back in soon to show you some more experiments and some new things!

Have a great week!

Bead Soup Blog Party: Soup is Ready

Good Morning! Good Afternoon!!! Hello....FINALLY!!!

Today is the day for the reveal of the Bead Soup Blog Party.

Remember to go here to see all of the participants and their posts.

I am a little late posting today, and I apologize, but our internet is off more than it is on now-a-days! I have been trying to get this post done since yesterday! The internet will literally be on for 10-20 minutes, then it goes off for a few hours....very frustrating! And while it is on it is as slow as molasses!

My partner, Karen, was very generous, and sent me 5 focals and tons of wonderful natural stone beads. With all the natural stones I got on an earring making kick. A few years ago customers would ask me to make earrings and I would say, "no, I dont like making two of the same thing".

Then I came up with earrings that were the same, but different. They are very 80's probably, but hey, that's when I grew up so I am influenced still by that era.
Here are all three pairs that I made.....

Here are some close ups.....this first pair are my favorite :)

These run a close second....

The stones that my partner Karen sent were so cool that I love these just as much!

I then had to choose one of the wonderful focals sent by my partner. It was difficult because they were all so beautiful, but I finally chose the one with the sand dollar.

The focal can slide on the chain because of the hanger I made for it.

Karen makes all of these focals herself and she uses a lot of seed beads, so I thought I would challenge myself and use some even though I had asked her not to send me any. I am sure Karen would have done something more exciting with the seed beads, but I did what I could.

I am calling this piece "Earth and Water". The the black around the sand dollar reminds me of lava or the dark sand at a river's edge, and the leaf toggle represents land. The shell, the color of the raku beads and the seed beads represent the water.

Make sure you check out all the other wonderful Bead Soup Blog Party posts....there are over 300 of them this time around!
Also, be sure to go to Karen's blog to see what she made from the pieces that I sent to her.

Bead Soup Party Coming Up Soon!

It's been like a month since I posted last.....that's embarassing!

Between lack of internet and Hurricane Irene passing over us I got behind on blogging!

I am taking part in the Bead Soup Blog Party again this year. We are assigned a partner, by Lori at Pretty Things, partners swap bead packages and make something with what was sent to them.

My partner is Karen, from Seattle, and you can check out her blog here.

Karen sent quite an amazing package.

Here are the Focals and the toggle. Karen made these focals!!! The one on the bottom right has a sand dollar embedded in it!! They are all so beautiful and my imagination is whirling thinking about all the things I can do with these.

And then there were all the other extras.....

Look at all these beautiful stones!!!! Karen told me the round disks are fossilized coral....very cool!! These pieces are all new to me since I have never worked with stones like these. So it will be an exciting journey.

The turquoise cube beads above are some of my favorites!

Be sure and come back September 17th, do the Bead Soup Party Blog hop and check out what all the amazing jewelry artists have created.

Well, I've got to go get to work, and I promise you I will be back before September 17th!

Bead Table Wednesday ~ sea glass bracelet

Happy Bead Table Wednesday!!!

Been busy, busy, busy with orders and fun stuff going on around the house so I havent been posting a whole lot lately.  Actually the *stuff going on around the house* has taken over my life!

Right now, in between everything else, I am trying to finish up the bracelet that I started a few weeks ago.

I still need to add a clasp, secure the sea glass in the bezels and then do a final polishing.

I love all these sea glass colors so much and can't wait for it to be finished.

Soon!!!

Check out all the other Bead Table Wednesday posts this week and be inspired!

Bead Table Wednesday ~ work in progress from the classroom

Happy Bead Table Wednesday!

This week I am in the middle of taking a local jewelry class. It is named Sea Glass Class, but it is so much more than that!

Here I am polishing away at my work station....

I have been making jewelry for several years now, and after doing more metal and wire work I wanted to learn how to cut more of my own original pieces from sheet silver and copper. So, about a year ago, I bought a jeweler's saw which is a hand saw with a very fine blade that breaks very easily. I tried and tried to get that saw to work and just couldn't! In my frustration I put (threw) the saw aside and out of sight!

Well, the first day of this class we had to use one! After a brief description and demo we were all sitting at our workstations, saw in hand, and I got it to work!! I was over the moon!!! If I didn't learn another thing this week I would have still been happy!

I had to go home, find my saw and apologize to it!

Here are some bails that I made from sheet silver using the saw....

On one bail I soldered on a small turtle pendant that the instructor of the class made.

These two pieces still need polishing up which I will do tomorrow.

I have also had a chance in this class to use a dual fuel torch for soldering which has made things so much easier.....once you get use to the heat!

I have been using a butane torch and having problems with it lately and it was all because there was not enough heat.

Here are a few more pieces I am working on in class.

I love these pastel colors together. Still trying to decide what to make out of these....a bracelet....a pendant.....a necklace.....any ideas?

I would love to hear your opinions!

Be sure and check out what others have on their bead tables this Wednesday over at the Flickr group, Bead Table Wednesday.

Watch out world.....here I come with my jeweler's saw!

BTW ~ Boho Bliss Class

I went missing in action for a while there because of having no internet at home.  It was off for 2 weeks!!!  So glad it is back on, but now I am playing catch-up!

One of the many things I am catching up on are the online classes I am enrolled in.

Boho Bliss is a jewelry class I am taking and loving learning different techniques with metals.

Deryn is the creator and teacher of this class and I love her jewelry style.  She offers a few other classes as well which I am looking forward to taking.

Boho Bliss is all about earrings, and these are my hoops from the first week ~

Made from a plain piece of copper (or silver) wire!

They are meant to be plain hoops, but I am in a frenzy of making those glass headpins so I have also been adorning everything with them!

Here are some plain silver ones that I did some decorative stamping on for texture ~

Over the next few weeks we will be adding more to these hoops as Deryn teaches us more techniques.  I can't wait to learn more about metal and come back and share my pieces with you!

What is on your bead table this Wednesday?