Rambles...
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
April 2, 2008
at 5:37 PM (Pacific)
Hi! Haven't had much time to blog lately...
It's occurred to me...a new earring design usually takes me several days, at least. Sometimes longer. Once I have the design, it takes me several hours to actually fabricate the earrings.
I was thinking of that today...from the beginning, I had wanted to develop several designs and just use those. Part of it is sheer laziness, no doubt, but I believe in modularity anyway in my life. If I find a sweater I like, I'll buy the same sweater in as many different colors as I need, rather than try to find a different sweater. If it works, it works.
So far:
I've already made another of this pattern, using a tiny prehnite faceted onion as the top stone, and three green amethyst faceted pears on the bottom (the pears were too big to use five). I'm thinking of making a garnet pair as well.
This is good too. I'm planning to make a green pair...going through my clothes today, I realized how much green I wear. Blue is useful too. Thinking on it, I should make a green and a blue pair of every design.
This works, but a caveat: I got rid of the emeralds.
This is better for a larger stone...and might look nice with more unusual chains, like a figure-8 or textured chain. Even though I like this flat cable chain.
This is an efficient use of tiny stones! I have a gold version, but need to redo it--I tried putting gold beads on the outside of the stones, instead of just using them to space out the stones. That doesn't work, since the gold beads are too light weight, they end sliding up the sides of the hoops. Plus, I think I'll do a simple-loop headpin rather than a wrapped-loop one, for the gold version.
That's it so far! I have other earrings I've made, but those are more one-of-a-kind, I'm not planning on reusing the design.
I'm also thinking of a round hoop, with a curved bar in the middle...you hang stones from both the curved bar and the bottom of the hoop.
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.
Here's my first attempt at using a herringbone weave. I realize I linked to it earlier from the beauty & fashion blog, but now that I can get screenshot thumbnails of the posts here, figured it would be useful to post here for future reference.
Ultimately I was disappointed in using half-hard wire for the weave, because I found it impossible to bend the wire just so on the sides. I think the bezel ended up covering too much of the stone. I haven't given up on the weave itself, but I will wait until I can order some soft wire in this gauge.
As you can see, it was a bit of a bugger to photograph. You can get a nice still image by hanging the piece, but then the scale is unclear (plus you can't see all the stones).
I'm quite pleased with how this Mom pendant turned out. When you wear it, it looks different, depending on the light and how the stones have fallen. So sometimes the citrine becomes illuminated, and you see this little golden glow. Sometimes the moonstone shows more...it has the barest of flash, I passed over moonstones with blue flash in favor of this one. The sapphire sometimes shows and sometimes doesn't. At first I tried to get it to show all the time, by putting it at the end or in the front of the chain, but decided I liked how it was. The aquamarine has a small inclusion in the back. In a sense it's the prettiest stone in the piece, because of the light blue color, but the slight imperfection makes it fit in better with the other stones.
Our generous friends at artViper have improved their screenshot thumbnail script. Actually what they did in the case of this blog, is cut off the top banner in the image capture. Great! So I've implemented blog post thumbnails again. Here is a screenshot of the citrine page:
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.
Not sure what to make next. Thinking of going ahead and making another copy of these frames, though I don't know what to put in them. I'm just thinking of "something symmetrical, using one or two chains, and a small stone."
Been playing around with these for a while...had the idea of capturing this "winter tree full of robins" idea--not even sure they were robins? They weren't like East Coast robins, with vivid red-orange breasts, but rather a softer color.
Anyhow, because the citrines are wrapped to the chain, they move around a lot...rather like birds on a tree :) I tried this out initially with some bright silver chain I had on hand, but the oxidized one fits much better. (Using the same motif, it becomes like the dark branches of the tree.)
I was out of soft wire, so I went ahead and used half hard. It was, oddly, as easy to make the frames, because I'd started out using only half hard wire in the first place. lol! I'd had no real idea what temper to use for what, so I bought only half hard, in 20 and 24 gauges, figuring these would work for the most applications. So returning to this temper was curiously comforting.
I'd been trying for a long time to make this sort of frame. I'd say my earlier endeavors were typically too big and/or too heavy. And I've been trying lately to make more conservative styles, so again a smaller size is in order.
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.
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.
Quite pleased with these. The emeralds shown are really tiny, the ones that come at the ends of a graduated strand. Supposedly they're at least 2mm (which is already small) but some struck me as being even smaller. Stringing them though, they look quite pretty.
If you look at the right-most bottom pic, you can see the emerald "frame" is bent a little. I've fixed that since the photo.
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.
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.
"A" sapphire earrings
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
January 17, 2008
at 5:32 PM (Pacific)
The bottom pic was taken rather hastily, I didn't have time to hang the earrings properly so I put them down on a white tee shirt. :)
Here I went for grade over size, so these sapphires are really very small. But they're not the opaque stones normally used in handmade jewelry; they're translucent, with small areas of transparency.
This is a hoop idea I got from Midori Jewelry. That was the first place I saw such a hoop. I'm getting better at making them although I've found I need to be very slow and patient while doing the wrap at the top. It's easy to fuddle it up. I added my own "touch" by hammering the wraps. Mainly because on some of my hoops, I didn't feel the wrap was secure enough, but I don't dislike the finished look. The idea for me is to produce something that looks a tiny bit rough, after all.
I can't wear 14KT gold earrings so you'll note, I used vermeil ear wires for the gold pair (from Shiana). Normally I don't think vermeil would work, but the Shiana vermeil, so far, is as superior as they claim. The gold plate is thicker than usual, plus it's over fine silver rather than sterling.
I went for the relatively inexpensive 14KT gold tiny beads to give the earring a more golden appearance. In fact it crossed my mind you could cover most of the wire with these beads if you wanted to.
It took me forever to come up with this design, because I specifically wanted to make smaller earrings. Tiny stones + smaller earrings...the stones didn't show well with my earlier designs. For example, I tried the one where you take a piece of wire and wrap it round and round the hoop--similar to this: Going Green Hand-Forged Earrings--and the tiny little sapphires hardly showed at all. weeps! I concluded the only way to get them to show would be to use a lot of them, all together.
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.
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.
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):
I'm getting a bit better at this. Now I can tell, as soon as I put the earrings on, whether or not they'll start feeling heavy toward the end of the day. It's a fine line...on these, I had to change out one of the Bali sterling beads. That tiny bit of extra weight makes the difference between "featherlight" and "starts to feel heavy if you wear them long enough."
Been playing with these over the past couple of days. They're long, but lightweight (being only thin pieces of hammered silver, with two small rose quartz beads), and because they're neither hoops nor anything terminating in a loop, they don't get stuck in your hair or collar.
This is also the first time I've made earring wires, thanks to Argentium silver. Before that, I would have had to use niobium, titanium, or 18KT gold...procuring the first two kinds would likely be more headache than buying the blanks, and 18KT gold...hardly worth making this type of earring wire (for that, you would want either a readymade leverback, for a special pair of earrings, or else a kidney wire idea where you could interchange the dangles).
About the rose quartz beads...I've had these for a long time. I never actually got rid of the inexpensive materials I started out with...and if it's possible, I recommend you don't either. My daughter is managing them now. For these earrings, I started out using two small freshwater pearls instead of the rose quartz. But the idea of the earrings was to capture light, so I decided to look for something clear or translucent.
I had in mind to use glass, something like two small rough-looking glass beads (like Indian glass). I found some blue ones, but it occurred to me that making the two stones blue would limit these earrings to being worn with clothes that go with blue. I already have a fair amount of blue earrings. So I looked for clear glass, but it occurred to me the faint pastel pink of rose quartz was actually pretty versatile, almost like "blush makeup for the ears" (on the concept you don't have to match your blush to your clothes).
Various pendants
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
August 28, 2007
at 4:55 PM (Pacific)
American turquoise
Citrine
Czech glass and a tiny red glass heart
Chinese millefiori
The top two are some experiments with handmade bails. The red glass one, I made specifically with red glass, but it hangs really nicely. It could easily be used with three small gemstones instead.
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.
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.
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.
Okey dokey, the version I did yesterday was too heavy. Too much silver at the bottom, stones probably too big...this one uses smaller stones and less than half the silver.
Sorry for the less than stellar pics...I'm getting a bit tired. Soon I'll go water the garden. :)
Here the issue is how to "pop" the color of the aquamarines. In my experience, aquamarines are sold dyed, unless specified otherwise (and priced accordingly). i.e., when you wash them, you lose much of the color.
Yellow is a good color to pop blue (if you have blue eyes and "warm" coloring, you can enhance your eye color with yellow-toned eyeshadows: champagne, gold, peach, orange, brown with a golden tone, etc.), so I went with Bali gold vermeil for these stones.
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.
Well that's it. Toward the end I was starting to think of these as "Murphy's Law earrings," because seemingly everything that could go wrong with them, did. Yet, here they are.
Coin pearl pattern
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
May 23, 2007
at 12:25 PM (Pacific)
This is what the bracelet and necklace are going to look like. I'm going to try stringing it using a three-to-one reducer, not sure about the clasp yet (thinking of using handmade wire hooks though).
They're both pretty straightforward pieces. The bracelet is "reversible" of course, you can wear the coin pearl side toward your hand or away from it.
I'm still playing with the idea of making bracelets composed of multiple bracelets, rather than just multiple strands of the same bracelet, if that makes any sense. I have a couple of these already strung...one is mostly Swarovski crystals, but I crowded all three strands into the same loop and I think it would be better to use jump rings. The other, as mentioned earlier, is the same as the one pictured above only with silver beads instead of vermeil.
Read on the jewelrymaking.about.com forum that Argentium silver might be better for people with metal sensitivities, than regular sterling silver.
Having nothing to lose--I can't wear either regular sterling or 14KT gold earrings, only 18KT gold or niobium--I made up this solitary hoop earring. Normally I'd use a heavier gauge of wire for this, but this is the thickest Argentium wire I had on hand. I hammered the hoop to make it harder and added a pink keishi pearl drop.
So far so good, but then I haven't been wearing it that long, probably an hour at most. I'll post back here if it does work out.
I hate getting my hopes up, because for years and years I couldn't wear earrings at all...then Simply Whispers came out, and drugstores started selling those special surgical stainless wires in packs (which they don't seem to anymore?). Initially I converted my earrings to these types of wire, then I found 18KT gold also worked (but how many of those can you buy). Niobium is the best of all. But let's see if this argentium works.
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.
Okay, decided to go with the square pearls for these. I'm still pondering the nature of the hoop...because I'd like to make some out of wire with a higher gold content. Is it possible to make a good pair without the expense of goldsmithing, yes I think it is. But I'm not in a rush over it.
Anyhow thought I'd experiment some with outdoor photography. I realize you seldom see jewelry "on" someone in professional photographs, but I secretly feel that's a shame. I love seeing jewelry on someone. I suppose it jells for me, the exact proportions and flow of the jewelry, how the earrings hang, where on the neck does the necklace lie. Funny eh?
Why the closed eyes, it was either that or squint or do the pic with sunglasses on. Detail:
Not sure what to do with these yet...right now they're identical, except one has a square pearl and one has a coin-shaped one. I'm basically out of goldfilled wire of that gauge, so making too many more of this design is out of the question until I replace it...but I'm envisioning three pairs of earrings that mix and match (i.e. two square pearl ones, two coin pearl ones, two of something else).
Three bracelets
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
May 5, 2007
at 11:06 AM (Pacific)
Here are three little bracelets made of various materials...swarovski crystals, freshwater pearls, blue lace agate chips, and some blue glass beads I've had for a while.
Edited to add: was in a hurry when I posted this, had to finish the pieces in a hurry too... The bottom two bracelets were designed by my daughter (by herself, I didn't check her work over).
These are yesterday's earrings. I've decided they're not too heavy. In fact I'll probably make a silver version, although I'm not sure I'll use pearls for that one.
Still finishing off the six-strand pearl necklace...that's 24 crimp covers to add. :p Probably take a pic tomorrow.
I would rather have made these with lapis stones, but recall I'm still on my "bead cold turkey," so I used some blue apatite stones instead. Pretty pleased how they came out, would like to try making more hoop earrings.
The earlier version was terrible! I wore them in windy conditions and they were all over the place. I had the idea of stabilizing the bottom wire by simply adding more weight (hence the extra crystal) and added some on the sides to boot. The side crystals probably aren't necessary, but they look nice. This design is quite stable (I test it by grabbing the earrings and shaking them the way you would a smoothie in a bottle before drinking) but don't know yet if it's too heavy. If it is, I'll toss the side crystals.
And...Einstein that I am, I forgot not to do those teeny-spiral headpins on the bottom dangles of long earrings. Even hammering them doesn't help...they still end up sticking to your fake-fur collar, should you have one (looks guilty). So I switched these back to small-loop headpins and moved the spiral guys up to the sides.
At the end of all this, these remind me now of Indian chandelier earrings, on a slightly smaller scale.
Edited 4/27/07 to replace that horrendous night photo.
This is a very simple design...I'm working toward making "wall of crystal" earrings, but these are not it. (I suspect slightly smaller crystals would be better for the "wall of crystal" earrings.)
Still they came out nicely. I'm going to wear these today.
If you look you'll see it's largely odd pieces of wire and chain. The readymade components are the earring wires; you could just as well make your own out of goldfilled wire. I haven't bought niobium wire yet--and not sure how much cheaper it would be if I did--as I have tons of preformed niobium wires on hand.
I'm running out of supplies...on purpose. Right now I need to be more creative with what I have. It's too easy for me to jump on the Internet and find what I need for the moment, or for the next few projects...more difficult for me to look at what I have and make something interesting out of that.
I do plan on buying more supplies of course, just seeing how much I can come up with before doing so.
End caps
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
April 24, 2007
at 10:26 AM (Pacific)
So far, so good. I haven't glued them yet of course...have to see first if I have other things to glue, since some of the E-6000 remains in the applicator tip after you're done.
Here's what I was listening to while hammering the loops:
Blondie's "Shayla," 1979 Written by Chris Stein
Promise I won't put too much off-topic material in this blog, but I've been fascinated over the past several days by the sheer wealth of Youtube...it's like the original MTV (back when they had no commercials and played music videos 24 hours a day), The Midnight Special, Saturday Night Live, Fridays, and bootlegs, all rolled into one.
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.
Sweet! Got a hammer and a "block" today. The block...coughmade in Chinacough was a steel block glued to a wooden base, and the block came completely off the base after I'd used it...once.
I'm not overly concerned, as the steel block seems beautifully solid and it's simply a matter of E-6000'ing it back onto the wooden base...and you could just as well not glue it at all, and use it set on top of a wooden cutting board. Still, guys, could ya just glue the darn thing?
Anyway...still loads of hammering pleasure. Here is my first project...it's crude but I will keep it, the same way I've kept a sample of just about every "phase" of my jewelry making journey. The hammered spirals catch the light when you wear them. Plus, they feel just gorgeous when you touch them...nice and smooth.
My aim is to make more of my own components out of wire. I've seen some beautiful ones and found them inspiring. Plus, I'm tired of having to buy something every time I turn around in order to complete a project.
The bottom line is that handmade components can look better because the eye can discern that they were not mass produced.
Was trying to take a pic of the "light azore" shade of Swarovski crystals (far right). The sun was setting and I don't feel I got it quite right; the picture was too dark so I had to lighten it in Photoshop. The actual crystals are a bit paler and more delicate-looking, but it does give an idea what they look like in real life.
Light azore is a very pretty color. Sort of a shade deeper than an aquamarine stone.
In fact that is a problem...Swarovski's can look very different in person than they tend to online.
Take "crystal silver shade" for example. In real life, it's a lovely pale grey. I would say it's a neutral grey rather than "cool." I was checking it out to match some pink keishi pearls. But online it can look almost clear, not grey at all.
Going back to the above picture, two kinds of clear crystals: "Moonlight" finish (far left); AB finish (top). Moonlight is sort of a cross between a plain clear finish and AB...a little more "shine" and "glow" than the plain, but not as much rainbow dazzle as AB. (Moonlight is nice, I like it.)
Isn't that just a beautiful green color? The picture's pretty accurate...it has green and blue glass in it.
This also represents me being tired of buying stuff. lol I decided to try my hand making a wire bail. It's nice...the fine gauge wire in the back doesn't show much when it's on. I could also make it fancier by wrapping the entire bail in fine gauge wire, but I thought I'd save that for another bail.
I'm also in the process of making some end caps out of wire. What with the E-6000 working so well, it occurred to me that handmade end caps would work just as well as bought ones...and again, I'm tired of buying stuff!
As it is, I'm out of 22 gauge wire...so trying to think of ways of trimming my costs.
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.
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.
Not sure yet about the black ones. They're exceedingly simple, made to match a black Swarovski crystal and Bali vermeil necklace. Since the necklace was kinda fancy, thought I'd go simple with the earrings. They're a good light weight, and not too long, on.
The turquoise ones are standard jig creations...the trick is to bend them so that the turquoise drops don't flip around when you wear them. I also "soldered" the side loops with some fine gauge wire. Debated whether to wrap the bottom loops as well, but there's no purpose in doing so (I could also have wire wrapped the top loops but wondered if that would be "too much").
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):
I'm pretty pleased with this piece even though these aren't the best pictures. I've found with my (older) digicam, the lighting has to be just right or else the pics get out of focus to a degree.
This is a bit more luxe than I usually make it, but it's a gift (note the gift bag!), and I wanted to do something with aquamarines. The strands are mainly faceted aquamarine rondelles, with some faceted labradorite rondelles and Bali silver beads. The clasp is also aquamarine and silver.
Got to try out that EZ Bracelet Sizer while making this piece. It does help actually. I started out with two strands, then decided to add the third strand with three aquamarine nugget beads in the center. It was too big with two strands but just right with the three.
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.
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.
Getting a little bored photographing everything indoors...and inspired by the Heartworks by Lori site, where she uses natural objects such as flowers, shells and leaves in her photos...thought I'd try out a few outdoor pics.
Hm. Mine are probably not as good as my indoor pics in commercial terms, but I'm loving the idea of including natural objects somehow...especially for stone jewelry, or pieces with a tiny bit of roughness to them.
Here again, some experimentation with photographing jewelry. This is a plain white cotton tee shirt and a different camera. I think the white paper used for the choker background worked better...but I think this camera works better (it's about the same age as the other camera, but I'm more familiar with the settings on it).
I'm going on what they call "cold turkey" on the cosmetics forums...all it means is that you stop buying something for a set period of time (with a couple of ground rules of course). Makeup junkies love to buy makeup, natch, so cold turkey for them means not buying cosmetics for x months.
I have a lot of supplies now, so I'd like to not buy them for...hm. It's the end of March now, so I'd like to go at least a quarter without buying beads and components. As to the ground rules, that would cover necessities such as crimps, crimp covers, stringing material, wire as needed (I don't think I actually need wire, I'm just saying)...stuff like that.
Bails and clasps and stuff like that, fall into a somewhat grey area, but I'd like to see what I can do with what I already have on hand.
Having done quite a few cosmetics cold turkeys, I can say it's easier than it looks. It's easy to fall into a habit of buying. Once you stop buying new things, you then have time and space to examine what you already have, and come up with a better concept of what you actually need.
lol! I strung this same piece three times, on a double length of softflex. The first time I got the length wrong...decided it looked best as a choker on its shortest setting. Bugger. The second time, I got the crimps right but neglected to leave enough space for the crimp covers...I'm not kidding, it was off by literally one millimeter (space enough for a 2mm crimp but not a 3mm crimp cover). It's that kind of mistake that's worth fixing, as tedious as it is, because I know it's going to bug me unto eternity if I don't fix it.
I think the engineering is good though, because so many crimps would have to fail, it's not all on one crimp, or even two.
I made the little extender chain and I'd like to see how that flies. It's regular handmade jump rings connecting soldered jump rings.
I got some tips on photographing jewelry from the jewelrymaking.about.com forum...here's the site: Heartworks by Lori
Here the advice was to use a white background, natural indirect lighting, set the white balance setting to sunny...there is more advice also, including to use a tripod, however this is as far as I got (I don't have a tripod as of yet). It's much better focused than before.
Here I think the charm is in the tourmalines...because they're "rough" looking in real life, rather than transparent gem grade tourmaline. The colors range a lot too, I really liked the black-plum colored ones so I included some of them here.
The pearls...as mentioned earlier, are those one-sided top-drilled ones. Doing them in a multi-strand design seems to keep a lot of the domed sides showing, for whatever reason.
I have some pink keishi pearls I'm going to use for a "matching" necklace...it's...harder than it looks. Ideally the pieces should work independently, i.e. you should be able to wear any one piece alone and have it work.
You should also be able to wear them as a set, and that's not something I have actually achieved as of yet. Even the citrine and silver "set" is not something I would care to wear all at once. I have it in mind to get more Bali silver beads (I got a lot of vermeil last time because I don't usually use silver) and make a pair of simpler citrine and silver earrings.
This is pretty straightforward, it's to match the necklace and earrings earlier:
Wondering if I should make it three rather than two strands. I'm going to get a silver three-strand connector bead anyway (just as I'm getting a vermeil one) so I'll decide then.
This is the same necklace pictured earlier, only now you can see the back (and the fact that I haven't put crimp covers on it yet). There's still a possibility I may redo this piece...I'm going to get a three-strand vermeil connector bead anyway, so I may add that in the front. Or might not. I like it the way it is actually.
Okay, I got rid of the double side strands and added more weight to the center of the necklace. The top pic shows the shortest length (choker), the bottom pic is the longest setting.
If the side beads won't stay put, I'm going to ditch this design and get a three-strand connector bead to put in the middle. I'm hopeful about it though.
At first I thought, at least I'm not reinventing the wheel...since this is the same design as the black crystal necklace. But, I wanted the two side strands to be twisted, and that doesn't work. If you do that, the tension in the twist migrates to the 3-to-1 beads and twists them too, messing up the front of the necklace.
Heh heh, I'm really nervous. This is my first "commission piece"; it's the first piece I've been commissioned to make for someone else.
Did I put enough slack in it?
It's a straightforward enough design, three strands of freshwater pearls (literally: three 16" strands transferred to softflex and double crimped, with wire thimbles). I tend to prefer slightly more, rather than slightly less, slack in my own pieces. Here I felt nervous so I didn't do that. Now I'm hella nervous. Did I mention I was nervous?
There is another pair of the Bali vermeil cylinder-shaped beads in the back, behind the last pair of chalcedony beads, that would show in the summer when you put your hair up (in fact I think of this as a summer necklace).
These are the same chalcedony beads I used before; I bought six of them, so there is now a lone chalcedony bead in the box. I suppose I've gotten away from "wrapping for wrapping's sake" and more into trying to create simpler, more wearable designs.
Speaking of wrapping...AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! There are so many different choices even for wire for this. All along I've been using half hard, round wire, usually 22 or 24 gauge. Now I've been reading that soft wire works better. I tried out some dead soft for doing my briolettes:
...and it worked great, but I never thought of using soft wire for wrapping!
Then, to make things even more interesting, I saw a rec for half round wire, this one:
image courtesy www.rings-things.com
The idea is that half round wire lies flatter against your piece and tucks better. Now that certainly stands to reason, and it's a great idea, but I am dizzy!!!!!
Okay, now this does go from two strands to one. I used a single crimp cover on each side and used some slightly larger beads to cover the rest of the crimps.
Ugh, this photo sux. I'm too tired to try getting a pic that's not out of focus?
Here the bugger was deciding how to handle the 2-to-1 strand design. The other time I did this type of design, I crimped the double strands on top of the cones--here I'm using 2-to-1 beads rather than cones--which was necessary in the previous design because some of the beads I was using for the single strand part had small drill holes.
Here it's not at all necessary so I decided to make the "one strand" part double, in short I brought both lengths of softflex up all the way to the back. Since I'm using wire thimbles, it was a bugger getting the ends closed.
Now my greater question is whether or not this is a stronger or weaker design than the first. My gut tells me it's actually stronger, since both strands would have to fail in order for the piece to break. Plus, it does look nicer in front because I don't have to design around a set of crimp covers.
Okey dokey...the Hypo Cement alone was not enough to anchor the end caps (see previous posts). Not that it should have been; it was sold as a "glue-in and crimp" clasp. I was just seeing if it would work with glue alone.
Part of it could have been that I didn't get enough glue in there (Hypo Cement tends to come out even when you don't squeeze the tube), part of it could have been that it didn't cure long enough (the end cap is completely closed on one end after all).
I gave it the full 24 hours and then tried pulling it. One end felt loose, the other less so. I started crimping the bottom of the loose-feeling cap and gave it a pull. The entire cord came out. :p I pushed the cord back in and this time really crimped it...and tried pulling it. Basically I pulled it up to the point that the leather started to stretch...I expect the clasp to be secure. Crimping it did work.
Anyhow it's done, except that I'll attach an extender chain when I get some.
I'm planning to make a series of these actually, using different Italian glass heart beads. This is a blue bead my daughter discovered in a bead shop, combined with Bali sterling spacer beads and a Swarovski roundelle.
This is going to go on the leather cord necklace when the latter is done.
Heh heh! At first I added the usual two inches to the softflex...that's what I've been doing for bracelets. When I started stringing this though, I realized I would need three inches, not two--the wire thimble and two crimps on either end, take up enough additional space to warrant it.
These are Artbeads.com goldfilled crimp covers. They are the right size, but the opening is smaller than Fire Mountain Gems' equivalent covers. I ended up jacking open the covers with my pliers to get them on. Once they're on, they're easier to close than FMG's, and they close very neatly. But there is that extra hassle in having to open them further before attaching them.
Trying out my Rings 'n' Things end caps here:
I tried to squeeze 'em full of Hypo Cement. As usual, it's messy. I'll need to let them dry for 24 hours before knowing whether or not glue alone will anchor the end caps. If it doesn't the first time, I'm going to try injecting the caps with more Hypo Cement.
Not the best quality pics, I took them just now. In the first pic if you look closely, the pearls have this eerie halo of light (at first I thought it was lint!). And the bracelet clasp is much prettier in real life. Oh well, just to give you an idea of the finished pieces.
Sort of, anyway. There was an interim version, with peridot nuggets...and the one on the right, I'm not 100% sure about yet. I was one rondelle short of putting five rondelles at the ends, instead of four...I'm debating whether or not to get more rondelles anyway (it's a beautiful jade). If I do, I would probably go ahead and make it five.
The original is dated August of last year; the one on the right was done yesterday. Same jade beads, I just cut apart the original and reused them.
My wire thimbles came from Rings 'n' Things today...oh, these are worth it.
They do make your loop bigger though...it looks fine but you do have to incorporate the slight extra length into your design.
Here is a piece I was working on when the order arrived (mind you, I'm still waiting on my crimps, so this design was temporarily strung anyway):
You'll note how much the wire thimble extends the length of the strand. When I get the crimps and actually make this piece, I'll likely take out the vermeil beads at the two ends of the strand, and just go with the look of a gf crimp cover terminating the strand.
Here you can see again how much difference the wire thimbles make in terms of length and space.
As you can see, I didn't bother stringing the third strand. I did the first strand to check the length...the second strand to see if the bead size would work with the spacer bars. When it's finished, it will have the infamous "wire guardians," plus of course some goldfilled crimp covers. I'll also likely migrate the deepest-colored jade beads to the ends of the bracelet, since the stone in the clasp is a deep green color.
Okay, I've redone the earrings...these are smaller teardrop-shaped citrine beads. Doing the wrap now has become easy for me. It took me, oh, about five or six times of totally dorking it up, but I've come to see that you have to dork things up at first. I mean you have to be of the mentality that you need to sit down and dork things up. And it's good. It's practice.
I'm starting to play with my 1mm black leather cord...I have five yards of it. It's really nice. I think it's better than 2mm for what I have in mind...I'd like to make a series of pendants. Mind you I don't know how to melt glass, these are just going to be worked with existing glass beads.
All in all I'm quite happy with how it's been going.
Pics and more rambles
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
January 22, 2007
at 2:08 PM (Pacific)
Jewelry is difficult to photograph, to the point that people who make jewelry sometimes pay someone else to photograph it.
I have picked up a few pointers from reading on the topic...
You are to photograph all of your pieces "on" a form...like a bust, or a neck form...not flat. I don't own a form but it sounds like a good investment, if you wanted to sell your pieces online.
Flash is bad. It bounces off your shiny beads and is a general pain in the butt. Try turning the flash off.
Direct lighting is almost as bad as flash! That explains why my previous citrine pictures were so bad. I played around with the top two pictures, trying to reduce the direct light (to the point that I stood in between the indirect light to block out more of it).
You should always use your "macro" button on your digicam (the flower icon one). And carefully "focus" (hold the shoot button down halfway) before taking the pic.
This is a horrible photo, I took it in the middle of the night. When I make the other earring, I'll take a better photo. What's great here is the top part...the citrine droplets catch the light and reflect golden. At the bottom is a citrine teardrop-shaped bead wrapped in argentium silver wire.
My daughter helped design this pendant...it's remarkably simple (being two white square pearls) but the balance of pearl and gold is quite pretty.
Ramble commences here:
Ugh, I'm at the point where I have several "almost finished" pieces. These pieces would be finished, if only...most of them are missing only one or two components, like the extender beads for the turquoise necklace, a clasp for a turquoise bracelet, some Bali vermeil beads for a square pearl necklace (I tried it with just the pearls; too plain), a clasp for a square pearl bracelet, yadda yadda...
I'm finding, once you've mastered the techniques, the next hurdle is finding all the pieces you need. It's almost insanely difficult. Even for basic components, I've used three etailers, not one.
I suppose I should look at it, that "almost finished" can become "finished" much more easily than, say, "half finished."
Turquoise necklaces
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
January 7, 2007
at 1:02 PM (Pacific)
Neither of these is 100% finished as of yet. Usually I put off using crimp covers until I'm sure the piece is perfect. The piece on the right, needs crimp covers on top of the cones as well as in back. It's kind of awkward wearing it without the covers, but then it's hard to recycle the covers, and I like to wear the piece at least one day, all day, before deciding it's done (I'm not sure if the length is right for this piece).
These are both American turquoise. Here you see the cones I was blogging about earlier. They're really nice cones (from Baubles and Beads in Berkeley).
Latest projects
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
October 27, 2006
at 11:51 AM (Pacific)
I got my Fire Mountain Gems order today. That was fast. I opened it up...everything was to spec.
The only thing I need now are earring wires and I plan on ordering those today from a different company (I'm picky about those).
On a sour note...I was packing some stuff to take to someone else. I had bought two feet of chain from Baubles and Beads in Berkeley...let me say I've been there several times and bought quite a lot of stuff before.
Since I was packing it for someone else, I had to measure and cut some other chain that I'd bought from another store. Just out of curiosity, I measured the chain that I'd bought from Baubles and Beads, and found it short by a quarter-inch.
This was supposed to be a one-foot length. The other one-foot piece, I hadn't even bothered measuring before using some of it, so I don't know if that one was short as well.
I'm not going to get in my car, drive to Berkeley, and haggle over a quarter-inch of chain. But I'm not shopping there anymore.
Anyhow here's what I'm up to.
Clockwise from upper left: citrine bangle with citrine clasp. Citrine earrings on gold-filled chain. Freshwater pearl bracelet with faceted onyx clasp. Freshwater pearl and gold-filled chain earrings.
I'm going to make a matching necklace for the pearl bracelet. In fact I got the clasp for it today in my FMG order...it's an onyx cabochon. They didn't have a faceted onyx and I figured the cabochon would look nice with a necklace (going to be a single strand of the same pearls).
I got the inspiration for these earrings from Target! They're made on a jig obviously. The top loop isn't closed (good design, thanks Target) and the other end is simply wrapped.
Hi! I dismantled the rose quartz and garnet necklace here:
It was a nice enough design but I ended up never wearing it. Kept three of the four-leaf-clover pieces from it...one in front and two in back (I seldom discard any design 100%, usually I keep something from the original).
Now it looks nice with the earrings, which I'd been considering dismantling earlier. Complex earrings go best with simple necklaces, and vice versa. I know, I know...
Over the next few days I'll be finishing up some pieces, thanks to my FMG order. Lessee...
I'll need to redo most, if not all, of my blue lace agate necklace. I love the design (it's spare but that only makes the blue stones pop more), but my wrapping on that piece is not so great. (It's the same one in the pic above.)
Going to match a matching bracelet for it; I have enough stones left from the strand.
Going to redo the carnelian bracelet pictured earlier. I think something simpler would be nicer (say, just carnelian and gold).
Of course there is the pearl necklace...it's already strung, just needs that onyx clasp.
Need to add a clasp to the citrine, yellow opal and agate necklace you can see some in the first two pics. Still debating whether I like the design or not.
Then there are the odd "this and that"'s...adding crimp covers here and there, switching out clasps, yadda yadda...
When I get my earring wires, my life will be complete. :)
Believe or not, the first time I've worked with chain. This is a copy of a pair of fine earrings I got as a gift, only with creamy white pearls rather than black pearls.
These were pretty straightforward to make, but be forewarned, the components are very small.
I can admit I hardly ever to go Michaels for beading materials. The problem is, we have so many good bead stores around...you get spoiled.
Michaels does however have some deals...I got a biggish bag of size 10 seed beads there for three dollars something, and they're very nice Taiwanese beads.
Tried going back there today since I was out at the mall. I still need some tiny beads to use with the other tube of Japanese beads I got. Michaels didn't have anything like the Taiwanese beads in another color...the closest they had were silver-lined pink beads, nice enough but not what I was looking for.
The reason I'm mentioning this: they did have a new display of beading stuff. It's not in the regular aisle; it's a sort of square island parked at the end of the aisle. I didn't see it until I was leaving in fact.
It's worth a mention because some of the stuff wasn't bad. They had some semi-precious strings (red jasper, rose quartz, smoky quartz chips, the like), some millefiori beads (albeit not the best), lil bit of dichroic glass beads...in fact they had some downright classy dichroic glass beads for around six bucks.
On the regular aisle, they had some lampwork beads that I almost bought. Again, not the best price or the most selection, but really not half bad.
Oh...what should I make? Today I added a third strand to this bracelet:
It started out as two strands and looked fine, but I figured I had nothing to lose by trying out a third strand. As usual, three is the magic number. The third strand makes the piece "show" more and feel more substantial.
What I need (or "need" depending on your perspective :D ), is a green bracelet. I have a couple I made long ago--my daughter designed a turquoise and freshwater pearl one, and I have a moss agate and freshwater pearl one. I'd like a jade one. I'll have to see what jade I already have...
While I'm at it (rediscovered an old digicam, but this one works better than the one I was using!), here is the same carnelian necklace here:
...but with the center links changed to bronze freshwater pearls:
Thus The Three Piece Rule is proven yet again. There it's a reference to composing an outfit, but I've found it can also apply to jewelry design. i.e., so often, three discrete elements make a better piece.
The first time around, I considered the gold fill (since there is a lot of wire in this piece) to be one of the three elements, yet it is not the same as having three kinds of beads--two sizes of carnelian beads and then the pearls.
As you can see, I used a blend of different Asian products! The beautiful deep blue seed beads are Japanese. I fell in love with these beads and then had to figure out what to do with them. :)
The bracelet has one of those Bali/Thai style clasps. It features three strands of the blue beads, sort of twisted.
For the necklace, I had three lampwork beads (I think they're Chinese) that almost exactly matched the deep blue with the raspberry pink lining. I actually had four beads but thought three would be luckier and look more harmonious.
This marks my return to glass...I did semi-precious stones almost exclusively for a while (having acquired enough confidence in my work to use more expensive materials), but glass does give you much more flexibility, since you are not limited in color. You can make literally any color jewelry in glass. So I had the notion of making a blue set. It's "costume-y" in the sense but there are times when you want jewelry to match a particular outfit or outfits.
Braided bracelet
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
at 6:51 PM (Pacific)
It's more of a "bangle," I suppose.
It wasn't that hard to make. The tricky aspect is the gauge of wire that you use. WigJig wasn't kidding when they said their braided bangle was 26 gauge wire. You've got six wire ends to finish on each side, and they have to go nicely into the loop of the clasp.
Hence, this was the smallest clasp I could use for this piece (24 gauge wire). The violet-stone one in the next post was what I tried to use at first: too small.
This came out pretty well actually; I don't think the pic does it justice. The triangle...and I've been trying to make a necklace with a triangle in the front for a long time...hangs nicely. It looks a bit puffy in the pic, but it isn't in real life.
I suppose that explains why most jewelry sites don't photograph the jewelry "on." To me it's easier to get an idea about the piece if you can see it on someone. It doesn't photograph as well that way though. grumbles...
I'm thinking about making this same design using faceted beads.
On the left is the braided sterling bracelet that needs a clasp. On the right is a wrapped gold-filled necklace with carnelian beads, that needs more wrapped links...the front part of it is finished; I'm planning to just make wrapped links (alternating small and medium carnelian beads) until it's long enough.
More pictures...
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
September 8, 2006
at 3:00 PM (Pacific)
The necklace is made out of oval iolite beads, blue lace agate chips, and some diamond-shaped faceted chalcedony beads I got in Cincinnati. I used handmade jump rings for this piece.
The earrings are the same oval iolite beads. At first I had them in a straightforward string of simple loop links, coming off a pair of the same chalcedony beads, but they looked far too ordinary that way. The beads are much too pretty...so I wrapped them all and put three strings of them on each earring, using this model: Diamond Chandelier Beaded Earrings Jewelry Making Project.
I've got to come up with a better way to photograph my jewelry! Unless you're already a good photographer, it's not easy. Here is one of the nicest earrings stagings I've seen: Muse On Main--I didn't want to link directly to any one pair of earrings in case they got sold--but check out how they hung the earrings on that cool statue.
Here I've got my iolite, blue lace agate and chalcedony necklace, iolite earrings, jade earrings, and the same turquoise, lustre glass and fluorite heart necklace I'd tried to photograph earlier on. I added it here because I just redid most of the wraps and it looks nicer now. It drapes better in real life than it does in the pic of course.
Finally, a detail of the earrings. Just today I decided to try adding some fine gauge wire to the iolite ones...harder than it looks, but worth the effort. Here you can see the color of the iolite better...hmmm...it looks a bit bluer here than in real life; it's purpler I would say. An interesting deep purple-blue with gold in it, or a sort of golden brown.
The jade earrings look really nice on. The diamond-shaped frame is gold-filled wire; the faceted jade beads are also from my Cincinnati trip.
A pic finally
posted by Colleen Shirazi,
July 15, 2006
at 4:28 PM (Pacific)
Here is the final version of that rose quartz necklace. I took off the front triangle altogether, got rid of the round r.q. beads, went with a simpler design...that's it.
These two pieces work together only if the rest of your outfit is very spare and simple otherwise imo it's "too much."
The blue lace agate/crystal necklace is the same as before; the earrings I just made today. Worn together, the blue color is very strong, which is good when you want the blue to stand out. I plan on making a second pair of earrings however that will have less "punch."
This is my fanciest piece to date. I made it last night...I couldn't sleep so I got up and made it. I'm not going to make a bracelet for it. The necklace alone is a whole lot of frou-frou. :)
The necklace came out longer than I'd planned because I fell in love with the oval faceted rose quartz beads. I didn't want to make the piece entirely out of them, but I wanted there to be a lot of them. And I love the little round garnet beads too.
I'm hoping it's not too long to be practical. Or, I could just make another one, but shorter. :D
Here is me engineering the triangle (got the idea from Rainbow Rabbit Designs linked to in an earlier post). It took a long time to get it just right. Perhaps because it is quite different; it's not the standard design.
This is oddly the hardest of the sets to photograph. For some reason, the blue-grey lustre glass beads tend to either look grey or else bright blue in the pics. Here at least you can see the fluorite hearts. (There is more commentary in the Image Library itself.)
I've officially switched over from base metal to sterling silver or gold-filled components btw. Base metal is great to practice on, or if you wish to produce very inexpensive pieces. But the first time I used sterling silver (my supplier is out of the gold-filled wire gauge that I want, which is why all of the wire work that follows is silver), I felt that it paid for itself. It's so much more beautiful than base metal wire.
Here are some fairly recent pieces. The jade briolettes actually came from a different bead shop than the diamond-shaped jade beads.
