Week 41: Dapper Wrapper

I've been wire wrapping again!  When in doubt or too busy to plan out a neat theme for the week, wire wrapping is always a good fall back.  It's my favorite type of jewelry crafting and I'm always behind on making designs that I've sketched out.  So here are seven that went from paper to reality!

Serpentine and Lapis abstract wire wrapped pendant.

Shaded wire wrapped earrings.  I went from Iolite, to Amethyst, to Lemon Quartz, to Crystal  Quartz.  These guys are super fun and sparkly!

Wire wrapped agate and crystal pendant.  I hammered the spirals to give them additional texture, and I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Mosaic-style wire wrapped pendant.  I'm particular fond of this style!  I have so many cute, tiny, semi-precious beads that could be used in this way.  Stone list goes: Rainbow Moonstone, Garnet, Quartz Crystal, Peridot, Labaradorite, White Moonstone, Chrysoprase, Amethyst, Smoky Quartz, Apatite, Rose Quartz, and Emerald Green Adventurine.

Wire wrapped copper tube earrings. I added bits of text tape (Tim Holtz!  Which I always say like "Steve Holt!") to the copper tubing, then wire wrapped it and added seed bead accents.  Then, I added the key charms so the bottoms didn't look so naked.  An empty loop is a sad loop.

Wire wrapped amethyst pendant.  I don't know where this design came from, but  I enjoyed making use of the negative space in the middle of the pendant.  I don't usually leave open spaces in my work, and it was nice to try and incorporate space into one of my designs.  Even if it felt really weird, like I had somehow left the piece unfinished.

Hammered brass washer earrings with copper spirals! Again, making matching spirals is REALLY HARD.  The good news is that making spirals is pretty easy, so it balances out.

Just a few more days until the end of January!  I'll be back at least entertaining the idea of doing different themes soon.  : )  Thanks for sticking with me, and I'll catch you next time!

Week 40: Hammer Time!

Only 12 more weeks to go!  It seems impossible to me that I've managed to get this far.  And while I haven't been all that great at blog updating, I've been sticking to the crafting portion just fine!  As another treat to myself to get thought this crazy busy month, I've decided to break out some of my metalworking tools and go to town!  nothing helps relieve frustration better than being able to (productively) hit things with hammers. : )

These earring were made with little bits of copper tube from Lowes that I threaded onto a knitting needle and hammered. I really like hand hammered texture, and I'm glad I finally found a way to incorporate it into projects with dimensional elements instead of just hitting sheet metal.  Which is super fun too.

The picture isn't the greatest, but I splayed the ends of this copper bar to keep these cool ocean jasper beads from falling off.  I really like "paddle pins" and this was a fun way to use a higher gauge of copper wire without having to loop the ends.

These are hands down my favorite project of the week.  Growing up, a lot of girls I knew wanted to be Rainbow Brite.  I wanted to be Stormy!  I  love thunderstorms, and this was a fun way to incorporate that into my jewelry!  I hand cut the shapes from sheet metal (32 ga I believe), then hammered them, torched them to get the nice chocolate patina, and polished the heck out of them to make the texture really pop.

Fun with ring blanks!  I've had this package of aluminum ring blanks forever, and haven't quite been able to figure out what to do with them.  It was my first attempt using these ring blanks, and as such this ring didn't turn out perfect but it doesn't totally suck either.   The ring band is hand hammered, and then I threaded an amethyst bead on an eyepin and attached it to the shank.

I love copper pipes!  This is a fun stacked pendant using three different sizes of copper pipes from Lowes.  I hammered the edges to give them texture, then drilled holes in the top of each piece with my dremel.  finally, a quartz bead on a headpin attached the whole thing together.  This necklace is cool, and I imagine that as it patinas with age it'll get even cooler!

To go with the ring blanks I mentioned above, I also got a package of aluminum bracelet blanks.  This project turned out much better than the ring did.  I hammered the blank to give it texture, then formed it on an old pill bottle.  (Note to self, pick up bracelet mandrel...).  From there I punched holes and wire wrapped some raw aquamarine chips onto the cuff.  I really think that the ruggedness of the chips fits the bracelet well.  I don't wear bracelets, but I'm going to have a hard time letting this guy go!

The storm earrings just barely edged this guy out for "favorite of the week".    I traced the agate slice onto sheet metal, then cut around the shape in an abstract, free-form sort of style.  Then I hammered that bad boy for texture, punched holes around the stone and wired it in place.  Once I realized that I could fit some quartz square tube beads in between the stitches to make a kind of stone bezel setting I was all over it.  this is one of those rare perfect projects that turns out better in reality than I pictured it in my head.  It was exactly the pick me up that I needed!

All in all, hammering a bunch of items really did help relieve some of the pent up frustration from the past week.  It's nice to take something tense and transmute it into something productive.  Hurray for creativity, keeping me from hammering people since 1995!

Week 20: Gemstone Appreciation Week!

I do so love me some semi-precious gemstones.  One thing about my jewelry-making hobby that I truly enjoy is the ability to get to play with and create jewelry from stones that I'd likely not be able to afford from a high end shop.  One thing I've realized about jewelry making throughout this project is that there can be very little gap between what you can buy and what you can make, price wise.  That is if you aren't careful.  A lot of "cheap" jewelry ingredients aren't that cheap if you buy them from brick-and-mortar retail shops.  That said, I'm an avid clearance cruiser at my local Joanns and Michaels.  However, online shopping is where I get the bulk of my beads, findings, and especially my gemstones.  If you haven't checked out Fire Mountain Beads and Gems yet, I highly recommend that you do.  They have their fair share of expensive elements, but you can usually find something I like to refer to as "hobby grade" (in the B-C range of gemstone grades) on longer strands,  for less money than you could most retail stores.  HOWEVER.  That said, see if you have a local bead shop first.  There's nothing like having a good relationship with a local craft store; they can special order items for you, let you know when new shipments come in, there's no shipping fee and the advice and friendship is priceless.  However, if you are stuck in a place with no local bead store, i recommend going the Fire Mountain route.

Oy.  Now that I've ranted, I'm happy to share what I made this week!  I've been trying to de-stash as I think I'm going to be moving into a new place soon, so I've been hoarding some of these beads for years!  It's nice to finally put them to use; I know that I'll enjoy them far more as earrings than I will just sitting in my bead boxes.  On to the show!

Labradorite Stick Earrings (they're so tiny!)

Tourmalated Quartz Earrings on Kidney Wires

Citrine, Peridot, Iolite, and Garnet Earrings. These are likely my favorite of the whole batch!

Wire Wrapped Amethyst Earrings.  The large medallions are chevron amethyst, and have cool striations when held up to the light.  The smaller ones are very light colored regular amethyst. 

Rainbow Fluorite Earrings

Gorgeous Amethyst Nugget Earrings with Citrine Accents.  I really love the clarity of the stones in this pair.

Faceted Carnelian Earrings

You can tell where I've tried to expand my color palate, but I keep coming back to purple.  No surprise there!  But it's nice to know that I can add several new pairs of handmade semi-precious stone earrings to my wardrobe and not be set back $ wise too badly.  Until next week!

Week 4: Bead Buddies

Hurray!  I have managed to keep with the "theme" theme of my posts.  This week I decided to decrease my bead stash some and work on beaded necklaces.  Beads, especially semiprecious stone beads, are an addiction for me.  Occasionally I'll have to use some up, but that's really only ever to make room for new ones.  I've had a few of these necklace ideas floating around for awhile and it feels really good to have finally made them.  I did end up doing a little more than my seven items for this week, but I repeated some styles so I counted the similar ones as one item:

I have quite the collection of agate beads, because they're my little sister's favorite.

A LOT of agate.  This one is for me, though.  : )

I don't usually use freshwater pearls in my work as I'm too ocd to deal with their inconsistent shapes.  Still, i like the way this turned out; the combo of pearls and amethyst worked out well.

Fun with "turquoise" (aka dyed howlite) and coral.

More agate...

...and the matching bracelet, which strangely has NO agate.

This one was time consuming.  the large beads are strung on one wire, spaced out with smaller beads in between.  Then I wove a second wire in and around the large beads to add the "wave" of stone chips and tiny beads to flesh out the necklace.

And because I'm insane I decided to duplicate the most time consuming project of the week, but in amethyst and fluorite.

It was a fairly simple week as far as technique and design goes, but I'm pretty happy overall with the results.  I needed something pretty simple, as the last few weeks have been ambitious for me when it comes to using new techniques and materials.  I hope to be back to craft exploration next week.