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 42: Chip Off the Ol' Block

It's no lie, I have a king's ransom in stone chips I've collected over the years.  A small country's king for sure, but a king nonetheless.  I don't really use them so much as I collect them, and I decided that it was time to put the collection to good use and actually make something.  Thus, here are seven stone chip jewelry designs!

Sodalite and quartz crystal necklace on leather.  I'm glad I finally found a use for those giant bead cones!

Wire cage (with ammonia and salt patina) filled with raw aquamarine chips.

Russian Amazonite and Amber wire wrapped square earrings

Tiger eye on turquoise leather teardrop earrings

Amethyst, peridot, citrine, and garnet chip bracelet.  Hurray for memory wire!

Chakra chip earrings.  Garnet, carnelian, citrine, moss agate, sodalite, amethyst and quartz crystal.

Two strand amber and rainbow obsidian chip necklace.

 This didn't even begin to put a dent in my stash, but at least it's a start!

Week 38: Bullets Galore!

This month is set to be the most challenging month so far in keeping to my 7 things a week plan.  January is by far the busiest month at work and it's going to take up a lot of time and energy.  So I'm going to try to stick to doing projects that I really, really love as an incentive to get though this month while still keeping my goals, my job, and my sanity.  Well, ok.  I lost that last one awhile ago but you can't blame a lady for trying!  : )  And do you know what I really love?  Bullet jewelry!  And excitingly, I had the though a few days ago that I could probably cut down the bullets I have with my pipe cutter (thanks Lowes!) which would give me more design options.

These tassels came off the ends of a very pretty strand of iolite that I ordered from Fire Mountain.  They were too pretty to throw away!  Once I looked at them I realized that the ends would fit into the smallest of my bullet casings, so of course that had to happen right away!  I love the way they look, but they are super tickley to wear!

Bullet Chakra necklace!  The lighting wasn't ideal for photo taking, so you can't really see the colors well.  I used red tiger eye, orange quartz, yellow tiger eye, adventurine, stabilized turquoise, lapis, and amethyst to create the "rainbow".

I saved the tips that I cut off some of the bullets, thinking I could use them and this is what I came up with!  I don't know that you can really tell it was ever a part of a bullet to begin with, but that's kind of the point.  Plus, chain fringe makes everything better.

Bullet casing and raw amethyst "cascade" style necklace.  Lots of little bullets with one big honkin' bullet at the end.  I'm super fond of this piece.  I think the gold and the purple look very nice together.

Another cut-off bullet tip repurposed to be a kind of bead cap.  The way the round beads fit into the ends made me really happy.  It's a neat little pendant, and it may have to come live in my jewelry closet.  That's right; not box, closet.  : )

Glass heart with crystal tipped bullet accent.  'Nuff said.

And here is the most time-consuming project of the week!  I  treated the bullet casing and all the brass leaves with alcohol inks to add some color, then sealed it with nail polish   (I find that alcohol ink on metal can be tacky to the touch if left unfinished).  I've always loved beetle wing jewelry, but I've been too poor to afford any so this is the next best thing!

I think to keep the momentum going I'll do bullets again next week, which I think will officially make bullets the most used theme of the year.  Congrats bullets, for being an awesome jewelry component.

Week 24: Rainbow Chainmaille Week

I'm addicted to chainmaille, it's no lie.  In fact, a good half of the folks I follow on Pinterest are chainmail artisans or collectors of cool chainmaille designs.  I haven't worked with maille in awhile, but when I went to Michael's they had a bunch of really cool (and TINY) multicolored jump rings on clearance that were just begging to be made into some colorful chainmaille designs.  Normally my chainmaille is pretty sedate; I work mostly in silver and copper, sometimes black and gunmetal.  This was a nice change of pace, even if I did have to spend a bunch of time sorting tiny jump rings by color.  : )

Fun chainmaille pendant using a Japanese style weave.

This bit of Chainmaille looks like bubbles to me!  I know it's not rainbow colors, but the rings I picked up had a lot of gold rings interspersed with the multi-colored rings, so I thought it best to make use of them.

Rainbow Chainmaille Wave Necklace.

Beaded Chainmaille Earrings.  I finally figured out how to jazz up plain silver rings.  Yay!

Rainbow chainmaille drop earrings.  These were supposed to be based on the byzantine weave and turned out to be some unholy combo of Euro (the knots) and Japanese (the 2 in 2 connectors) but I like them anyway.

Celtic Flowers Chainmaille Bracelet

Crazy Rainbow Chainmaille Bracelet.  This one took the most time, but was also the most worth it.; it is definitely my favorite for this week.

The good news about this week is that I managed to use up almost all of my rainbow colored rings.  The bad news about this week is that I managed to use up almost all of my rainbow colored rings.  Now I won't be tempted to make more, but if I do think of a really cool design I'll have to *gasp* buy more rings.  OH NO! : )  Until next time!