Viperscale

I've learned the Viperscale weave, plus I discovered this gorgeous lavender wire, so I made this viperscale bracelet. I really like this weave - it lies flat, and is complex and interesting-looking.

Naturally, I made some matching earrings, but those will wait for another post - tomorrow, maybe?

I wish I had more time for chainmaille!

Blog Giveaway!

I've been blogging for a few years, and have recently rededicated myself to being a better, more consistent blogger.

As of today, I have 62 wonderful followers, and I treasure them, and would love to have more. To that end, I will be doing a giveaway here once I reach 100 followers.

This is what I will be giving away to thank my readers and followers:

These earrings were designed with Vintaj Natural Brass findings, Swarovski crystals, and vintage Swarovskis.

To follow my blog, look to the right sidebar, and scroll down to the button that says "Join this Site," and follow the prompts. It's easy!

You can also help this giveaway happen even sooner by Tweeting or Facebooking about this giveaway, and by telling your friends. Get the word out!

Details about entering the giveaway will be posted here when I reach 100 followers! And I promise even more giveaways in the future!

Metal Dogwood Cuff

This cuff was truly a labor of love! I wanted to create an ornamental metal cuff, and had the idea for a sterling silver flower with leaves, and made several sketches, but initially balked at working with the sheet sterling - it's so expensive, and I was so afraid I would make a mistake!

Eventually I screwed up my courage, and started cutting the silver; I annealed, and folded the edges, and then deeply scribed the leaves for texture, following this up with liver of sulfur to enhance the ridges I'd created.

Attaching the flower and leaves was problematic, since I had already folded and textured the cuff. I was finally able to solder the leaves to the cuff, but I wasn't confident in my joins because only small areas took the solder, so the leaves were also riveted to the cuff. The height of the leaves prevented any soldering of the flower to the cuff, so I wired the flower to the cuff using Swarovski crystals to create the flower's center, with a pop of color. Graceful copper tendrils were then wired around the flower and leaves. I ultimately affixed a leather swatch to the inside of the cuff to hide all my rivets and wires, and protect the wearer's skin and clothing (even though everything was carefully filed down and smoothed!)

The cuff is malleable, so it will form to your wrist easily, and will fit up to size 7.5.

This elegant, contemporary piece of wearable art is now available in my Etsy shop.

Thanks!

Woke up this AM to an Etsy sale!

These elegant earrings, created for the Bead Soup Challenge, went to a lovely home this morning:

The matching necklace is still available...

Contemporary Olive Loaf Jasper Pendant

I know there's no such thing as Olive Loaf Jasper, but since I don't know this particular jasper's official name, and since it looks like olive loaf, I am calling it Olive Loaf Jasper.

This beautiful jasper cabochon has islands of olive green, brown, and salmon in a background the color of dark sand. Copper really pulled out the colors in the stone, so I cut a deeply serrated backing out of sheet copper, and soldered a fine silver bezel to the copper. The piece hangs from a 17 inch copper cable chain.

And you can find this piece in my Etsy shop!

Hero Worship

By now, you know I have a crush on Tim Gunn. I read Gunn's Golden Rules earlier this week, and found it very inspirational.

I would love to incorporate Tim's rules into my everyday life, so I designed an homage bracelet yesterday morning to serve as a visual reminder.

I used Swarovski crystal cubes in indicolite and padparadscha, Swarovski crystal bicones in crystal silver shade, and sterling silver beads, including the 5mm alphabet beads (What Would Tim Gunn Do?)

Just a fun, whimsical piece...but I have enough of the alphabet beads to make a few more of these if anyone is interested....

Oh My Stars!

This design started with some gorgeous 8mm teal matrix jasper beads that I had been hoarding. I didn't really know what I wanted to do with them, and one day I just cut the strand apart, grabbed some Fireline and several coordinating colors of seed beads, and just started playing.

This was a situation where the beads dictated the design, and I started making rounds of circular peyote, and when I "finished", I had a blue-green star. So I made as many of these stars as I could, and then started playing with how to build them into a finished piece.

I noticed that the stars' edges lined up geometrically to produce this pattern, so I started connecting them together, adding some Swarovski crystals for a little "oomph".

Once this piece was joined, I needed to figure out how to turn it into a necklace, and settled on a beadwoven spiral, using the same blue and green seed beads that went into the stars components.

Then I found a perfectly-matching glass toggle, and the result is this striking bib necklace.

And I had 2 stars left over for earrings:

I haven't decided yet what to do with this set; they may go to my Etsy shop, or they may stay in my collection - The bib was such a labor-intensive piece, and these are my favorite colors! Some pieces are SO hard to part with!