Week 32 - celtic knot chainmaille

This is the second class I took at Jewelry Art Expo. This one was quite easy and I can't wait to do some more of them when my wire comes in! Sterling silver and gold filled; it could be done with all sterling or all gold, but doing the two tone makes it alot easier to do. I also made a pair of earrings to match (which currently are hiding somewhere). I'll definitely do this again. It lies flat on the arm, a very easywear piece.

Week 31 - The final week

One week until my open house! This past week's focus was on pricing and some ankle bracelets.

This weekend I went to Jewelry Art Expo and took two different chainmaille classes. Thoroughly enjoyed them! This is the first of the two results, I'm saving the second for next week because there will be no time to make anything. This one is called "Turkish Round'. Its a bold bracelet; I chose the 18 gauge ss rings, we had a choice of 18 or 16, the 16 was just so large, I couldn't see me wearing it! This is very wearable, I'll enjoy it.

Bling and more Bling

This week's focus for the open house was all things with bling, swarovskis. I love these little shiny crystals, I can't get enough! This is just a small sampling of what I created in this batch, lots of spring colors, in both silver and gold, strung and on beading chain. I did one wired piece so I kept up with the year of jewelry :) this was a quicky, Large swarovskis that fit on the 18 gauge wire, which was then wrapped with 20 gauge.

Week 29 - Lampworks and more lampworks

This week's focus for my open house was lampworks. I have a couple few thousand (ok, slight exaggeration, but not much). I did a variety of sets, some wireworked, some classic stringing, some gold, some silver, my focus wireworked piece this week is in copper, something new for me. This is a lovely set of lampworks was created by my friend Debbie Givens (ebay seller dgg112). She does great work, and I love the new square press she got! This set of beads is black and ivory and turqouise with goldstone, the goldstone was close enough to copper for me to use copper with it. I played with doing some squiggles on a couple of the pieces, I didn't want to take away from the beauty of the glass. The other is picture is a sample (yes, I was very busy this week) of the classic strung lampworks.

Under the sea

This week's focus for my open house was all things under the ocean... sponge coral, mother of pearl and pearls, of course. I did a variety of classic strung items, using various colors and focals. For my wireworked piece, I used 26 gauge wire, creamy pearls in various shapes and created groupings of pearl sections that were wired together. Its a delicate piece and yet I think it stands out well! I'll do more of this, it was fun!