Black and White Lampwork Necklace

Who doesn't love black and white? Stark, graphic - dramatic! It is one of my favorite combinations to work with AND to wear!

This necklace was designed around 3 black and white lampwork glass beads, handmade by a talented Etsy glass artisan. I added sterling silver beadcaps, onyx rounds and chips, small white howlite rounds, and black seed beads, resulting in a simple, yet elegant, adjustable length necklace which goes well with so many different looks!

And it's available on Etsy! (This necklace is now on sale - listed price is 35% off!)

Blue Lampwork Cube Earrings

I really like the unexpected shape of these handmade lampwork cubes - you see lots of round, oval, lentil-shaped, etc. lampworks, but not so any cubes! And the colors - love!

I paired them with some Swarovski crystal dangles to make these whimsical earrings.

Paddle Earrings with Lampwork Beads

I made these sterling silver paddle earrings during the cold connections class I taught Sunday:

I used 18 gauge sterling silver wire, hammering it flat and wide at one end to hold the handmade lampwork bead in place. After sliding the bead on, I continued to carefully hammer the wire above it to slightly flatten it, and then used round nose pliers to create a loop at the top for hanging.

Tangle Tuesday

Not sure where this came from - I wanted to try color with my tangle, and I love black and red. I pictured a string I could fill with color, and this stellate shape is what I drew - After I filled it with red, the aura just seemed perfect, and then I just kept repeating it until the tile was full.

Cold Connections Class

I taught a Cold Connections Class yesterday - this was the class project:

copper pendant

This is the pendant I made back in October as a demo for yesterday's class. We had 3 wonderful students in the class yesterday, and their pendants are all beautiful, and unique, as they all used different stamps for etching, different hammers for texturing, and different patterns and metals for the woven portion.

2 of my students: that's Karin, of Backstory Beads, on the left, and Stephanie on the right.

Materials table: tools, acid, Liver of Sulfur

I put all the tools and chemicals on one table, separate from the students' workstations - the classroom suddenly gets very small when we fill it with people (!), so it's good to be able to keep this stuff out of the way when you're working.

Students' work table

Bailey and his purple monkey snooze through the class

Everyone had a great time, and learned a lot!

And note to my friend Deborah up in Canada: it was 75 degrees and sunny here yesterday - just gorgeous! Sorry you missed it!

Holiday Lariat

You may have seen this one before - I made this last December, and wore it all the time. I have hauled it out again today - it will be my Holiday "go-to" jewelry, because I love it!

The whole lariat was supposed to be a beadwoven spiral, but I noticed I was running out of the ruby red Czech glass I was using. *Sad face* I made the 2 lengths of spiral rope you see at the ends here, and worked to come up with plan B.

Sometimes these setbacks DO turn out for the better, because I really like the solution I came up with: I incorporated some of my favorite lampwork glass peppermint beads, and had enough of the red Czech glass to do a bit more spiralling, so I made 3 short lengths of spiral rope, which I then strung up asymmetrically with a mix of red and green Czech rondelles plus some larger pressed Czech glass bicones.

I think it's very festive!

Do you have a favorite piece of holiday jewelry?

Chandelier Earrings with Gemstones

These findings are neat - one side of the hoop unhooks at the top, so you can slide beads on it. And there's a ring, for dangling stuff - I chose magnesite and crazy lace agate (and some silver spacers and chain) for the dangles, and put some lavender chalcedony and Czech glass on the hoop portion.