In production mode

As I said earlier this week, I am putting down the beadwork for awhile to work with metal.

One of my goals is to re-open my supply shop on Etsy, and stock it with handmade etched and/or enameled metal components and findings. Towards that end, I have been busy all week hammering, cutting, drilling, etching, pickling, sanding, etc....

Here is the temporary workstation I improvised in the middle of the bead shop so that I could get more work done without having to constantly get up to get what I need:

After 4 days, I have finally finished (for this run, anyway) all the etching and cutting.

I still need to drill a lot of holes, and sand some pieces. And I also have some hammering yet to do.

Also yet to come: Liver of Sulfur for the etched pieces.

And also, enameling - I will try to get to this by the middle of next week. There is still much to do before I can even think of firing up the torch! Plus, I am teaching a beadweaving class next Wednesday, so that whole day is shot as far as this endeavor is concerned! But at least I will get to squeeze in a little beading!

And after all this metal drudgery fun, comes the worst part: photos, descriptions, and listing on Etsy. I hope to get the  Etsy shop back open by the last week in September, even if I only have a few items listed!

5x5 Metal Component Challenge Reveal, Chapter 2 (The square copper thing and the X)

Welcome to Chapter 2 of my 5x5 Metal Component Design Challenge Reveal
 (Chapter 1, the filigree ring, is here)

As a reminder, here are the components again:

 

 metal components for 5x5 challenge

After finishing my design with the filigree ring (yesterday's post), I decided to work next with the square copper thing at the bottom of this photo. I would stop calling it the "square copper thingy" if I only knew what it really was!

The location of its very tiny holes suggested it was meant to hang, like a pendant. (Although, at one point, I was so stumped I thought about cutting off those holes AND the supporting copper legs they were on, leaving just a plain copper square! I decided that would be a little too easy.) This square component was easily twice as thick as the 24g sheet copper I usually work with, for what that's worth. Thick, and heavy!

This piece really stumped me, again. But, building on my success with the blue lampwork flower and the filigree ring, I decided to see what I could find to "stick on" the pendant. I rummaged through the bead shop, and came up empty, inspiration-wise. Then I decided to dig into my super-secret stash, and I struck gold. Well, not literally - but sort of ... I found a beautiful vintage BSK earring, in green and gold.

vintage BSK leaf earring

BSK was founded in New York in 1948 and did business until the mid 1980s - the letters "BSK" stand for the initials of the three owners: Benny Steinberg, Slovitt and Kaslo. BSK was known for its colorful enamel designs, simple silvertone and goldtone pieces, and stunning designs - all at a competitive price point (the collections were widely sold in department stores, including Woolworth's.) I actually had/have both earrings AND the gorgeous matching brooch - I love the colors and design, and had squirreled them away for "later". I guess "later" is finally here!

Y'all probably know I'm big on making paper mock-ups of my metal designs, so that all my mistakes happen on paper (theoretically), instead of ruining my metal pieces. And since I only had one of these copper square thingies to play with, I decided I better experiment on paper:

I played around with clipping the earring on the paper model, and liked the result, so I decided to proceed.

The first step was to patinate the copper square so that it matched the earring. Learning from my experience with the filigree ring, I first took a rough emery board to the copper square, and roughed it up pretty well. Then I used antique gold Gilder's Paste, to get a nice brassy gold tone. Perfect! (I sealed it).

Next, I put some thought into how I would attach the earring to the copper square, and decided that I would NOT remove the earring clip - if I wired the clip to the back of the square, no wire would show from the front, leaving an unobstructed view of the pretty earring.

I placed the earring on the paper square, and marked my ideal placement for drilling holes. Good thing I did this on paper first - when I punched the holes in the paper (on either side of the widest point in the clip-on attachment) they turned out to be wider than the earring itself, so they showed from the front. Oops! I experimented a bit more with hole placement, and finally figured out the optimum placement for 2 holes, without them showing from the front.

the copper shows through where I buffed the holes - but it won't show on the finished piece!

At some point around this time, the patinated copper square, now gold, ended up next to the "X" on my workbench, and I saw that the "X" was a good size, proportionately, to hang the metal square from. (Wow, that is an awkward sentence - sorry!) I decided to figure out a way to use the "X" as a bail for the square.

The metal "X" is 78 mm long!

I had initially tried to think of other uses for the "X", and had made a paper mock-up to fiddle with. One of my ideas was to wrap it around a ring mandrel and turn it into a ring, with the ends of the X crossing on top - but it turned out to look more like some sort of weapon, and I couldn't figure out a way to de-weaponize it (that made me happy, design-wise) - so I had abandoned the ring idea.

The marks you see on the "X" in the pic above are where I decided to amputate its legs, in order to turn it into a bail. I cut them off with the jeweler's saw, and filed them with the Dremel. Then I turned the remaining legs under with roundnose pliers, to make loops for hanging. I did this because the legs were a little too narrow for me to feel safe drilling them (my first choice) - and I'm really glad I did this, because turning the ends under also shortened the "X" to a perfect size.

In the process of turning the ends under, I got some pretty ugly tool marks on the right side of the "X" (the left side in the pics) - I tried to remove these by buffing/polishing with the Dremel and my radial disc attachments (these things are THE BOMB):

Dremel with radial discs

The disc colors correspond with different grits, so you use them sequentially from coarsest (yellow) to finest (green).  They'll buff out scratches, remove firescale - I love them! You can get a brilliant, mirror shine with these babies! When I touched the yellow discs to the "X", they instantly removed whatever coating was giving the "X" its antiquey brass color, revealing a rich bright gold that perfectly matched the patina I'd applied to the copper square. Wow.

The "X" before buffing/polishing, next to the patinated square

After polishing the X, I remembered I needed to drill holes in its center to hang the copper square, so I drilled those holes, and went back and rebuffed and polished the middle of the "X" again.

you can still see the tool marks (at far left) - but they aren't too bad

Here is how the pendant looked after I wired the earring to the square, and then wired the square to the "X" (adding a couple of palace green Swarovski crystals for a little flash).  (I had to use 24g wire to connect the square to the "X", because the pre-drilled holes in the square were so small):

 front of BSK leaf pendant

the back of my BSK leaf pendant (formerly, the "copper square thingy")
The square and the X looked like brushed gold! So shiny - I love them (Sorry, Heidi and Joan - I gotta have the shiny!)

OK - the hard part was done - now to make a necklace for this pendant.

I wanted to pull out more green, and had some beautiful irregular tourmaline nuggets that were perfect. I didn't have any brass chain, and the gold chain I had didn't really match, and I didn't want to string or weave anything ... so after some thought about how to convert brass wire into a necklace, the light bulb finally came on: Girl, you DO know how to cut jump rings and make chainmaille, don't you? Duh.

I haven't done chainmaille in 2 years. No wonder I almost forgot! And I LOVE chainmaille! (except for the ring-cutting part.)

I cut several hundred brass rings, and decided to weave a byzantine chain, since it is the easiest for me to incorporate beaded links:

chainmaille and tourmaline necklace with vintage leaf pendant

brass toggle clasp for chainmaille and tourmaline necklace

So there you have it: the copper square thingy and the dreaded "X" components. Done! 3 components down, 2 to go!

OMG I am long-winded.

Oh yeah - almost forgot. This necklace (and the matching bracelet and earrings) are available in my Etsy shop!

Tomorrow: Chapter 3: the copper disc with the weird cut-outs.

Looking for Chapter 1 (the filigree ring)? - here it is! 

And don't forget to check out our feature in the May Issue of Bead Chat Magazine (we're on pages 21-26):

Torch Fired Enamel: Color Blending

Remember when we were kids, with the big box of Crayola 64s, with the built-in sharpener? The best! We boldly colored with one crayon, then grabbed another, and another, blending them and creating our own new colors. No constraints, no rules!

Well, blending colors with powdered enamels is almost as easy as it was with our crayons. There are really only few basic caveats to remember:

• when blending with opaques, the opaque coat(s) must go on first. Opaque colors will completely cover whatever color is already there - so you cannot blend 2 opaques, or put an opaque on top of a transparent.
• the number of coats you use makes a huge difference! 1 base of opaque vs. 2, or 1 coat of transparent vs. 2 - the more coats you use, the more intense the resulting color.
• the order in which you blend the colors, when mixing transparents, will also make a difference in the final resulting color

Color blending is a huge topic - too much for one blog post, but I'm going to try to boil it down to what works for ME.

When I started working with Thompson enamels, I quickly discovered that the color of the powder itself isn't always the color you get after firing. Sometimes it's close, and sometimes it's ... not.

The first thing I decided to do was create a "color library" for myself. I set out to fire one or two "test" beads, in every color I had, and every blend I experimented with, because there was no way I could ever remember what the different colors were unless I had these beads as reference. (this is also a good place to put those "bad beads" that just don't behave in the flame - chipping, peeling, bubbling enamel? Fine for the color library!)

I use Craft Mates storage boxes for my color library:

I have seen various systems others use, but this is what works for me - the boxes have individual compartments for each color, with room on the lid for labeling. (Other plastic storage containers can allow the beads to shift from one compartment to another if the boxes wind up upside down - and that would be the end of my library!) The boxes are semi-transparent, so when I am looking for a family of colors, I can easily find the right box. (I try to keep the reds in one box, the blues in another, etc.)

I started out playing with color blending for fun, and was a little intimidated by it. Then, while participating in the Bead Soup Blog Party, I decided to make a kumihimo lariat from gemstone chips:

I planned to sort the chips by color, and braid individual segments of the kumihimo with each separate gemstone. As I planned this lariat, I realized that everywhere I changed colors, the braid would show a visible knot, so I needed something to cover these knots, and large-hole (3mm) metal spacers beads were perfect. Then I got the idea to enamel the metal beads to match the gemstones.

Consulting my color library, I  found that iris purple was a perfect match for the amethyst chips, but none of the other colors I had worked on their own, so I was going to have to start blending.

For each individual gemstone, I consulted my color library, picked 2 colors that seemed closest to the color I was trying to make, and fired up the torch! Rest assured, I went through a LOT of trial and error before I settled on the combinations that worked - for the citrine color alone, I tested about 12 different color combos (storing all the rejects in my color library for later reference; someday I might need that color!)

For example, to create peridot-colored enameled beads, I ultimately chose spruce and egg yellow (transparent):

Yellow plus blue makes green, right? The spruce has some green in it, and the addition of the egg yellow brought out the nice peridot green I was looking for. One coat of egg yellow didn't quite get me there, but 2 was perfect! (Note: the egg yellow is transparent, and the spruce is opaque, so the opaque coat must go on first.)

The blue topaz was interesting - here is what finally worked:

2 coats of aqua transparent as a base, with one coat of transparent turquoise on top.

I first tried the reverse: 2 coats of transparent turquoise as a base, with one coat of aqua transparent on top, and it gave a different shade of blue that didn't match the blue topaz, so don't be afraid to play around with your combos. Since both these colors were transparent, either one worked as a base coat, blending-wise, but only one combination gave the result I wanted. Fickle, right?

Citrine was the most difficult for me. After many trials that didn't quite get me there, I got very close with this combo:

 A base coat of pumpkin (opaque), with 2 coats of nut (transparent) on top. Just one coat of pumpkin, because 2 coats made the final color too orangy.  The resulting bead was a golden yellow, and very close to citrine, but it needed to be a tad more yellow.

So I decided to add a coat of egg yellow on top:

It actually took 2 coats of egg yellow to perfect the citrine I was looking for, meaning this color combo had a total of 5 coats. Without getting to deeply into this topic, suffice to say that 5 coats of enamel on a bead with a 3 mm hole is no problem at all - the hole is plenty large enough to tolerate being narrowed by 5 coats of enamel!

Here are my final blended beads, resting amongst their respective gemstone chips:

Whereas I used to be intimidated to blend colors, this project forced me to step up my blending skills, and now I blend all the time!  Blending is a lot of fun, but may involve a lot of trial and error - don't fear the blending! You may create some gorgeous colors on your way to that mystical color you are seeking!

my kumihimo lariat with matching enameled spacers

Copper Pendant

This is the copper pendant I made yesterday:

I want to be able to offer a "Mini-Metal" workshop, as an alternative to the 3-day workshop I normally teach. I wanted to include as many skills as I could in one project - and this one has quite a few! I needed to know all materials I'd have to pull for the pendant, and how long it would take a beginner to make - and I think this will be a great class!

This class will be offered Sunday, December 2 (10 AM) at YaYa Beads, Augusta, GA - check it out! We'd love to have you in the class!

Flight of the Dragonfly

I switched things up a little; I actually started AND finished a jewelry design without letting myself get distracted by other projects.

This is "Flight of the Dragonfly."

Its working title was "Kitchen Sink", because I started off by laying out on my workbench all the various components I wanted to incorporate: beautiful etched lampwork beads, some green fire agate, the porcelain dragonfly component, brown freshwater pearls, Czech glass accents, some bronze metal disc beads, Swarovski crystals, and lots of Vintaj Natural Brass components, including chain, wire, leaves, dragonflies (or butterflies - I can't tell), bead caps, and rings. Everything but the kitchen sink, it seemed!

By the time I had gathered everything and carefully laid it out, I couldn't see my work surface anymore, and had to shove everything a lot closer together in order to have about 8 square inches to work!

There is so much going on in this necklace, and I just love how it turned out!

2 very different elements converged to inspire this piece.

One was this beautiful porcelain Dragonfly focal connector. I had bought it several weeks ago, and it was actually for sale in the shop (my B&M bead shop), but I guess it was burned into my subconscious.

I told you a couple of weeks ago about my foray into alcohol inks.

I have played around with a lot of colors, and designs, and different spins on the technique, and we actually dedicated an entire studio day to seeing how many different ways we could use alcohol inks, embossing powder, and paints on various metals.

Shortly after that studio day, I walked past the display where the dragonfly focal was, and picked it up, and started grabbing various leaf and dragonfly Vintaj pieces, and began playing with the techniques to color my metal components. I didn't want them all to look the same, so there are actually 4 different coloration techniques demonstrated here.



And it never occurred to me that it would take a mighty big necklace to work all these components together!

I just started walking around the shop with the porcelain dragonfly and my colored metal components, and began grabbing things here and there that went together, and soon I had an awful lot of stuff to put together!

It didn't take long for me to realize that I needed a matching jumprings, in several different sizes, in order to make this all work, so I wound coils of Vintaj Natural Brass wire, in 5 different sizes, and 2 different gauges, and then cut and tumbled them.

This picture shows what I called "phase I." It has the porcelain dragonfly focal, one of the lampwork beads, and a few of the colored Vintaj components. There is a Vintaj ring (to the left of the focal in this pic) that I embellished with a picot stitch. Everything is connected with chain, jumprings, and some artful wire-wrapping that serves both as a structural component and a design element.

The porcelain dragonfly focal bead had 3 holes, and I love the chain tassel I created (with the little dragonfly flitting by!)

It was at this point that I realized this was going to be more than a one strand necklace. I had only used a few of the specially-colored Vintaj elements that I specifically created for this piece. And only one of the lampwork beads! And none of the unusual green fire agate. And by gosh, I was going to use everything I had picked out!!

After all, my motto is More is More! I am the queen of embellishing!




And all this time realizing that my components and wire-wrapping couldn't extend up around my neck, or I wouldn't be able to wear my own design.

Here is "Phase II."

I have added another of the lampwork beads, and another of my green Vintaj leaves. And in order to balance the second strand, I worked in some more of my luscious bronze metal discs, and needed a 3rd focal element for the other side of the second strand, so I got up and searched for yet another element to add to this necklace! I found an abalone donut with the perfect colors, so I borrowed a page from Denise Peck's brand new book on Wire Findings, and used Vintaj Wire to wrap the abalone donut and incorporated it into the second strand.
I still had components I wanted to add, and I wanted to soften all the wire and metal elements, and in my mind I saw a 3rd strand, softly nestled between the 2 strands here, consisting of off-white freshwater pearls, small teal seed beads, and delicate Vintaj Natural Brass chain, all twisted together.

And I couldn't do any more embellishing to the top strand until I had that middle strand in place.

This might have been the point where I realized I had lost my mind, or should have stepped back for a reality check. Danger, Will Robinson!!

I strung the seed beads, one at a time.

I strung the off-white button pearls, one at a time.

I sat there, twisting them with the Vintaj chain, trying to figure out how to attach this torsade element without using another bulky component (e.g. a cone), but none of the beadcaps I had were large enough to cover the crimps. So I ultimately ran the pin holding the crimped seed beads, pearls, and the chain up through a cone, and attached it to one side of the necklace. And the 3 strands hung there on the bust (the seed bead strand and the pearl strand clamped of with Bead Stoppers) while I tried to figure out how to calculate the correct length, twisted, to get this strand into position. I didn't want to be stringing and restringing, crimping and recrimping, and repeatedly re-wrapping the headpin on the other side. I just wanted to do this once!

And then it sat there on my workbench for 2 full days while I played with it, held it up, tried it on, and procrastinated. I was so determined to attach this middle strand just once. (LOL)

I knew I just needed to go for it - make my best calculated guess at the length, and if it was wrong, it was wrong. I pulled the crimps through the wrapped loop on the other headpin, and hung the chain on the pin; ran the headpin through the cone; tried it on while holding the headpin/cone in position, and it looked great.
So I crimped everything, wrapped the loop, and tried it on, crossing my fingers. Because I really didn't want to do this part over.

Too bad I forgot to calculate for the length of my wrapped loop where the 2nd cone attached to the necklace. Because sure enough, the twisted 3rd strand was exactly 2mm too long. Just the length of my wrapped loop! The middle strand just didn't hang exactly in the middle between strands one and three. While it wasn't touching the 3rd strand, it was hanging just low enough to bug me. And if Momma ain't happy, she won't be wearing the necklace.

I pouted for about 15 minutes, and then cut the offending wrapped loop.

I tried to salvage my stringing efforts by carefully cutting the crimps, hoping to avoid having to restring the pearls and seed beads. HA! I spent an hour trying to avoid the restring, and ultimately couldn't get the crimps off. I actually shredded the beading wire trying to remove the crimps. So I started all over, and got it right the 2nd time. Yay!

I began embellishing again, hanging dangles here and there. I managed to include all my desired elements and while it looks a little crowded on the bust, remember that it hangs differently on any real person, as the bust's neck measures only about 12 inches. So when worn, the 3 strands and all the various elements spread out nicely and evenly.

Ta Da!

Alcohol Inks, Embossing Powders? Scrapbooking? Nooooo....

Seems like I spend more and more time in the scrapbooking aisles at JoAnns, Hobby Lobby, and Michael's. Each of these stores carry different, intriguing items that I'm incorporating into my jewelry!

These are Vintaj Natural Brass components, that I have colored with a combination of alcohol inks and Perfect Pearls paint, and then the dragonflies were embossed with glittery embossing powder and a heat gun. These items are for my current project - kind of a "kitchen sink" necklace, as I am tossing in a little bit of everything I have media-wise, and having a blast! Will post the entire necklace once it is done! Alcohol inks and embossing powders courtesy of the scrapbooking aisles.

This is a strip of copper that was textured, and then colored with alcohol inks, and will soon be riveted or grommeted to a larger strip of copper to create a copper cuff. Alcohol inks, rivets, grommets? All from the scrapbooking aisles!

Another piece I colored with alcohol inks, and then embossed with a different technique, causing all the alcohol inks to run. I call this one "Spinach Omelet." Do you see it?

Then I bought a Big Shot. And lots of embossing folders - thank you, JoAnn's Online, and your 40% off coupon!! Had NO idea what to do with the Big Shot, but it was on sale!!

Then a friend show me how to texture the metal with the folders and the big shot, and another world opened up! This piece was run through the Big Shot, and colored with alcohol inks. And I riveted on a few gears I had cut out of the brass.



This rose was created by deeply etched with acid, painted with alcohol inks, and then embossed with clear powder and the heat gun

These earrings and the pair below were creating with dimensional stickers (from the scrapbooking aisle, of course) and embossing powders. Clear powder for the bees, and matte powder for the starfish. Not sure which I like better!

Showing off this pendant just to demonstrate the use of a grommet (again, from the scrapbooking aisle) as a connector for the bail.

So, you might want to check out the scrapbooking section (if you haven't already) to get some ideas!
And if you know of some scrapbooking ideas I am missing, please share! I'm hooked!

Loving the Cold Connections!

I have become addicted to Cold Connections - it is the process of creating metal jewelry using basically any methods except soldering. You rivet, grommet, weave, etch with acid, hammer, saw - lots of fun!
This piece is my latest, and in my opinion, my best - it took days of planning and work, and is 3 dimensional. I used copper, sterling silver, stainless steel, and brass, plus a few seed beads, and I just love its asymmetry.

I ended up opting for a simple chain to hang it, because I didn't want to take anything away from the pendant.

This is one of a pair of Cold Connections earrings that I made recently, and heavily embellished with Swarovski crystals, Swarovski pearls, freshwater pearls, and seed beads - embellishing is one of my favorite things to do in ALL of my pieces, but cold connections really allows me to go wild with it.

The earrings were designed to match this pendant - where I actually set a cabochon into the copper sheet without any soldering or weaving - really cool! And, of course, lots of embellishing (or "crapping it up") as one of my friends calls it...

This set is actually available in my Etsy shop - but I just can't part with my 3-D masterpiece!

Cold connections will probably never be my favorite medium - my heart really belongs to Chainmaille, but cold connections is a close second.

If only it were portable, like chainmaille projects....

And on a non-related note - I am currently reading "Open" by Andre Agassi, and I just have to say that this is one of the best books I have read in a long time - I hate to put it down!

Enamel Bracelet and Earrings

This is the enamel bracelet I made in the Cold Connections Workshop at the end of March -



I really, really love cold connections!






I joined the links with copper jump rings, and threw in some size 8 round and hex seed beads as accents.











These are the matching earrings.

Plus I have one enamelled square left over, so I am going to figure out a way to feature it in a Cold Connections pendant.

Woohoo! Now I just have to wait for all my supplies to arrive..............................