Wire Crochet Earrings

28g sterling silver wire, freshwater pearls, and Czech glass - these are fun and easy to make. You can make them as full as you like by simply adding more beads, This pair is lightweight, and at the upper limit of the size earring I like to wear.

Friday the 13th - Let's Dig up a Zombie!!

As I told you earlier this week, I have lots and lots and lots of partially finished jewelry designs. I get started on one, full of enthusiasm, and then get attracted to another bright shiny project, and forget all about the first. And before you know it, I need to rent a storage unit to house all these "dead" projects.

Of course, we all know this is NOT my storage unit, because it is too neat! LOL

So anyway, I decided that something needs to be done about all these unfinished projects - they date as far back as 2007! So I have decided to resurrect these dead projects, one at a time, until I have cleared out all boxes of unfinished projects!

And what else would you call unfinished projects that are brought back from the dead, except "Zombies!"

The first Zombie project I am reviving dates back to 2008: it is a hybrid (mixed media) design involving both wire crochet and beadweaving. I call it Iolite Fringe, and I first showed it here in a post back in December, 2008! It's interesting to go back and read that post, because you can almost smell the Zombie starting to decompose, as I talk about how tedious the fringing is, and how it is going to take forever to finish. And I was right!! I have been "working on" this project for 3.5 years, and it's still not done!

This is box 1 of the 2 boxes which house my zombie beadweaving projects:

Here is the bag containing the iolite fringe project, untouched since 2008:

The poor necklace is in there, along with all the seed beads and gemstones.
I opened the bag, and pulled out the necklace:

If you look at the necklace, you can see that over on the right side, the fringe is nice and full, and essentially finished. But that leaves the front and the left side still undone, and then my absolute least favorite part - the ends! The bag in the center contains the gorgeous top-drilled iolite I am using (I love iolite!), and the other containers are the various seed beads I am fringing with.

On the left side of the necklace you can see a bit of a bend in the base of the wire crochet necklace - this was the only negative effect suffered the years of captivity in the Ziploc bag in the bottom of the box, and I was able to easily manipulate the wire back into shape, so yay!

This is the fringe portion at the bottom of the necklace. My goal is to add enough passes of fringe that the wire base is no longer visible. The challenge will be to replicate my weaving style from 3 years ago - and I suspect this will be the hardest part for me, because as we grow in our beading skills and influences, our style changes so much!

So, this is my first Zombie project - I will start working on it later today, and will finish it when I finish it. I know it got put away because it was too tedious, and that's what has kept it locked up for years, but I must attack the zombie with all my willpower, or it will defeat me!

And while I am fully resolved to clearing out the unfinished projects, I make absolutely NO promises to not start any NEW projects along the way - a girl's gotta have a little fun, you know!

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!