Copper Torque Necklace

  A fairly simple project finished in one evening. The most exciting thing about this project is not the design itself, which I find boring. But it's this....

  If you look closely at the braided part, you will see it is very lightly hammered. The hammering of the braid gives it a lovely spring and strength for curling around the neck and keeping it's shape over time. This made me very happy:)

  Now I just need to come up with a more interesting design. I'm flush out of ideas at the moment.

A Brief Detour

   I have been redecorating my bedroom all week. Over the years the changes in furniture has caused my room to be a mismatched horror of white wicker, dark woods and now a new/used bed in maple.

  I woke up one morning and decided I had had enough and launched myself into a rather big project which has taken me away from wire for a short time.

  I found a gorgeous spray paint called 'Oil Rubbed Bronze". Doesn't that sounds cool? And it really looks cool too, and so all my furniture is getting painted and that takes awhile.

  I've always played it safe decorating with very neutral colors, but now that I have been at this creative life for more than two years.... I find the old ways no longer satisfy:) I find I want more red and orange and bright colors in my home and I'm doing alot of shopping to find some bargains to add color to my room. It's definitely a budget redo:)

  In the meantime my friends, I have found two more wonderful artists who work with copper metals and wire to make lovely vessels or sculptures. I'm sure that you will enjoy them!

Eventually I will get back to my own wire projects.

http://www.francessolar.com/pages/home.php

http://www.maryhicksmetalarts.com/

Abalone Button Brooch

  Experimental design. Meaning that I did not plan out, or know what it was going to look like, before I began the project. ****shudder*****

  Not my favorite way to design but I think it's important to break out and try different methods sometimes. You never know how it might affect your future work.

  When my sister-in-law reads this blog post she will email me privately and say "Why did you put a nipple ring in the center? "  LOL!!  I'm so sure:)

  What do you guys think? Should I change the center dangle appearance?

Twined Carnelian Necklace

  Another design that was 'not as planned'. I'll be doing another necklace soon that will include the mistake part of this design:)

  I didn't want to redo the other component so I changed my design to something easier. I think maybe it turned out better this way:)

  My photography is pretty bad, I know, but I'm too lazy to fix it. Sorry!

Not What I Wanted

 I'm being less controlling this month. I'm not trying to get my way about everything. I let my other needs and living my life get in the way of my wire agenda more often.

  In some ways I am more content, even though my longing to do more wire has not lessened. I am trying to make peace with my life as it is, and I have been successful.
  So I don't get much done:)

  And I have begun a strange, for me, way of working. Which is to have multiple projects going at once. I flit like a butterfly from one idea to the next but that method gets nothing done also.

So I guess this brooch is a good example of my frame of mind. This design was "not the plan". Very far off from the original plan in fact. I usually recycle the work that falls too far from the design idea.

I just couldn't stand to not rescue this design and get something done. So this is me, not getting my way but rescuing the situation:) It's growing on me. I like it's whimsical quirkiness.

The vintage abalone button is much nicer and shinier than it appears in my photo work.

Victorian Jewelry

  It's very busy at the office right now and I am not making any jewelry at the moment. I'll try to do something simple over the weekend so that I can submit to Year of Jewelry.

  If you need some inspiration, I recommend this video by Mona Hair on Victorian Jewelry. I had a lot of ideas when I watched it a few weeks back.

  She doesn't really get started until about 10 minutes into the video, you can scroll it forward a bit.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/14732547

Coral Sterling Necklace

    The first challenge I had to overcome to make this necklace was simply to remove my frugality from the design process. Once that was out of the way it all moved along at a good clip until I got to the beaded bead:

  It took me 4 evenings to get it done and work out all the details. Should I make it in wire? Or thread? Do I tumble it? or assemble later? Will it be a round ball or a link?   Do I even have wire small enough to weave 2mm coral beads? Do I have thread small enough? No I don't.

  The beaded coral components used up an entire strand of 2mm coral beads and than I had to search my local bead stores for a somewhat close match to finish it. It was a good reminder that bead weaving takes longer than wire weaving. My hat is off to all those bead weavers who make such extravagant works!

Now that I have the supplies and the know how I really want to make another link.  I used 'right angle weave' to made the bead and 32 gauge wire. I think the wire is steel or some sort of base metal. But the rest of the necklace is sterling.