Week 44: Au Naturale

This week I decided to try and work with more "natural" materials; stone, shell, pearls and the like.  In do very much enjoy working with all types of materials but I noticed recently that I had fallen into a "polished gemstones and metal" rut.  So I challenged myself to come out of it, and here are the results:

Earrings with shell and freshwater stick pearl dangles.  I've had the shell dangles forever, and I'm so glad I finally got a chance to use them!

Wire wrapped natural stone and fancy jasper arrowhead.  The base arrowhead was a gift from my aunt, the fancy  jasper one on top was purchased at Fire Mountain.

Copper wire wrapped driftwood necklace.  I'm really happy with how this turned out, and can't wait to start using more driftwood in my designs!

Lake stone wire wrapped in steel on leather, with hand-wrapped steel beads.  Making wire wrapped beads was super fun, and I'm sure I'll be incorporating more of those into my future designs.

Shell and freshwater pearl dangle earrings.  I love the iridescence of the black coin pearls! 

Matte-finished stone stick necklace, in rainbow of course!  I'm falling in love with matte finishes on stones; it really does make them feel more raw and natural.

Empty watch face turned into a pendant!  I filled it up with this cool box of old animal teeth I had (don't ask...) and some text from an old book.    Then I added some raw quartz point dangles.  I'm sorry for the picture quality; for some reason this bad boy was really difficult to photograph!

It was really nice to get back to working with elements that had a more natural feel.  All in all I feel like the natural elements give the designs a softer feel, which is nice.  Thanks for checking us out this week, and I'll catch you next time!

Week 37: Gifty Goodness

Ahahahah!  CHRISTMAS IS FINALLY OVER!  Not that I don't enjoy the holidays; I've made my peace with them as an adult.  Having a super cool family / friends group helps a lot, and having a two year old (almost!) nephew really brings the holiday spirit home.  But I've been going crazy because I've made a bunch of cool things that I couldn't post for fear of spoiling some of my gift surprises.  So here's what I whipped up in the last seven days for gift giving purposes:

Shoulder-duster style long quartz crystal earrings with peridot, amethyst, and citrine accents. 

Altered chandelier crystal pendant.  I faux antiqued some text from a magazine using Distress Inks,  then tore up the page and modpodged it onto the back of the crystal.  A little wire wrapping at the top finished it off nicely.  I like this so much that when time permits (haha) I'm going to make one for myself!

Wire wrapped copper earrings.  I don't know what kind of stone  this is, but it's a really pretty blue.  The stones came from the big batch of stuff that Ruby gave me.  It's the gift that keeps on giving! 

Amethyst and fluorite pendant.  I  have a friend that really loves the look of the herringbone style wire wrap, so I decided to see what I could do with a multiple stone style design.  It's big, but it's pretty cool.  I may be the most excited about giving this one away.  : )

And for the nature lover, a very minimalist wire wrap leaf design.  No bells or whistles,  just a leaf silhouette with some curly vines.  My husband thought they were strawberries, which I think would go over with the intended recipient just as well as leaves would.

Copper wire spiral earrings.  I'm terrible at making wire wrapped earrings because it's so hard for me to create a duplicate of a design, and these were no exception.  Making matching spirals by hand is really hard!  :)

And finally, the "ripple" style wire wrapped necklace.  It's a super fun way of getting a lot of stones into one wrap, and I expect I'll be messing around with this design more in the future.

Sorry to be short this week but the New Year is calling!  I've got to go out and buy sauerkraut (it's a family tradition to eat a little on New Years Eve for good luck), and get ready for my sister's birthday.  Whoo!  Happy New Year everyone!

Week 31: Ruby's Week!

I am completely lucky in that I know some of the coolest people in the world.  One of them, Ruby Funk, was awesome enough to send me a package of jewelry supplies that she no longer used.  Who doesn't love presents?  There were some truly cool things in that package, and I decided that I'd use her materials as the main components in this week's jewelry bonanza.

"Vine" wire wrapped earrings; The earring base and amber beads were Ruby's contribution to this project.  I had so much fun wrapping and weaving the amber beads.  I <3 amber="amber" and="and" beads="beads" colors="colors" great="great" shapes="shapes" such="such" td="td" these="these" were="were">

Funky charm earrings.  These cool spiral, leaf, and starburst charms were in the package; I provided the ear hooks and charm chain.  : )  They're all jingly when you wear them.

Crescent moon dangle earrings.  These moon charms came off a cool bracelet that was in Ruby's wonderful gift box.  I took them apart, clipped off the eye on the bottom of each, and used a chain that Ruby provided to make these earrings. Only the ear hooks are from my stash.  : )

Extra Long Copper and Sky Jasper necklace.  The only component from Ruby's stash are the actual jasper pieces, but as soon as I saw them I got this design stuck in my head and couldn't help but make it.

This necklace is the oddity of this week for sure.  Everything else is kind of earthy and organic, and this is quite dressy and formal.    The large gold filigree and crystal components came from a bracelet in the wonderful treasure box.  I saw the bracelet and immediately went "Ooh!  This needs pearls!".

This is my favorite piece of the week.  The stone component that Ruby sent me is so cool!  I don't know what kind of stone it is, I'm guessing it's a jasper of some sort.  I think the multiple holes were meant for making it the base of a multi-strand necklace, but I really wanted to wire wrap them.  I'm pretty happy with the results; now I just have to figure out how to find more of these multi-drilled stones!

And last but not least, the extremely close runner up to my favorite project of the week.  Ruby sent met these very cool lava stone beads, and I really wanted to use them.  But I also wanted a pop of color.  So I went through my paint supplies, and found my liquid gilding pens.  I tried out one stone, and it turned out perfectly!  The paint pen coated the surface in a cool metallic color, but left the nooks and crannys of the stones untouched.  

I absolutely must give a huge thank you to my dear Ruby, who provided me with some amazing materials that really let me stretch my creative muscles.  I always enjoy the challenge of working with items I didn't pick myself, and these really gave me a creative jump-start.  I was kind of in a slump, repeating a lot of the same ideas and themes, and this got me back on a better path.  Thank you Ruby!  I <3 ee="ee" i="i" nbsp="nbsp" nd="nd" next="next" of="of" p="p" rest="rest" the="the" too.="too." week="week" you="you">

Week 27: Pagan Jewelry Week

It's probably no surprise at this point that I'm a certified "tree hugging dirt worshiper".  Being pagan has been a big part of my life since I was little.  I have nothing but respect for all religions, but paganism happens to be the style that suits me the most.  And in celebration of my faith, I decided to do some pagan themed jewelry for this week's project.  I haven't really mixed my paganism and my crafting before so this was completely new territory for me; trying to take important symbols and themes and create items around them.  All in all, the results were pleasing, though some of the designs could use refinement.  Oh well, it's not like I mind another excuse to do a batch of jewelry!

A tree of life pendant.  It was the natural place to go first.  I chose to do mine in red agate because I love love love the  autumn season.

Chakra earrings.  Pretty self explanatory, even if I did do them upside down.  : )  So maybe that just makes them rainbow earrings.

Chakra Necklace.  This was pretty fun to work on; it's the first ladder-style necklace I've worked on.  It was challenging to get all the stone bars the same size, but I think the end results were worth the work.

Wire wrapped pentacle with rose quartz accents.  This is actually my third attempt on this design, and the first that I got "right".  I'm looking forward to making (and wearing) a lot of these in the future.

Moonstone wire wrapped crescent moon pendant.  I'm really happy with how this turned out!  I created a crescent moon shaped wire frame, then filled it with moonstone bead chips.

Spiral Goddess wire wrapped necklace.  This took me forever, but I'm really pleased with the results!  The wire wrapped Goddess is suspended from a chain; when you put it on the chain looks like her arms encircling your neck.  She looked a little plain in just wire, so I added some adventurine beads to give her a pop of color.

"Pathways" multi-strand semi-precious stone necklace.  This is great for when I can't figure out what stone I want to wear during a given day. This has one of pretty much every type of stone in my bead collection.   Smoky Quartz for grounding, carnelian for passion, adventurine for energy; no matter what you end up needing, it's on this necklace.

I truly hope to be able to work some more pagan themed jewelry into my crafts.  I don't often go out of my way to make a big deal of my preferences, but sometimes it is really nice to just delve into the magic and celebrate my faith.  Thanks for stopping by, and we'll see you next week!

Week 5: Among Nature

The weekly theme continues!  this week I decided to work with materials that were either natural, or reflected nature.  This was a pretty fun theme as I got to play around with different styles and make a variety of object.  I feel like I've been kind of a "one trick a week" poodle-pony up until now.  Now, on to the variety!  See you next week.

Hair clips!  I found these cute burlap leaves and butterflies in the scrapbooking isle and knew I had to find a way to make them live on my head.

Necklace with bone and ceramic beads on cotton cording...

...and its friend: a necklace with wood and ceramic beads on cotton.  I'm counting this and its predecessor as one item.

Leaf earrings!  I love these little burlap leaves. I also added some wire "vines".  You can't see them too well on the beige pair, but they show on the green pair nicely.

Little silver leaves and fancy jasper makes for cute earrings, I think.

Necklace with copper and glass leaves with brass acorns.

Black bamboo sticks wire wrapped with copper

Wire wrapped leaf pendant in copper