Showing posts with label Kingman boulder turquoise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kingman boulder turquoise. Show all posts

Saturday, 26 October 2013

Triple-Wrap Kingman Turquoise & Leather Bracelet

This is a bracelet I'd made for Rene at Let's Eat Cake a couple of years ago, but that a kitten recently decided made a great chew toy. The button loop became history. Bad kitty. I restrung it this morning at the market. Yes, alas, it was that slow.

Chan Luu-style triple-wrap bracelet using 4mm Kingman boulder & 6mm Kingman blue turquoise beads
& natural 2mm Greek leather with a copper button closure

If you'd like to order one like this or using other beads or other leather, please email me for a quote.

Thanks for looking!

Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Yikes! 2.5 weeks until...

...the Grand River Bead Society Show on the 27th and 28th in Guelph! Check out the classes here.

I'm busy pricing my new shipment of Kingman turquoise. Please let me know if you want half or one-third strings of these or any of my other turquoise (Sleeping Beauty, Nacozari, Castle Dome, Hubei, Ma'an Shan). I will also have a small selection of individual beads to choose from. I will be posting more pictures as I split them up and I will be happy to reserve them for you to pick up at the show.

Kingman blue mini-nuggets and 5mm blue heishi...


Kingman boulder barrels and rondelles...


Tube heishi (unknown provenance), Kingman blue and green heishi...


Sleeping Beauty, 1/3 string, 13 beads, $35...

Sponge coral, various sizes, shapes, prices...


Thanks for looking and see you at the show!

Wednesday, 2 November 2011

KETCHUP CLEANS COPPER!!!!!!!!!

...like magic!

The two on the left haven't been cleaned yet -- this is about a week's worth of accumulated tarnish after I cleaned the wire before hammering and making the squiggles. On the right, same wire, same original degree of tarnish, but has been cleaned with ketchup.


They are so squeaky clean they positively glow and are so pretty with the silver. I rubbed a few drops of ketchup into the wires for a few seconds, cleaned off the excess ketchup with a paper towel, washed them in distilled water with a few drops of dish soap, then rinsed them in distilled water because the tap water in this area is full of mineralisation.

Here is a pendant with just a few days' accumulation of tarnish from sitting out, and with only the lower right side cleaned with ketchup. When my camera batteries recharge, I'll clean one of my old pairs of earrings from the market and show the difference.


Annnnnddddd... my most tarnished pair of earrings that have been sitting out for at least a year, if not longer.

Of course, now I have to dig out and clean all my market stuff. Where's the sale on ketchup when you need it??? Just wish it would clean silver this easily.
New Stuff:
More copper squiggle earrings with a slightly longer earwire so that the beads sit a little better. Personally, I like this style. Quick to make and easy to keep them looking pretty much identical. I think they suit the more "tribal/crafted" earrings. I tweaked the overall design and they move super-freely -- again, have to dig out the original squiggles and rejig them.



You can see how shiny and clean these look now, compared to the pix above.


Friday, 19 August 2011

It's Friday and Bwahaha III is baaaaack

I was pretty busy all week. Got a lot of turquoise and chrysocolla leather-wrapped bracelets made in single, double and triple wrap combinations. Pretty much all of them will have to be taken apart: I didn't have any nylon thread so I figured I'd see how bad it could be using polyester. Bad. Really bad. The thread was fraying like crazy before I'd even finished making the bracelets. Here are some pictures for now, but I will be redoing all of them this week. They look fantastic on, if I do say so myself.

Kingman turquoise (4mm boulder & 6mm) triple-wrapped bracelet, natural Greek leather; double-wrapped chrysocolla; single-wrap 4mm Kingman boulder turquoise bracelet



The turquoise is from The Turquoise Chick, Albuquerque. The natural Greek leather is from Bamiyan, Toronto. I cannot get over how great this stuff is to work with compared to the el cheapo stuff I've been buying from India. Orders of magnitude difference.

Got through a ton of earrings today. Nose to the grindstone day. I'm whupped. Finished off my typing at 9:30 this morning and basically chugged along all day. Got a lot of inexpensive feather earrings done finally, and made a pile of Swarovski earrings to replace the ones I've sold in the past few weeks.

I made fairly simple earrings that I can sell for around $5 or $6 a pair depending on how many feathers are on them. I want to talk to people to see what they're looking for.

Then I kind of went nuts and made Bwahaha III. Not sure how the feathers are going to hang when there are two on one side and one on the other side of the skulls. Might have to add another feather to each. Pewter skulls are from Happy Mango Beads and, yes, I'm getting lots more.