End of the Year Catch-up

Soooooo, my friend Lynn (half of the very talented GimmeBeads) gave me this hand-painted (by her) rock for Christmas - allegedly, it was inspired by and looks like me -

I love my picturesque rock! Although I'm not sure I have ever looked this good.

Visit Lynn and Mike's shop, soon to be known as "GimmeBeads, and GimmeRocks, while you're at it" - they're great peeps!

And now, back to the whining I was doing here.

This is the brown wire crochet necklace I made a few weeks ago - my first attempt at this medium. It includes both brown and champagne-colored freshwater pearls, pressed glass beads, Czech fire-polished beads, and seed beads. I finished it with copper cones and a copper toggle, and I am thrilled with it - it matches a couple of my outfits beautifully, and it was a lot of fun.

This is a close-up of my brown wire crochet necklace.

As I discussed last time, I decided to make a second wire-crochet necklace, this time using some gorgeous deep blue iolite chips, which I paired with some silver-blue AB Czech fire-polished beads and some white freshwater pearls.

But feeling it was a little plain-looking (I now realize this was because I used fewer, and smaller, beads than in the brown one), I decided I needed to improve on it somehow, and started adding fringe.

5 and 1/2 days of beading later, I finished the first pass of fringe, at 1:30 this morning.

This is a closeup of the fringed necklace, as it currently exists.

I keep saying this is the first pass of fringe, because the fringe is a little sparse to me in some places (I'm not saying this is a bad thing), but I feel like I've obscured the pearl and iolite framework that defined the whole thing, and even though I like the result thus far, I still feel it isn't quite right.

I clearly need my head examined - this has been 6 days of beading, and I want to do MORE??

So at the shop today, I decided to get a second opinion. I asked one of my part-time employees, who had popped in to do a little shopping. She told me I needed to remove all the fringe, and just leave the basic crocheted wire necklace.

Well I never. (As we say in the South)

And so I decided to keep asking for opinions until I got the one I wanted, as you do.

Later this afternoon, a customer who bead-weaves quite a bit came in, and I presented the whole situation to her, and she told me the fringe was absolutely perfect, and to just stop now.

So, I'll be getting a third opinion tomorrow.

As I have explained to the wise Carol Dean Sharpe, I often feel like my Etsy Shop has cooties. (Remember cooties, folks - back in 6th grade?) Anyway, my beautiful designs sit on the shelves of my poor shop, pining away for a good home, and I get a sale every 3 or 4 months, just to keep me hanging on.

But now that my designs are also on display in my bead shop, I sell 2 or 3 things daily that are also listed on Etsy - and these are the ones that sold today:

These striking magnasite rondelle earrings, accented with sterling silver and Swarovski crystals. The necklace that matched them actually sold from my Etsy shop over a year ago or so - and now the earrings have finally found a great home.

Then these gorgeous rose gold and sterling silver hoop earrings sold!

I just wish there was some magical way for me to mark all these things as sold in my Etsy shop, instead of just deleting them - I feel like it would be a truer reflection of my success, but whatEVER.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Collaboration, Part 2

Here is the second bracelet I wire-wrapped with SandFiber's gorgeous peyote beads,

Carol Dean wove the peyote beads with emerald-AB delicas, although they look more teal than emerald to me.

I added sterling silver rombo spacer beads, and then crafted the wire-wrapped bangle with sterling silver wire.





This beautiful bracelet will fit up to 6.75 inches, and is lightweight and flexible.

I have to thank CD for this fabulous idea - adding handmade beadwoven beads to a wire-wrapping project was genius! These two bracelets turned out great!

My Collaboration with SandFibers, part 1

After I finished my Byzantine Bracelet yesterday, I sat down to work on my collaboration with SandFibers.

Carol Dean Sharpe, the brains behind SandFibers, had dreamed this up after seeing a previous post here, and we were off and running.

Here, Bailey delivers the package of beads from CD.

Here are CD's beautiful peyote beads.

Enough for 2 bracelets!

I decided to work with those gorgeous gold-plated beads first.






Here are my materials, all spread out and reading for wrapping.

I have cut my wires, and played with the beads to figure out how I want to arrange them in the bracelet.

And I have my 2 pin vises, ready to twist some of the wires.




Now I have twisted 2 of the wires, and I am ready for the hard part - trying to get all the wires to fit together.






Here, I have bent the longer wires, so as to form an eye and a hook, and loaded the beads on the center wire.

Then I start trying to get the wires to fit together. The wires want to tangle and cross over each other, and just generally not cooperate.




A little masking tape helps keep the bundle of wires in place.

Close-up of the bundle, ready for the first wrap.

Now I have placed the first wrap, and slid down 2 beads, in preparation for placing the second wrap.

The wraps are falling into place











About half-way done now.









Getting there.









All the wraps are in place, and I need to finish up the ends.








The ends are all trimmed up, and it is time to form the bracelet on the mandrel. After the bracelet is form, I will fashion the hook.








All finished!

Here is the finished bracelet, next to the chainmaille bracelet I also made yesterday.

Next weekend, I will tackle this project with CD's gorgeous emerald peyote beads.

Thanks for the idea and the assist CD - it turned out great, huh?