Creative blitz, and one piece of chaos later...

I haven't posted anything in forever, but I've kept busy. Not really new styles, but new pieces none the less. Though one is a bit...different.

another necklace/bellychain...I made this one 35" and apparently that's just a bit too long to use as a bracelet...well, except on someone who's wrist is either smaller or larger than mine.

Not a new style of necklace, but it is slightly different, I've never added a tail chain before. And instead of buying one of those preemade ones with the metal charm, I made one with a bead in the same color different shape.

 if you haven't noticed already, I tend to organize by either shape or color...keeping 'likes' together in some way. The one above, are all the same octagonal shape. To the left are all beveled, and below are round. All came from the same three packs of beads, I divided them this time by shape.




There's also symetry...each one has a center bead (or in the case above right, split evenly in the center) and then each bead is mirrored on either side

And then I wondered what it would look like if I stopped doing that, just once...obviously I didn't use several different shapes, I didn't have anything else like this bead. I love these, they're practically luminescent, I poured them out on my plate and thought 'they look kinda cool there in no particular order' and then I had a new style, lol. no order to the shape, size, number of beads in a 'set', even the lenght of chain between the sets is out of uniform...and I love it!!  I failed a little with the bracelet, it almost looks orderly, lol.

Getting ready for Halloween

Kind of interesting to get excited about Halloween again. Our family kind of just gave it up after our Dad died, I think it just seemed weird to everyone to celebrate a holiday that was also the anniversary of his death. But the next generation has brought back the spirit (pun intended, lol). Too bad mom doesn't still have her Vincent Price recordings.
 This year we grew small sweet pie pumpkins so my sister can make us all pumpkin pie, lol. We still had to have Jack-O-Lanterns for Halloween, but we didn't want to cut up the pumpkins just yet, so my neice and I spent Tuesday cutting and glueing rather than scraping and carving.

Stirling silver

I actually started out with the base metals with the hope that I'd get good enough that I can work with stirling silver without it making me nervous...that didn't happen. But I have gotten good enough that I thought it was about time I made a few pieces in SS anyway. I have already done a few things, with a larger gauge SS wire, like the things I made for my mother. However these are all made out of 26 guage wire, a bit smaller than what I used for the jump rings and much smaller and more fragile than the headpins I regularly use.


All the pieces have perdot, but the one's with the amethyst also are part of a Christmas gift .

Yes I'm working on Christmas already!!!!

 Can't decide if I want to keep these two for myself or try to sell them...



Wrapped wire chain necklace

In two tone, copper wrapped wire links with a silver base metal chain that's been folded over twice to form a double U. Each end of a clasp is added to the top of the U; the bottom of the U is fed through one end of the wrapped links, then the clasp end is fed through the center and pulled to make a knot.

The links aren't perfect circles, and aren't wrapped finely like my rings, but personally I like it that way. I might try to make it with the closely wrapped rings one day, but I think that would make it look too perfect...and not hand made.

an October post

lest you think I've done nothing today...

 really I was just curious if I could wrap them within each other, I didn't expect to like it, and I've add three more links since I took the picture. I think this would be nice as a feature section on a chain necklace, maybe added as the middle or woven onto the chain, I'll have to think about it, maybe I'll even add more to make it a full chain by itself...though that would take me days, this was time consuming. And it seems that every time I complain about a project being time consuming, I come up with one that's more so.

Another of the light wrapped rings, this one with three simi-precious stones and 34 guage wire in silver color. I don't know what they are, I didn't ask when I bought them, but they're as small as the seed beads and are what I used in the crocheted watch band and matching bracelet.

For the record boys...just a short note on dating

It is ok to tell a woman that you love her ass...but not over the phone...while she's at work. And seriously, it would go over much better if you introduced yourself first, regardless of the method by which you deliver your message. And probably you shouldn't choose to go covert with someone who has a memory for voices :\ (tangent thought for any and all Hoosiers...irregardless is NOT a word!!)

Also boys, if you want to ask a girl out, and you present yourself while she's at work, after you've already established that she's too busy to chat over the phone because you called before you stopped, then's the time to ask...not over the phone ten minutes after you've left her place of work. I'm sorry I laughed at you pal, but you have to admit that's kind of on the rediculous side. I understand shy, that's not just shy, it's weird.

Compliment or creepy...it's all in the delivery.

For instance, establishing that a girl is old enough to date before you ask her out comes across as flirty...telling her after, no matter if she's accepted or rejected your offer, that you didn't think she could be a day over 18 makes you seem a bit like the dirty old man you really are.

And for the girls, if your girlfriends, frenemys, sisters, co-workers, etc. suggest wearing a 'fake ring' JUST SAY NOOOO!!! The one's you want to ward of with this talisman will not notice...and I guarantee, the one you absolutely, positively, do not want to see you wearing this token of a fake comittment is the only one who will notice. Add gentleman the list of what makes him so damn attractive...damn, damn, damn.

oh hell...
oh well...
I'll just keep making crap...

I'm going to call these barely there rings, because 'for real' (I stole that from my 5 year old niece) I can't feel these when I wear them. They take a lot more time and patience, but it's worth it, I just like them so much better than the other wrapped rings.

and then it becomes....

...a barrette

I just can't stand making something that doesn't have a function.

I love that I figured out what to do with it, but at 5am I'd rather be sleeping. It's going to have to be them or me, I can't take the noise anymore, I must sleep.

So this is what the new bracelet looks like in the end...kind of.

 I forgot to take a picture of the red and copper bracelet before I gave it to my mother, who I was making it for in the first place. I was just so excited that it worked I had to see what she thought of it right away I guess, lol. She loved it and my neice was jealous, so I made her one too, in pink, didn't think to take a picture of that one either. So, I decided to make one for myself in black, but then forgot that the spools I've been buying only have enough wire to make two bracelets. Kiara's was of course smaller than mom's, so I ran out mid bracelet, but I think I'll use it as an sample peice...'cause I certainly can't use it for anything else, lol.

But officially, it does work, lol

A wearable bracelet, smaller and and in silver instead of copper

Possibly the smallest ring ever, lol. Made with red seed beads and wrapped with 34 guage wire, it was so small it gave me a headache trying to see where to lay the wire.

The ring on the right is a size 5, the one on the left is a 7...the one in the middle I can get over the first knuckle of my right pinky finger, lol...and my knuckles are small.

I was just having a moment while I was brainstorming, but it's kinda fun to wear, and I can't feel it at all. I might have to do a few just for the hell of it.

blah...

That's what I think of this blog...specifically the title. At first I liked it, it was cutsie and quaint...but that's all it is, and that gets boring fast. Soooooo....let's try something else. But let's try it tomorrow...the neighbors are suddenly quiet and their guests, who were, naturally, parked under my bedroom window, just left. I plan not to have any night terrors tonight. Don't know what those are? You don't want to. But, if you do want to; imagine waking up inside a nightmare, but not really, you know you're awake, but you can't move, you can't speak...or rather scream because that's your first impulse...and your heart feels like it might burst with the next beat. Sometimes it's auditory, a birdsong turns into the scream of a lost child. Sometimes a heavy blanket feels like a stranger sitting on the bed. Or the sheet falling away feels quite like an animal scurrying across your arm and torso. Sometimes traffic lights from the nearby highway make a five year old's mind believe she's gone blind...the rest of the family remembers that night fondly.

Sweet dreams.

Exciting new idea

I'm going to combine the crocheted wire with the wrapped rings to solve my problem with clasps. I've been looking everywhere for a clasp that connects to a piece that will accommodate more than a 2 or 3mm open ring. Traditionally, all clasps have one or more small rings attached at the non-clasp end that attaches to the principle object to you want to connect, i.e. bracelet or necklace. This does not work well with my crocheted jewelry. I've had to search out two and three ring clasps and attach with jump rings which then still doesn't keep it from curling. I should probably thank my @%#$%^ neighbors for keeping me up till 6:30am on Wednesday...more on that later...because if I hadn't been up blasting my dinky battery operated radio to counter their thumping stereo, I doubtless would have thought of this in daylight hours, possibly while working and forgotten it when finally home. Anyway, so far I've made the rings, in copper wire, one plain ring and one with stones, the second I'll bend to form a hook that will also serve as the 'color' on the piece. I'll crochet a bracelet directly onto the two rings, and voila, no curling...I hope. I'll add pictures as I have them.

So far:

You'll have to imagine the ring with the red beads forming a C so that it catches the plain ring. The crochet wire will wrap around the left side of the left ring, forms a circle and wrapps around and connects to the right side (plain side) of the right ring.

Ok, as for my neighbors, I'd like to pose a question. I'm not a smoker, and while I have had a drink on occasion, I'm not much of a drinker..well, now not at all since the thyroid med can't do my liver any favors. I have never in my life smoked marijuana or anything else for that matter, not even a cigarette, nor have I ever swallowed any kind of pill I couldn't buy from the drugstore, either over the counter or by prescription from a doctor. So forgive me if I don't understand the idea of changing one's perceptions by use of burning chemicals. My question is, why the hell would you set fire to, and put in your mouth, something that smells like your six month-olds dirty diaper? Ok, so I've never had a six month old either...but that's what my appartment smells like when I come home after he's been having one of his little parties...like someone set fire to the dirty diaper bin. wtf. I'm serious, I don't understand, someone please enlighten me....I'll let you answer while I take a scented bath at 2AM. Good night.

Well that's great....

Baby brother just up and moved back to Arkansas...I say back though even for the oldest, more than half of our lives were spent here in Indiana, and all but our oldest sister was born in Florida. Our mother can't understand why, if we only spent seven years there, do we all think of it still as 'back home'. Sometimes I don't either to be honest. But he's a roofer and contractor, and jobs are getting scarce...and it gets damned cold here in winter. That said, I really hope our niece got to make him feel like a big jerk last night for packing up all his shit in the middle of the night and leaving without saying good-bye to her...though it should have been him holding her, cleaning up her face, and wiping her nose, telling his niece he'll see her again. I hope he finds work...but he's still a jerk. And he never sent me the pictures I took with his camera of our last trip to Arkansas, what a boob.

Besides family this is the only thing I miss about Arkansas

More rings

I can't seem to find my dremel battery charger, so the cabinet will have to wait. So, this is what I did today (after it got too hot to be outside, I thought it was September?!?!).

26 gauge silver colored wire and, and shells from Grandma's seashell collection

26 gauge copper wire and 3mm fire polished czech glass

26 gauge wire wraped hoops, with 4mm green crackle glass beads, on base metal earwires

What I did this week

I've been away a while and this is what I did when I wasn't doing something else, lol.

I found a use for the 26 gauge black coated wire:

Wrapped bangles

Wrapped rings

These are sterling silver, for my mother, she can't wear anything else.

I'm used to working with base metals and so I don't worry as much about mistakes, I can just make it again. I can't be so careless with silver, it's too expensive. I didn't make the posts (though I do for my own, since I can only wear silver in my ears) but I did make the links and the jump rings (which I used most of for a necklace, I made nearly 200, and let me tell you, that is tedious). I made her a bracelet/necklace/earrings set in the amethyst chips too, and then forgot to photograph them. I've not had idle hands this week...and I have the callouses to prove it.

One more thing...
Thirty-three inch chunky bracelet/anklet/necklace/belly chain

I will most positively be doing this one again, I love that it works so well for so many things and I think it'd look great as a headband too, just needs another clasp to hold it in place at the other end because it's too big for one wrap and too small to be wrapped around twice



I've been getting lots of positive feedback on my crocheted jewelry, but I think, instead of more jewelry, I'm going to finally make this project idea a reality.

I'm going to start with a miniature version...but it will still be functional. The cabinet is solid at the back, top and bottom. The corners are framed making it open on three sides, with crocheted wire attached from the inside, and lighting attached at the top to highlight the glass beads that will be crocheted into the face and sides. Hopefully I'll show you a finished piece next week. :)

Grandparents day

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. ~ Albert Einstein

Sometimes, I couldn't understand it, until she explained it to me.

If you have a Grandma, give her a hug and a kiss and tell her how much you love her.

Vina Geraldine, My grandma, the 'Grand Mama', left us Memorial Day, Monday, May 31, 2010. Her twin sister, Vera Movaline, Aunt Molly, passed away Labor Day, Monday, September 6, 2010.


Caring nurses, loving mothers, doting grandmothers and spoiling great grandmothers who will be missed terribly.

I miss my grandma, but I can't end on a sad note, because that wasn't how she was...

Right back atcha Grandma!!

Two new necklaces

These are both glass beads in pinks and mauves, in fact they came from the same packages of assorted beads.

Pearls

Soapstone Roses and Czech glass.

New title

Let me explain...to my mother, every child is a Punkin, so at one point or another all of her children and grandchildren are or have been "Punkin"...and every year I grow a pumpkin patch in her back garden...so in tribute to my mother, who encoraged the artist in me at a very young age, this is now The Punkin Patch.

I only ever plant one vine, but somehow it always seems to take over...

More basic Necklaces

I used glass beads for both of these, and base metal head pins to make the links.

A choker made with Czech glass beads in almost chartruse color, sort of a yellow green, with a flower hook and eye clasp.

I was surprised by how this one turned out, the beads are glass, but not well made, they were in a bargain bin and I liked the green milk glass kind of color and figured I could salvage the good ones, but then I couldn't find any colors I liked to go with it, and everything I had seemed to inhance the flaws in the shape, but alone, and by alternating the sizes, it works well.

Back to Basic

A necklace, by request. She actually wanted the Swarovski crystals I used for her mother's bridal set, but I was afraid she'd wear it too frequently. These are 5mm black diamond bicone beads, and 4mm x 3mm smoke fire polished czech glass beads. And I simply made the links with nickle plated base metal head pins.

Hope she doesn't mind, I tried it on :)

This one was inspired by a failure, I tried making my own jump rings with a black coated wire, but it turned out to be too thin, so right now I'm still thinking about what I can do with a spool of 26 gauge wire. I had been saving these jump rings because they seemed too big for anything I usually make, but as it turns out they were perfect for my original idea...

Still crocheting

A watch...I needed one, I think I'll share this one on Etsy though, I think other people would like it. I used a 1.00mm crochet hook and 34 guage wire, and twelve 2mm semi-precious gemstone beads.

A matching bracelet, same needle, same beads, but I added the beads randomly.

Another bracelet, this one was crocheted with a 1.00mm hook and 34 guage wire also, but has twelve 4mm bicone beads in light Siam, Amethyst, and light Amethyst.