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· Necklace with three hoops and moonstones
· Labradorite pear necklace
· Rambles...
· London Blue Topaz necklace, sterling chain necklace
· Multistrand rose quartz necklace with Shiana fine silver Sakura flower pendant
· Green amethyst and prehnite necklace
· Labradorite necklace
· Pic of redone blue chalcedony necklace
· Rambles...
· Happy New Year! (pic of double strand freshwater pearl necklace, pearl earrings)
· 2007, the year in beading
· Various jewelry pics
· Shiana fine silver, lapis and Bali sterling set
· Aquamarine necklace pic
· Various necklaces
· Keishi pearl necklace part 2
· Keishi pearl necklace (no pics yet)
· Aquamarine and Bali vermeil necklace on goldfilled chain
· Rambles and some pics
· Freshwater pearl multi-strand necklace
· Venetian glass bead necklace on leather cord, handmade clasp
· Venetian glass bead, leather cord necklace
· Notes on Venetian heart necklace
· Venetian glass on leather cord necklaces
· Turquoise necklace
· Freshwater pearl necklace and bracelet set
· Labradorite and vermeil necklace and earrings
· Bali vermeil cage beads and turquoise necklace
· Peridot and vermeil necklace and bracelet
· Peridot and vermeil necklace, version 2
· Peridot and vermeil necklace
· Three strand freshwater pearl necklace
· Chalcedony necklace, then and now
· Black Swarovski crystal and Bali vermeil necklace, part 2
· Black Swarovski crystal and Bali vermeil bead necklace
· Venetian glass heart necklace
· Turquoise choker and leather cord end caps...
· More blogging here...
· Jade and pearl necklace and bracelet pics
· Jade necklace: then and now
· Citrine/sterling necklace and earrings, rambles...
· Turquoise necklaces
· More blogging here, with pics
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Beading Blog - thebroadroom.net
Necklace with three hoops and moonstones
posted by TheBroadroom.Net,
March 22, 2008
at 4:34 PM (Pacific)
Not sure about this one yet. It's experimental, because these aren't soldered hoops; they're strictly bent and hammered.
On a personal level, I like geometry, and therefore geometrical shapes. I've had the notion of making an abacus pendant for months, not because I know how to use an abacus :) nor even because an abacus is itself useful. It's the concept of making a square pendant that's attractive to me.
On my (never-ending) pile of pieces to redo, is a simple square coin pearl pendant:
I would do it differently now of course...but it's been sitting there since forever, and I still think about it. How nice to wear a simple white square of nacreous pearl. Otherwise, frankly, I find square pearls impossible to work with. You can't seem to do much with masses and masses of them; they stand out best individually, when you want the square shape somewhere.Labels: chain, hoops, moonstone, necklace, pics
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Labradorite pear necklace
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
March 20, 2008
at 7:08 PM (Pacific)
In the top pic, I was leaning at a funny angle, trying to capture the schiller in the stones. It hangs much more the way it does in the bottom pic.
I made this for special occasions, imo it's too much for every day. Unless you can pull something like that off. :)
BTW labradorite is light for its size. I thought these stones would be way heavy, all together on the chain like that, but they're not. I'm not even sure this needs a counterweight in the back--I haven't finished the back, I haven't even cut the chain yet. I'm using a chain sample I got, so the last thing I'll need to do in this piece is cut the chain itself.
For this necklace (top center image):
...I put a small smooth citrine coin in back, on an extender chain. I got the idea from Midori Jewelry. The necklaces have this neat little green "melon" in back. I didn't want to copy the melon, of course, but I liked the idea of finishing the pieces all in the same way. So I'm thinking of putting another citrine coin in the back of this piece (I've had these coins since forever and couldn't figure out what to do with them until recently).Labels: chain, goldfilled, labradorite, necklace
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Rambles...
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
March 18, 2008
at 6:12 PM (Pacific)
...where was I? :)
I ditched the earrings...I can't make the herringbone weave work with half-hard wire. It'll make a bezel, but I'm not happy with it.
Latest projects:
Fashion Notes: Earring synergy (the ill-fated half-hard herringbone weave!)
Just Notes: What I've been into, lately (also featuring some pics I found on the Net of my home town)
Fashion Notes: Labradorite necklace
Today I'm making one of those necklaces...you've seen them...a small golden hoop, with some stuff hanging from it. It's a style I've been meaning to try for quite some time, but the challenge of course is to avoid a generic look.
So I started with my kids' birthstones--peridot and pearl--and thought to make a commemoration of my time with them. I added a small round citrine coin (smooth) to represent the sun, a tiny heart of sapphire (for the blue sky), a moonstone (for cloudy days), and an aquamarine (the sea). I wanted to add a tiny prehnite onion, for a grassy field, but it was getting to be too much so I had to take it off.
It occurred to me as I was making this, how much time it takes to make even a relatively simple construction. For me now it's less an issue of skill, and becoming less an issue of materials...I remember back when I found the entire process intimidating. Just making a wrapped loop was horrible, or a wrapped briolette. Now it feels quite natural.
Even so, as I say, it takes forever! The thing has to hang just right, it has to fall just right. The expensive stones have to show; they can't migrate to the back. It has to feel comfortable on. Even if everything seems right, I still have to wear it. I'll know at the end of the day, if it's something I ever want to wear again. Hence it takes at least two days to make a single piece, unless it's one of those freaky pieces that just happens to be right the first time around.Labels: beading notes, citrine, earrings, labradorite, necklace, pics, sapphire
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London Blue Topaz necklace, sterling chain necklace
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
March 4, 2008
at 2:13 PM (Pacific)
Finished this today (top center pic). I added an extender chain in the back, with a small round citrine and Bali sterling bead at the end. I blogged about the development of the piece here: Fashion Notes: Something I've been fiddling around with if you'd like more detail.
I've come to realize...most of the time, what I'm looking for is a sort of industrial look. Or I should say, I miss the industrial concept. So much of what I see is...I don't know how to put it. Meaningless, unattached to any purpose.
Which I feel accurately reflects our U.S. society--we've lost our sense of purpose. The U.S. was always a place where people built stuff, made stuff, manufactured, innovated, pushed ahead. The end goal was never some bizarre life of leisure. The end goal was to make another factory, or railroad, or software program.
I'm wearing this chain today:
It is, literally, a length of chain. I bought it because I'd seen this beautiful, super long sterling necklace on a modern English tv show. I bought a length which I felt would surely exceed the length needed, just to be on the safe side...and yet, when I saw it, what a lovely chain. It's not heavy, it looks like more because the links are hammered flat. Today I used a fine silver jump ring...it was soldered, I had to cut it for something else...it's just, turn the angled end of the ring in a cup burr a few times, and join the chain together. I don't want to cut the chain.Labels: chain, necklace, pics, sterling silver, topaz
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Multistrand rose quartz necklace with Shiana fine silver Sakura flower pendant
posted by TheBroadroom.Net,
February 15, 2008
at 12:09 PM (Pacific)
This is a beautiful necklace. Rose quartz isn't that easy to work with--higher grades of it are more transparent, with a delicate pink hue, unlike your more robustly-colored dyed quartz. Hence most rose quartz pieces I've seen feature a lot of quartz at a time, typically a multi-strand design, or else big chunky quartz.
In real life the Softflex color isn't as obtrusive as it appears in the pic. Still I'm debating whether to restring on colored Softflex. I don't know yet. There gets to be a point where you can't keep on waiting for "another component" in order to make a piece, because if you do, you'll never get anything done.
The toggle in back is also fine silver from Shiana. I tried this piece out with a handmade silver hook closure, but you really need the extra weight in back.Labels: necklace, quartz, silver
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Green amethyst and prehnite necklace
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
February 9, 2008
at 4:10 PM (Pacific)
Playing around with backgrounds. The black background shows the structure better, but the white one shows the color of the stones.
Pretty pleased with the necklace...the key is the weight in back. Without adding extra beads, the weight in front would be too much.
Another idea I'm playing with is of making pieces which can be worn either casually or more formally. This one might do it. If you wear your hair down, you can't see the prehnites much, so it becomes a simpler necklace, just the front prasiolites. If you put your hair up of course you can see the whole shmeer.Labels: amethyst, earrings, emerald, necklace, pics, prehnite
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Labradorite necklace
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
January 31, 2008
at 4:16 PM (Pacific)
I have this on the LP blog actually, only now I've worn it a few times. It's interesting, because often there's a problem putting a flat stone in front of a necklace. On many designs, the flat bead will turn sideways and stick straight out instead of lying flat. This is particularly true of a string of flat beads; it looks nice, but is impossible to wear.
This works somehow. I suspect it has to do with the stone itself--it's cut so there's slightly more weight on one side of it. As long as you face it correctly, it'll stay flat.Labels: chain, goldfilled, labradorite, necklace, pics
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Pic of redone blue chalcedony necklace
posted by TheBroadroom.Net,
January 24, 2008
at 8:28 PM (Pacific)
I didn't change much, it's just longer in the back (the two blue beads in back were too high before), and the wrapping is much nicer.Labels: bali, chain, chalcedony, goldfilled, necklace, pics, vermeil
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Rambles...
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
January 21, 2008
at 11:38 AM (Pacific)
Haven't been doing many new projects lately, aside from the aforementioned earrings. Mostly, I've been going back over old projects...the ones I want to keep...and fixing them up. It's a slow but steady process.
Traditionally (if three years' worth of anything can have tradition), I've been taking a month or two off beading every year. Now I don't need to do that. I suppose I've felt a certain amount of stress, in whether I could really make jewelry.
I'm not crafty by nature. My interest in making jewelry derives from my interest in the thing itself. But now I feel I have the capability, and it's simply a matter of keeping at it. So, instead of grinding to a halt, I've decided to do it more slowly, more introspectively, for the given month or two.
Here is a redo of a hoop originally designed with thicker wire. I ran out...of course...actually I was short in the neighborhood of a quarter- to half-inch of wire, and my supplier is out of stock of this gauge (and has been for quite some time). I don't want to switch suppliers, so I redid the hoop with the gauge on hand.
The golden circle is nice...I made it like a wedding ring in size. Haven't worked out the top 100% yet, I had to bend the loop over to get the pendant to hang straight. It's balanced, but I'd like to make the loop look more centered.
Wondering if these guys have something in common:
For this necklace, I had made some "moral obligation" earrings, plain hammered silver hoops with lapis dangles. Nice, but, the sapphire earrings are nicer. I haven't worn them together yet though.
Discovered I'd fluffed one of the Bali vermeil beads in the back. If I'm redoing it though, I'll probably add an extender chain.Labels: bails, beading notes, earrings, goldfilled, lapis, necklace, pearls, pendant, pics, sapphire, silver, vermeil, wire
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Happy New Year! (pic of double strand freshwater pearl necklace, pearl earrings)
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
January 2, 2008
at 1:09 PM (Pacific)
This is me wearing:
I would like to wish my fellow beaders a happy and prosperous New Year, with more and more people choosing handmade jewelry. :DLabels: argentium, bali, earrings, necklace, pearls, pics, sterling silver
Handmade Jewelry photo gallery
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2007, the year in beading
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
December 8, 2007
at 2:15 PM (Pacific)
For your reference:
2006, the year in beading
2005, the year in beading
Technically I should wait until January 2008, but I'm afraid I'll be caught up in something else by then.
From this point forward, I'm going to post the first image of the given year, and rip it to shreds write some commentary on it:
Neither of these exists anymore, although of course I've recycled the beads.
American turquoise nugget necklace and earrings...hmmm, same sweater. This is a nice set; I still wear it.
This is okay too. I've had better luck placing flat oval beads toward the back and sides, rather than doing them all around, because, in the front, they tend to flip around too much.
I've also become pickier about aquamarine. I still have the aquamarine from the first necklaces but the quality of it is pretty eh.
And now the last piece I've made in the given year (okay, I know I should wait until the end of the year):
These are really nice. I fell asleep wearing them...very comfortable. This is me wearing the earrings:
I can admit one thing that drives me nuts, is that no one seems to take pictures of earrings "on." I can dig the necklaces, because these are usually photographed on a bust, or at least placed in such a way you can guess what they'd look like on, but earrings really must be worn. jhmo
I've moved away from fancy premade clasps in the main. They're expensive, and I've found something simpler tends to work just as well. If I truly hankered for a fancy clasp, I'd make one, and I've been making my own extender chains too.
As far as the stones, turquoise is still one of my favorites.
Predictions for 2008:
I'm not planning anything radically different for 2008. I can't afford to start silver- or gold-smithing, that's off the table (although I haven't ruled it out for the not-so-near future). I've given a certain amount of thought to selling my jewelry, but the tax system tends to make me think it's not going to be worth it. I do bookkeeping for small businesses in California...we are, ah, a heavily tax-oriented state.
I am planning to continue making jewelry as I have been. I enjoy it even more now, both making and wearing it.Labels: argentium, bali, earrings, hoops, necklace, pearls, pics, turquoise, vermeil
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Various jewelry pics
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
December 5, 2007
at 5:28 PM (Pacific)
This is the lapis and silver necklace and earrings mentioned earlier. The bracelet ended up looking not so good, so I didn't wear it.
This is the American turquoise necklace and earrings from a while ago.
This is a new piece I'm fiddling around with. It's entirely personal, not something you'd make to sell (conversely, not something you'd be able to buy either). It is to commemorate the sea around Jamaica (the two above pics were taken there, as well as the background pic of the boat), which is just the most kick-ass sea you've ever seen.
Here I used American turquoise...the water there is turquoise. If you look out at it, you'll see patches of turquoise and deep blue. The turquoise sea is over areas of sand, the deep blue over coral reefs.
The labradorite has mostly greenish-blue or blue flash, and the pearl is a naturally pink keishi pearl.
The anchor is gold, actually. I went looking around for a golden anchor, and the best one was a 14KT gold charm. I found a sterling silver anchor at Target, but I really wanted a gold color (plus the sterling one was too big). In real life it looks almost like a fleur-de-lys rather than an obvious anchor.
It has an extender chain in the back, the kind you make using short lengths of chain and jump rings.Labels: chain, earrings, keishi, labradorite, lapis, necklace, pics, silver, turquoise
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Shiana fine silver, lapis and Bali sterling set
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
October 24, 2007
at 5:46 PM (Pacific)
I can't believe I didn't post this here? My brain's been fried lately.
This is a set I made from the Shiana fine silver pieces blogged about here: The Lipstick Page Forums Beauty & Fashion Blog
Beauty & Fashion Notes: this 'n' that.
The flower pendant, butterfly beads, and double-flower toggle on the bracelet are all from Shiana. This image came out a bit darker than how the stuff looks in real life; it's typical lapis, a dark-blue strand mixed with a strand that has more white inclusions and pyrite. The pendant is oxidized but looks "brighter" than in the picture.
The butterfly beads are quite interesting; they're not hollow the way typical sterling silver beads would be. They're two pieces of solid silver stuck together, with a small channel in the middle. Both the pendant and the beads are heavy for their size...my original design had two strands of lapis (was kind of interesting, engineering the front) but was too heavy for practical wear.
The double-flower toggle is bright silver, but it's true what they say on the site, it's not really bright or shiny. All of the silver has a beautiful soft glow.
The argentium sterling earrings are exceedingly simple for a reason: I've found even slightly elaborate earrings don't work with even marginally elaborate necklaces. The overall effect is too much, and I end up never wearing the two together.
Here are the same earrings with a different necklace (I didn't make the necklace, it's Iranian):
Labels: argentium, bali, bracelet, earrings, fair trade, hoops, lapis, necklace, pics, silver, sterling silver
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Aquamarine necklace pic
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
August 13, 2007
at 4:13 PM (Pacific)
Redo of this:
As you can see, it's a much simpler design. I knew the 3-to-1 was too busy, but didn't want to waste the chain or other aspects of it.
I ended up with three extra pieces of chain, but they're all long enough to do something with, say matching earrings (I'm going to redo the earrings too). As far as the aquamarine "bobbles," I was pleased to be able to rework some of those too...bend the top loop open, trim the wire a bit, pop the top Bali bead off, replace with a daisy spacer, redo loop, reattach.
I'll take a pic of the "tacky strand of diamonds" one after I've put the crimp covers on.Labels: aquamarine, bali, chain, goldfilled, necklace, pics, vermeil
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Various necklaces
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
August 9, 2007
at 2:47 PM (Pacific)
These have all been photographed before, in greater detail...I wanted a group picture of my current necklace collection. I didn't include the keishi pearl one, if only because it's too new...I may decide to redo it, once I get my metals catalog (hem hem); I may decide to make it with plain gold beads rather than the tourmaline+vermeil thing.
These have all stood the test of time, some more so than others of course...they've all been worn many times. I hate to hit y'all over the head with makeup metaphors, but I have the same philosophy regarding cosmetics: they have to be worn, they cannot just sit in the drawer. You have to show them some love.
Looking them over, I'm already getting ideas what I'd like to do next. For example, I'd like to redo my aquamarine and goldfilled chain necklace. This wasn't a total bust, but the three strand design in front isn't happening. I'd still like to do something with it though.
I'd like to do more chain and stone designs in fact, similar to the chalcedony y-necklace (top pic, third from the left). I wore this yesterday and was pleased with the overall look.
If I may say so, I think the trend now is toward either super chunky stones, or super delicate constructions with more expensive components. Consumers have become pickier--as well they should--the designs they seek have to stand out more.Labels: necklace, pics
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Keishi pearl necklace part 2
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
August 5, 2007
at 9:51 PM (Pacific)
Very pleased with this; it's a lovely piece. I tried photographing it in the usual way, but there hasn't been enough natural light, over the past two days, to do that. So I finally gave up, had someone else model it, and used a flash. And it came out better that way.
I'm still waiting on my catalog; it's a metals company, so I'm thinking now of buying some karat gold beads...you wouldn't need a lot of them. For this model, you would need six at most, and a small karat gold clasp, to make a perfect necklace.
Not that I'm thinking of restringing these pearls. But I can see now that keishi pearls work well. They're different from traditional round pearls, but better, for a single strand, than regular freshwater pearls. The lustre is high, plus the "cornflake" shape makes the lustre reflect the light from various angles.
Here's some info on keishi pearls:
Keishi pearls
How are keishi pearls formed?Labels: bali, keishi, necklace, pearls, pics, tourmaline, vermeil
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Keishi pearl necklace (no pics yet)
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
August 4, 2007
at 7:53 PM (Pacific)
I tried taking a pic of this, but it's too late in the day to get a good picture (I don't use a light box, so must rely on natural light). It's the first piece of jewelry I've made in almost two months...I suppose I was a bit rusty (got my double crimps slightly too far apart, that sort of thing), but I felt the process came more naturally to me than before.
It's a necklace made from a strand of natural pink keishi pearls I got months ago, same ones in these earrings:
They're gorgeous pearls in the classical "cornflake" or petal shape. I went through 300 designs figuring out what to do with them lol...then concluded that with these pearls, simplicity would be best. So, no triple strand, double strand, 2-to-1 design, super long strand (yep, I tried that too)...no mixing them with labradorite or lots o' vermeil. The finished necklace is just the pearls, strung with a few Bali vermeil daisy spacers and smooth tourmaline rondelles (opaque, not gem grade), finished off with a simple Bali vermeil toggle.
Even the bead spacing came naturally, something like 12 in the front, then ten, ten, six. One of those things that probably shouldn't work and does.
I had the idea of saving out a couple of the pearls to make some earrings...as it turned out, I couldn't use two of them anyway, the drill holes were too small. That, btw, is going to be my next tool purchase: a bead reamer. I never got around to buying one before, but it's easy to see it would pay for itself the first time you used it.
I feel much better. I like making jewelry, but it's something you have to take a break from at some point, or at least I do. It's so easy to just keep buying stuff...if you step back from it, it becomes clearer what you should buy, and what you shouldn't.
It's not the price of the beads, not at all. Some cheap beads become next to useless, you really can't do much with them. Hence they're a waste of money. Other beads, like the keishi pearls, okay I was lucky and bought them right before they doubled in price (rolls eyes), those look beautiful almost simply strung on a piece of softflex, with a few inexpensive accents.
I went through trying to make a three-strand necklace too, out of labradorite rounds and vermeil...and it finally struck me, that the design was fine but would look much better with a stronger-colored bead (rather than the grey of the labradorite), I dunno, something like garnet. A three-strand (twisted, not graduated) necklace of garnet rounds with the vermeil. Of course I have no garnet on hand...but it further occurred, it would be better to get pickier and buy better garnet too.
Oh, and I am going to fix up this blog, especially the tags. We recently overhauled the tags on The Lipstick Page Forums Beauty & Fashion Blog (Dain's got a cool article up there on lipstick colors, if you're interested)...it's roughly 450 posts, so it's going to take time to re-label them, I doubt I'm going to go back and do all of my posts. I put up a script to list the labels in the first place (FTP Blogger.com users don't have this feature), then pull out the main categories and list them first. These also create a "links list" page rather than just the label page itself, because some of the labels have tons of posts and would take forever to load.
Anyhow it's great being back making jewelry. :)Labels: bali, keishi, necklace, pearls, tourmaline, vermeil
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Aquamarine and Bali vermeil necklace on goldfilled chain
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
June 5, 2007
at 1:03 PM (Pacific)
This is what I was noodling around with yesterday. The fun part is in getting the strands to lie correctly. I'll have to try out wearing it today, but at least in theory, the weights should be in the right places.
Going to make some earrings to go with it too.Labels: aquamarine, bali, chain, goldfilled, multistrand, necklace, pics, vermeil
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Rambles and some pics
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
May 17, 2007
at 7:16 PM (Pacific)
Haven't been able to make anything new (or even redo anything old) lately...been fixing up the site. Got fed up doing it for a long time...now I'd like to get it back into shape.
So far I've finished most of the active blogs and some of the archived ones. I started doing the Wit & Wisdom Blog--it used to be five enormous posts, before there were individual pages for blogs. Now I'm making it one quote = one post. (It's probably less than half done now, since you can't keep posting like that on Blogger.)
It's not going to be nearly as horrible as it looks now...I'm going to put a search engine on it (once at least some of this stuff gets crawled) so you'll be able to search it properly.
I did get to take a couple new pics as follows:
^ This is all labradorite and vermeil.
^ This is citrine and sterling silver. It's not a new piece, just a new pic.
Top view of my Bali cage bead necklace.
Same black Swarovski crystal and Bali vermeil necklace and earrings.
The rest of the new pics are in my Picasa album.Labels: bali, beading notes, bracelet, chain, citrine, crystal, goldfilled, labradorite, multistrand, necklace, pics, turquoise, vermeil
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Freshwater pearl multi-strand necklace
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
May 2, 2007
at 7:48 PM (Pacific)
Pretty pleased with this...it's a bit longer than a choker, so it's comfortable on even with the multiple strands.Labels: multistrand, necklace, pearls, pics
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Venetian glass bead necklace on leather cord, handmade clasp
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
April 22, 2007
at 1:42 PM (Pacific)
I went ahead and glued the steel block back onto its base. It's still curing but that hardly means I can't use it. :D Thought I'd try my hand making a simple sterling hook and eye clasp.
Not sure if I'll keep this clasp on this piece...thinking it would make more sense to use a lobster clasp the way I did on the previous Venetian glass bead necklace. My reasoning is, these beads are expensive and they're glass. If the hook slips out for whatever reason, a chance the piece will fall and the beads crack.
That said...hammering wire is one of the most fun aspects of jewelry making ever. Even if you don't actually need to hammer something, I think you owe it to yourself to own a block or anvil and a hammer.Labels: cord, necklace, pics, sterling silver, tools, venetian glass
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Venetian glass bead, leather cord necklace
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
April 17, 2007
at 4:08 PM (Pacific)
Looks like I've found my model at last! The scale is a bit off, but I love this picture...one of my all-time favorite actresses.
I've decided in favor of this piece even though it is not a conventional design. When it's on, the chains in front hang in a sort of butterfly shape.Labels: chain, cord, goldfilled, heart, necklace, pics, venetian glass
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Notes on Venetian heart necklace
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
at 6:40 AM (Pacific)
I actually slept in this last night...not something I make a habit of, I really just fell asleep with it on (damn taxes!). It seems to have stretched out a tiny bit. Interesting...it's not horribly stretched-out or anything, but I can see that would be a factor in designing on leather cord, especially if you have heavier beads in the design.
The chain design in front was still intact when I got up! The necklace had turned to the side some but the butterfly-esque six chains were still nice and flat.
Still not sure of the design. It's a bit old style, like the chunky bead chokers people wore in the 70's. That could be a good thing. At any rate, the E-6000'd tiny cord ends worked great.
The whole thing is modular...I was struggling to remember that term the other day. It's used in programming among other things...modular programming means you can move the code around, reuse it...rather than a ginormous block of code you can't do much with, beyond whatever it was originally supposed to do.
So the idea here is this...if I wanted to swap out any of the components in the piece, I could do it easily. I've been doing that for a while...the one thing I haven't gotten down yet is getting a wrapped-link bracelet to work, other than just wrapping the links together. I'd like to come up with a better-shaped wrap (shorter and fatter) so that the links could be joined with jump rings without looking too sparse.Labels: beading notes, cord, necklace, venetian glass
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Venetian glass on leather cord necklaces
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
April 15, 2007
at 5:16 PM (Pacific)
These aren't finished yet of course...I got to try out my E-6000. The heart pendant on the bottom piece is detached because it kept gravitating...the heart always faced sideways no matter what, so I redid the wrap and got it to stay put (knock wood anyway).
The top piece uses the same silver end caps I used before...I had to crimp them on the previous piece (being glue-in and crimp after all), so I'll probably have to do so again. There are a couple of red vintage glass beads on it, that I've had for quite some time.
These beads are a pleasure to work with. I still have three heart beads left...two green ones of different sizes, and one I'm fairly sure is dichroic glass...that I'll probably just make into pendants.Labels: cord, necklace, pics, venetian glass, vintage
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Turquoise necklace
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
April 12, 2007
at 4:47 PM (Pacific)
Wonder whose hand is in the background? lol...
I'm not sure this necklace is quite "it." If I were making it to sell, I would have used fancier chain or some other way to make it stand out more. In fact I'm thinking chain with long and short links (don't have any on hand).
I'll give it some thought...designed it anyway so that the turquoise dangles could easily be moved to a different chain.Labels: bali, chain, goldfilled, necklace, pics, turquoise, vermeil
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Freshwater pearl necklace and bracelet set
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
April 8, 2007
at 8:39 PM (Pacific)
Tried taking this pic at night...the previous pics were taken just as the sun was going down, and they're better than this one. Indirect artificial light didn't work, so I put the overhead light on and played with the settings on the camera. It's still not optimal...the shiny parts of jewelry make them difficult to photograph...but it'll do.
Here, the gift bag didn't actually belong with the set but I liked the idea of including a gift bag in the picture! Makes it all look so gift-y.
This set incorporates some Bali vermeil beads including the square one in the center of the necklace that didn't come out too well. It's this one (in vermeil of course):
image courtesy bali-handmade.comLabels: bali, bracelet, necklace, pearls, pics, vermeil
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Labradorite and vermeil necklace and earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
April 4, 2007
at 7:12 PM (Pacific)
The necklace is actually not new, though you'll note I haven't attached crimp covers yet. It's a random design of labradorite rounds, some faceted rondelles, and Bali vermeil beads.
The earrings used to be made with tiny pearls...I made them a while ago and intended to redo them, I wasn't happy with my detail work. They were nice earrings but a bit ordinary, so I took them apart and used the chains for the new pair.Labels: bali, chain, earrings, goldfilled, labradorite, multistrand, necklace, pics, vermeil
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Bali vermeil cage beads and turquoise necklace
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
April 3, 2007
at 3:34 PM (Pacific)
It's...the yard chicken! I wanted to take this picture showing the few California poppies we have in the yard, but there was no place to put the necklace near them (haven't given up though, love California poppies!).
Unfortunately the toggle didn't come out at all, it's a nice plainish oval-shaped one. Don't those awful tiny thin soldered jump rings make a nice chain?
This pic makes the necklace look shorter than it is...the two barrel-shaped turquoise beads in the back show completely. I had to lean back some to take the pic. But I wanted to show how pretty the open cage bead is in the front.Labels: bali, chain, goldfilled, necklace, pics, turquoise, vermeil
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