Amazing What You Can Do With Beads!

This is a beaded garland that I finished up about 3 weeks ago.  It just sold at the local gift shop.  It's approximately 4 feet long, with a mix of brightly colored beads spun on craft wire.  The embellishments range from french beaded flowers to Swarovski crystal dragonflies and lots of stuff in between.  It's a great way to let your imagination loose.  The woman who bought this is using it on her Christmas tree this holiday season and then will use it in her sun room, looped and swagged in front of the windows so the crystals catch the light.

Earrings!

A few easy-to-make earrings created by yours truly. All of these have hand-made earwires. Making earwires is easy. I would strongly suggest that you never buy another earwire, since you can make them yourself much more cheaply.

 All you need is wire, pliers, a mandrel (I use both of the ones shown in the link image and they are well worth the money), a bench block or steel block for hammering. Make sure your block is smooth and free of gouges. If yours is like mine was, you may need to use an angle-grinder to get it back to smooth. More about that later!

 I also suggest using a rawhide mallet or a hard plastic mallet so you don't mar your wire. Years ago, before I bit the bullet and paid what I thought was an atrocious amount for my rawhide mallet (it's invaluable to me now), I would place a piece of suede over my findings before hammering with my chasing hammer. Still not a great way to do it. At least purchase a hard plastic mallet. Beadsmith makes one and it's very affordable. You can buy it here: Dual Head Plastic Mallet and you can also purchase replacement heads for it.  I use this for smaller items rather than trying to work small with a big rawhide mallet.  :)

These are turquoise beads with a "bezel" of 2mm sterling beads

These are copper tubes, freshwater pearls, sterling and copper beads with sterling earwires. 

These are some fun earrings I made with copper wire and garnet beads

These are freeform sterling wire earrings - not my best effort, but fun and easy to make.  They terminate in copper and garnets.  I probably should have soldered the top loop and my camera is better than the human eye, because it picks up things like cut marks made from my flush cuts.  That's a good enough reason to file and solder.  

These are twisted 18ga square sterling wire, hammered and formed (with half-round pliers), and garnet beads on pure copper head pins. 

None of these earrings required soldering, but if you want to make absolutely positive your jump rings won't come apart, you should probably hit them with a torch and solder them closed, if possible. 

I also find that when making earwires, a very easy way to smooth the "pointy" ends is with a metal nail file.  Seriously.  This actually works better for this purpose than any jeweler's file I've used. It's quick, easy, and you're not as likely to take off as much of your fingernails with it as you would a jeweler's file.  :)  

If you have a steel-shot tumbler, it's a good idea to throw all your findings in it for a bit to harden them up, especially if you're working in dead soft wire.  If you don't have one, though, you can work-harden by straightening your wire with a polishing cloth - just run it the length of your wire several times, and/or by lightly hammering when you're finished making earwires.  Jump rings and pins should be put in a tumbler or made with half-hard wire if at all possible.  

I use fine silver or Sterlium for my earwires and other findings.  Sterlium is alloyed with Germanium and doesn't show firescale the way sterling silver does.  Sterling will show firescale when heated because of the copper alloy.  You'll see a darkening after you fire it, and although pickle will remove a bit of this, you'll still be left with some dark spots.  The only time efficient way to deal with that for something as small as a finding is to tumble the item to polish it.  Fine silver won't show fire scale because there's no copper in it.  It's .999 silver which is pretty darned close to pure silver.  

Beaded Christmas Ornament

This one does double duty. It can be hung on the holiday shrub and it can be hung in a sunny window year-round to add some rainbows in your life. I went a bit overboard on this - the frame is 18 ga twisted square sterling silver wire. All the beads except for the cloisonne heart are Swarovski bicones.

And from a different angle:

Beaded Wreath Christmas Ornament

Just finished this. I'm very happy with the way it turned out. How is it made? Simple! I used a round base that had holes in it, but you could just as easily use heavy gauge wire for your base. The greenery is a mix of green seeds (greenery isn't all one color of green!) spun onto 24 ga brass wire. I spun just enough for each "branch" at a time, wired it down to the base, and then spun the next branch. The red beads are round garnet-colored czech glass, 6mm. I'd add one to the wire every few branches and then spin the green seeds on. Each branch is twisted for texture. I simply kept wiring around the form until I got it looking the way I wanted it. The loop is 4mm garnet Swarovski bicones.

This one is Swarovski crystals attached to a 20 ga copper base. I simply coiled copper wire around a dowel, pulled it off, and then carefully stretched it apart until the loops created by the coils showed individually. I looped one end with my pliers and hooked the opposite end of the stretched coils to it to make a circular base.

It's important to hammer this type of base to flatten it, but you don't want to hammer too hard because you may weaken it. Just give it a few whacks with a plastic or rawhide mallet.

PMC Dried Out? Try This

I tried this on a lump I've had for four years, because I'm getting back into PMC/Art Clay. I dug up my lump and it was rock hard. Okay - what is PMC made of? Fine silver, binders and water. Why does it dry up even if it's still in an unopened package? Water evaporates. Doesn't matter what it's in, really - it will evaporate.

All you need to do to get your clay workable again is follow these instructions. It works. I tried it - it's from Tim McCreight's PMC Guild website.

PMC is made of particles of precious metal, an organic binder, and water. The precious metal and the binder stay the same, but it's possible for the water to evaporate over time, even though the PMC has never been opened. If, when you open the box, the PMC is stiff and hard to form, it simply needs more water.

I've successfully re-hydrated PMC that had dried out rock-hard. It's easy to do: open the box and hold the lump of PMC under running water for a few seconds so its surface gets totally wet. Rewrap it in cellophane and set it aside overnight, periodically kneading the lump through the cellophane. The goal is to get the moisture into the PMC. This takes time because it is a very dense material. Unwrap and test the PMC: you should be able to flatten it into a disk without cracks appearing at the edges. If it's still too stiff, wet and rewrap it again and let it sit longer. Two treatments are usually enough, but you may continue until the PMC returns to its original, soft, workable consistency.

Also you can grind the clay up in a spice grinder or pepper grinder into a fine powder, then slowly add water drop by drop allowing time for the moisture to absorb.

This totally works (Tim McCreight is AWESOME) but you MUST be patient. Don't try to work your clay if it has cracks in it the first time you test it after adding water. Just add a few more drops of water, wrap it up again and let it sit overnight - knead it through the wrapping just as you did the first time and test again. You may need to do this a few times depending on how dry it is, but it DOES work. PMC and Art Clay are way too expensive to throw out just because they dried out. So be a smart artisan; rescue and reuse!

SQUAWK! Bird Houses Like You've Never Seen them!

This week's featured Artisan, Syd Baker,a former Hallmark Artist, is using his gifts to give our feathered friends lovely custom homes. Syd's shop, SQUAWK, is chock full of avian architectural delights.

These birdhouses are specifically built to attract the smaller birds. These whimsical custom homes will bring a smile to your face as well as to all the chickadees and goldfinches in your area. Keep a close watch and you WILL see a bird smile. Truly. Keep an eye on his shop, too, because he'll have Squawk miniatures for your holiday shrub later in the year!

To learn more about Syd and his wellspring of creativity, check out his website: Other 3D Lands. You will be amazed, amused and I bet you'll giggulate as much as my friend, Becky, does!

Bead Crochet- Literally!

When bead artists talk about bead crochet they're speaking of crocheting with some sort of string that's been strung with beads and on the yarn-over, feeding beads down. Me? I took it a step farther. I spun around two yards of Supplemax with a seed mix, and tied off the ends. Then I literally single-crocheted the bead string itself. No yarn-over, no feeding of beads. This one is an experiment. It's a row of chain stitch to 6.5 inches and a row of single crochet back. Next one will be two rows of single crochet and then I'm going to fold it in half, length-wise and stitch the side closed with supplemax. It's clear so it can't be seen, especially if you're feeding it through beads as you go. Go up and down the seam two or three times for strength.

On this one, I'll make the clasp loop out of stretchy so that the loop doesn't have to be huge. I kinda like this idea. I'm sure "true" bead crochet people would gasp in horror, but hey - what's art about if not creativity and innovation?

Beads, Flowers and Dragonflies!

I originally created this as a spiraled suncatcher and then I thought: "Hey - it's wire - it's got lots of uses!" So I wrapped it around a black metal wall sconce. While it's not long enough to go around the way I wanted it to, it gives me the inspiration to make some that ARE long enough. This is created from beads spun onto 24 ga wire - just a random selection of leftover beads, french beaded leaves, victorian beaded flowers, lucite flowers with Swarovski Crystal stamens and pistils and Swarovski Crystal dragonflies with beaded wings. It was easy, fun and it's truly beautiful. (If I do say so myself!) I just sold one like this at the gift shop where I sell some of my work - AND a photo of a piece similar to this one was featured in the Baltimore Sun this past Saturday! YAY!

Wire Crochet Bracelet

Tonight I was playing with a piece of 30 ga silver wire, just twisting it through my fingers and for some reason I decided I was going to do some wire crochet. I've never done it, but I figured what the heck - may as well try. I gave it a go with some brass wire first, and while not difficult to do, it's not as easy as you'd think. I found I do it best with the 30 ga dead soft, and this is what I made. It's not finished yet - I will be adding more beads and the ends have to be finished. I'm going to fashion a loop and crystal clasp for it, I think.

I'm wire-wrapping the ends, creating a scalloped edge:

You have to use a gentle hand when doing wire crochet, otherwise your stitches will be too tight and you have to be very careful to make them uniform.

The bottom row is teardrop freshwater pearls spaced with pink Swarovski bicone crystals. I scattered crystals throughout the bracelet and the last row is all clear Swarovski bicones.

I have a large round faceted AB crystal I'm going to use as a "button" and create a loop closure of 2mm swarovski clear round crystals.

4 Tips for Designing Jewelry on Demand - Daily Blogs - Beading Daily

This is an incredibly concise and wonderful how-to for designing a beaded project from Jean Campbell, an award-winning bead designer. If you're like me, you'll read this and think: "wow! I've been making it harder on myself than I had to!" Happy Reading.


4 Tips for Designing Jewelry on Demand - Daily Blogs - Beading Daily

Vintage Beaded Bag - Totally Blog-worthy!

I found this at my local thrift store for $1.98 today. Naturally I snatched it before anyone else could. No thought required. It's perfect inside and out. Not a bead missing, no yellowing on the silk lining, original Hong Kong label, frame in excellent shape, clasp perfect, strap perfect. I couldn't believe it and since I do a lot of beading, I felt this purse was blog-worthy. If anyone who sees this post can identify the age for me, I'd be grateful. I'm thinking 30's-40's.

Bead Spinner - it ROCKS!!

I love my bead spinner. This is a suncatcher I made tonight. I think next one, I'll make the dragonflies, flowers and leaves in advance, wire them to the bare wire and thread the leftover wire tails through the beads already on the wire and then load more beads - that way the wire for the add-ons won't show as much. At least that's the plan. :)

French Beaded Rose

This little fleur is actually huge. It's got five layers of petals. The interior is AB gold miyuki 11/0 seeds and the outer petals are a mix of AB gold, maize, light brown and matte cream. I had to use two floral wires, bent in half to support the weight of the flower, and a ton of floral tape. The stem, which you can't see, is finished in green ribbon. I was going to add leaves, but I felt that would be gilding the lily (or rose, as the case may be!)

French Beaded Flower - My first one! YAY!

Well, I was asked to teach Victorian and French beading recently. I can do Victorian, but I'd never done French, so for the past two nights I've been teaching myself. Last night I worked on just getting the technique right. Thank GOD for a bead spinner! Tonight I started at around 11:00 PM (it's now 3:40 am) and finished up at about 1:30 a.m. I'm tired, but I accomplished my goal and now I just have to finesse it a little. The leaves are too small for the flower, but overall, I'm happy.

Victorian Beading - Today's Flower

I love the colors on this one, but I didn't achieve the effect I was going for, which was a lacy, open look to the edges of the petals. A fellow artisan suggested the lacy, open look might succeed with a lighter-coloured flower, so I'll try that next.

The "space" you see between the petals is wire weaving where the petals were stitched together using wire. I wove it through the loops at the end of each bead row, joining the petals together.

These actually look lovely under low lights or candlelight because of the Swarovski Crystals in them.

Front View:

Side View:

And both flowers together: (can you tell I'm proud of them?) For a first try at this, I AM pretty proud. Now I have to get REALLY good at it.

Victorian Beaded Flower - Using the Tutorial I posted here

I followed the tutorial I have posted here and just added my own touches. I didn't make the petals tapered on both ends, because I wanted to make a tulip. I made 7 petals and then "stitched" them into a cup-shape with wire. The stamens and pistils are Swarovski Crystals on wire and then fed down through the center of the flower and wrapped around the top of the stem (which was created by the leftover wires.

I modified the tutorial instructions a bit. Since my wires ended at the wide end and I wanted them ending at the narrow end, I just wove them down the sides of each petal. I then brought all the petals together by threading a wire through the bottom bead of each petal, making sure all the other wires were facing the outside of the flower and downward, pulling it tight and then wrapping it around the remaining wires, thus forming a "stem."

I "stitched" each petal to it's neighbor using wire, making sure I ended at the bottom, and secured those wires at the top of the "stem."

This is stupidly simple. Seriously. Each petal took me less than 10 minutes. The hardest part was stitching the last petal into place, since I was working in such a small area.

Try the tutorial. It's easy and it WORKS.

Now the photos:

Side View:

Front View:

Making Flowers from Scraps - for Scrapbooking or anything!

I really liked this. If you're creative you can figure out that you can take her technique and do it any old way you want. You can cut your petals from scrap cardstock or even wired ribbon. This is the thing I like about paper crafts- there is very little waste.

Victorian Beading Tutorial

When I woke up this morning, I was all excited about attempting to make another beaded flower petal. It's the little things, you know. :) THIS tutorial is easy, and makes sense of what the diagrammed tutorial I used yesterday was saying. I'm a visual person, and watching her do this made the CLICK! go off in my brain. She doesn't say what gauge to use, but I would say use 28 or 30 gauge wire, dead soft. For jewelry, I'd use sterling silver wire - it simply adds a touch of elegance to the piece that it wouldn't otherwise have, and you can polish the wire that shows until it shines.

She only shows one petal here, but it's a very very helpful tutorial and you can build on it. Have fun!



She refers to her wire, at first, as "string." She means "wire."

You could do this with any small bead with a hole big enough to allow a double width of small-gauge wire to pass through.

This IS the technique I used last night, but it took me so long because the instructions I was using were NOT very comprehensive.

Enjoy!

Below she shows how to attach the petals together to make a flower. I would make several layers of petals and take some clear quilting thread, and holding the flower upside down, with the petals brought together in one hand and cupped (don't worry about bending them - you can shape them later) and stitch the petals approximately 1/4" from the bottom, all the way around. This will create a flower "hip" and will keep your flower petals from flopping. Then just bend your petals to create your flower!



And here she shows how to attach them to a stem. For this she is using heavier gauge wire, and you can also use floral wire and floral tape, if you desire. I prefer to bead my stems, though. That's a different technique than she shows here.

More Fun With Alcohol Inks

So I got bored tonight and decided to play around in Alcohol Inks. I stamped a tile using Sandal,Ginger,and Caramel with a tiny bit of Gold thrown in and then I rubber stamped a design using Archival Ink in Jet Black. Then I decided what the heck. I'd embellish. It was too one-dimensional. I also decided to attempt to embellish using only what I had lying on my work table - that's not as much of a challenge as you might think if you could see my work table. :)

So I pulled out some findings. They were all boring silver and gold-colored. Guess what? I dyed them! I used Twilight Purple Alcohol Ink, put three drops in a small plastic container, dumped the findings in, swirled them around until they were covered, pulled them out and let them dry.

Word of warning - if using Gorilla Super Glue on the findings after the ink has dried be careful not to get any on your hands because the ink will pull away on your fingers. Other than that, it won't rub off. If I were dying findings for jewelry use, I'd seal it with Krylon's Make It Last spray sealant. It's non-yellowing and lasts forever. It's a very good sealant but it also needs 24 hours to dry completely, so be sure to dye everything and seal it all at the same time - that way you can use the findings the next day.

Anyway - the photo below shows the tile, nothing is adhered - I'm simply laying out, but in the upper left corner, you'll see two butterflies. One is silver and the other is purple. The purple one has been dyed using Purple Twilight. I made antennae for it using brass craft wire and then added a drop of Hypo Cement at the top, since the finding is actually a pewter bead and the wire runs through the body of the butterfly. I just coiled the ends to make spiral tails for it.

I love these inks. My next project is to use some primer on a large picture-sized area over my bed and then ink the wall and rubber stamp it. Weird you say? Not really - think about a mural. You can do a LOT with rubber stamps if you know what you're doing.

Okay - since I know you really want to know what my work table looked like tonight, here it is. A little embarrassing, but hey - it is what it is. :) That's just the table I use for paper and altered artwork. I have my bench in my living room (a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!) where I do all my metal work.

This is Steampunk

This is an image that I borrowed from Crafty Bitch (she's got a blog here) and it's a GORGEOUS example of Steampunk. The very cool thing about Steampunk is that if you do it RIGHT, you're recycling. It can be very green! What I really like about this piece is that it's not over-industrialized. She's created an excellent balance between Victoriana and Industrial. Some who believe themselves to be "Steampunk Purists" maintain that it has to be all edgy and streamlined industrial with just a few flourishes of Victorian embellishment, but I disagree. As with any art form, it is what YOU want it to be.

Steampunk 101

Below is a link to information regarding the ongoing craze for Steampunk. Steampunk is an astonishing and lovely amalgamation of Victoriana and Science Fiction. The article below describes and defines it and provides some very cool images. Steampunk is funky, fun, and while the images in the article take it to an extreme, it is a very effective jewelry statement. Read on and then visit ArgentSol - Steampunk Findings to purchase the REAL thing - vintage jewelry findings that can be used in infinite ways to create interesting and unique pieces of Steampunk Jewelry. While this is a trend right now, my belief is that it will not be something that goes out of style with regard to jewelry, if pieces are constructed with an eye toward elegance and minimalism, and NOT over-done. If they are made correctly, and with quality components, these are unique pieces you will be able to hand down and they will be one-of-a-kind. Have fun reading and shopping. I'll be posting some Steampunk tutorials here soon.

Steampunk 101 | tor.com | Science fiction and fantasy | Blog posts

Okay - I Never Claimed To Be Able To Paint...

But I wanted to see what I could do with alcohol inks and a paint brush. This is my 3-second landscape. Yeah, I know - it sucks. But the point of the exercise was to see if I could use paint brushes with alcohol inks.

It can be done! I daubed the background in, and then I put three or four colors on a dauber felt, making sure they didn't blend with one another and a few drops of blending solution on a corner of the felt by itself. I then used a tiny stiff brush and stroked in a few trees and birds and something that appears to be a path but has zero perspective. So sue me. LOL!

The entire point though, was to prove the potential of these inks. The tile below (which will be re-done) is my experiment. It's a lousy photo - too much flash,and the colors just don't show as well as they should - but you get the idea with it. This is my 3-Second Bad Landscape Tile. Yes, my work-space is a wreck, but oh well. :)

Here it is with some blending solution applied and the "path" blended out - see how easy it would be to make a rocky outcrop? I can see that as rocks after I've done a little work with it. :)

And this is with the entire image blended out and a paint brush swirled across it. The blending solution with completely remove the ink if I want to do that:

Alcohol Ink. More Alcohol Ink. Someone Stop Me Before...

Everything in my house is faux-finished with alcohol ink. So I started this table the other day. I'd already done one in browns and golds. It came out lovely. I decided to try for a marbled effect. It worked okay until I started on the apron of the table. I'm going to paint over that with white. I think the table will be lovely with just the top finished. I used Ranger Adirondack Alcohol Inks in Pitch Black, Rust and Gold.

I used the felt dauber and daubed around the arc of the table, constantly blending with Adirondack Blending Solution. You don't need much of it. Once I had the color on, I "marbled" simply by drizzling the Blending solution randomly across the table. Again, less is more. Do a little and see how it looks. It's very easy to get splotchy with this solution. :)

I like it. Comments are welcome. Remember, I'm painting over the "apron" of the table, which is why that appears unfinished.