Copper Woven Leaf Pendant...

I spent most of today watching Russian wire-weaving tutorials -- in Russian, no less (and no, I absolutely do not speak Russian!) but the guy draws little pictures so you can clearly see the weave patterns -- on YouTube. I cannot believe the magical work that is being done there. I learned a ton today and got really inspired: here is my new leaf pendant with copper wire weaving. Nope, no idea what this stone is. It's green, sometimes see-through, definitely dyed... and very pretty.

If you'd like to watch some great instructional videos from Russia and see lots of inspirational pictures, they're pretty much all towards the top of my Pinterest board here. These are videos I still have to watch.

Yet again the back ended up becoming the good side. And I ran out of wire, even though I cut it extra long. Gaaaaah.

Front:

Back:

Side view:

You can come and see this and any new pendants (and earrings) I get done in the next two days at the Woodstock Farmers Market at the Fairgrounds on Nellis Street this and most Saturday mornings, 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon. Or you can email me for availability/cost/shipping rates or to wrap a special stone just for you or perhaps someone on your Christmas gift list.

Don't forget, The Gem Expo is coming up fast: just three weeks away. See you in Toronto!

Okay, now to go back and make another one. Thanks for looking!

Minimal Skull Pendant Wrap & A New Beginning...

This skull cab pendant had no drilled hole and since my customer is male, he wouldn't like any scrolly, lacy trapping that I might otherwise have done -- and I rarely glue bails to anything. Once the copper darkens it will melt into the skull colours and be virtually invisible.

It doesn't show here, but once I was finished, I used my round-nosed pliers and goinked the back wires into zig-zags to tighten them up a bit.

Interestingly -- from a learning perspective -- this is the first time I've wrapped and trapped a pendant like this with dead soft copper wire. So MUCH much easier than using half-hard. Wowie zowie.

Then I started on my next project. I've been looking at this shape and the swirly storm cloud purple colours for a couple of days now. I have no idea what the stone is. It kinda sorta reminds me of lepidolite, but I got it off one of those budget strings of mixed pendants so it could be anything. A little free word association, along a desire also to do something incorporating tiny beads into the wire-woven edge and I ended up with this... 

Some notes: I started out with one idea, to have the pearls go all the way around, and gave up on that pretty quickly. I also didn't have the garnets with me that I was also thinking to incorporate. This will be another curvy freeform effort. 

I began by bending three wires at a 90 degree angle, nesting them and taping together what ended up becoming the plain woven edge you see in the photo. Note that the bend came before I changed my mind about the overall square wrap design. 

I cut off about 4 or 5 feet of 28 gauge wire and wrapped half of it on that plastic bobbin/mooshy spool thingy. THEY ARE FABULOUSLY USEFUL!!! You can buy them anywhere that sells kumihomo supplies. I got mine from Iguana Beads (King St., Cambridge, Ontario). Irene and Ken were next to me at the GRBS Show & Sale a few weeks ago. 

The "pearls" are Miyuki "Antique Ivory Pearl Ceylon" 6/0 round seed beads.

Stay tuned to see what it looks like finished... if I finish it. As I'm sitting here writing and looking again at the pictures, I'm getting different ideas... 

1,800-year-old Roman coin wrapped in "Gallery Bezel Wire"...

Go read this first...

http://fancifuldevices.blogspot.ca/2015/01/cheaty-open-backed-prong-bezels-for.html

Marina of Fanciful Devices has been my go-to for sublime creativeness for a long time now. I can't even approach some of the things on this blog. Learning about the existence of "gallery bezel wire" kick-started my lazy self into thinking of things to wrap to mix with my Roman glass beads.

Coin Guy across from me at the Woodstock Farmer's Market sells -- duh -- coins, and he sells reeeeally old coins along with the usual commemoratives and out-of-circulation bills and coins like you find in hoards and under couch cushions and floorboards. Fascinating. And we all have our own stashes of coins that were given to us kids as souvenirs when parents came home from mysterious trips to faraway places and then later on added to as we wandered to our own far places.

Meet Licinius I, 308-324 AD (Thessalonica Mint):

Here is my first effort at using this wire. Marina advised to make the wrap tight. Definitely necessary. Do not ignore. Unfortunately there was an 1,800-year-old lump on the side of my coin that I thought I could ignore, and I didn't want to file it off in case it damaged any value the coin has. NOTE: This wire does stretch. This is soft, bendy, pliable stuff and I will have to redo it, but as is, it sure looks cool. I also need to acquire some thicker brass headpins on my next trip to Toronto. If the coin were silver (it's actually patinaed brass), then mixing the metals wouldn't be so stark. But the wire itself is cool stuff, all lacy and perforated the way it is.

Oh, and yeah, straighten the coin out before locking it into place!!!

Thanks for looking!

New Bracelets going into the One of a Kind Antique Mall, Woodstock, TODAY...

Apologies for not posting more, but I have been doing nothing but typing for almost three weeks, and it has NOT stopped coming in. That's good, right? Well... not when I'm having to turn work down, it ain't.

Meanwhile, I'm having great fun with Stretch Magic, my new fave material. Remember those stretch crystal bracelets I posted a few weeks ago? They're almost all gone. 

These bead soup bracelets, along with some necklaces, are all going into the Antique Mall (showcase 800 over in the showcase area to the right of the cash desk) in Woodstock, Ontario, later this morning. (FYI, the Antmall will be closed December 25th and 26th.) They are all one of a kind. If you see something you like, I can drive there and get it (if it hasn't been sold in the meantime). I can't guarantee that it will arrive before Christmas, but... between Canada Post overnight service at megabucks per package, ya never know. (Or you can pretend you're Italian and you have until January 6th to give gifts!). Please email me for availability and handling/shipping costs. Right now, it's ***around*** $5 regular surface mail in Canada and ***around*** $10-$15 to the US for small thick envelopes and/or parcels. 

As an FYI on shipping costs, if it's shipped in a flat bubble wrap pack and fits through that plexi "mail slot" gadget they have at the post office, it's not too expensive to ship, $3-ish for Canada, BUT it ends up being "automatically" sorted which means it goes through umpteen rollers in the mail plant, so fragile beads or wire-wrapped work could get squashed. Upgrade to a thicker wrapping or flat box, and you're in the $10-$15 range for regular shipping, but the parcel is hand-sorted and you might have to drive to your local post office to pick it up. My price to mail includes the cost of the envelope/appropriate packaging, and trust me on this -- it often takes as much time if not longer to pack and drive a purchase to the post office than to make the item in the first place. Each time I see "$25 shipping" even for a tiny package of beads coming from the US, oh, man, it hurts so, so much! -- but I do appreciate all the work that goes into packing items and getting them to the post office, often within hours of me clicking on "Buy Now". 

This is so pretty. 

Note that the citrine is not that richly yellow. It's just my crappy photography.

Roman glass bracelet with aquamarine rounds and pewter daisy spacers.

Brilliant peacock blue titantium-coated hematite:

These bracelets are comfortably loose on me, so would fit about a 7-7.5" wrist. As always, if you see anything you like but you need a custom size or want to commission a custom piece, please don't hesitate to email me. 

On other fronts I've signed up for The Gem Expo coming up on March 13th-15th and booked my hotel. I WILL be there this time with lots and lots of new turquoise including some beautiful hand-carved skulls and buttons. I'll have a great selection of Roman glass, matte lapis and really nice hand-cut carnelian in unusual colours: yellows through yellowy-oranges and reds to almost chocolate purple colours from Afghanistan, plus different sizes and shapes of old chevron beads from Nepal and some great Dzi-style beads. If you have anything on your wish list, I will try to find it for you and bring it to the show. 

Thanks for looking!

More Stretchy Stretch Magic Bracelets...

This morning dawned colder, darker, windier and wetter: a perfect day to stay home, sit and play with shiny things.

I've signed up for a Christmas craft show down near Lake Erie in Vittoria, Ontario, on November 15th and 16th. Details to come when I know more.

These are part of my new line for Christmas -- stretchy party bracelets that will make great gifts for moms, aunts and grandmas, especially great for those who in particular suffer from arthritis and/or for whom clasps are impossible to fasten. Don't forget Secret Santa gifts for co-workers. The bonus is I'm making these in medium and large, making them more wearable than the default tiny "one size fits all" (when do they ever???) commonly available in stores.

Here are a few of the colourful, glittery bracelets...

These and more will be available at tomorrow's farmer's market in Woodstock. Prices start at $12.00.

Do you have jewellery that you love but can't wear any more? Bring it in and I'll see if I can repair, restring or remake it.

Thanks for looking!

Redid the Showcase at the Antique Mall...

Time to houseclean my One of a Kind Antique Mall showcase. I found another of those clear plastic T-bars at Winners last weekend, by Jacob -- I think that's the brand. Clear T-bars really do make things appear to float and magnify any light. My pal Lynn of Fashion Your Space also suggested moving the black necklace thingy I use for the guys' necklaces over to the left hand corner, instead of it being the first thing you see on entering the mall, i.e. a big black blob in the right hand corner.

Now on the left, The Big Black Blob functions to stop your eye from leaving the showcase...

To me, this little vignette at the front is starting to look reeeeeally interesting, with the resin skull pendant, the 1881 bushcraft book, surrounded by turquoise and in the background the coin silver and hammered earrings, etc.

But those giant white tickets -- ewww. They really need some serious rethinking. I need space to write a description and need the Antique Mall info, as well, so they have to be big. The other half of it is these tickets don't go with the customer, but are part of the inventory system, so I also need to come with a way to make duplicates without having to write everything out twice...

One of the things to keep in mind is the back doors slide in from each end. Because staff need to get into the case during the week to pull items out for people, I have to keep accessibility at the forefront when I'm placing the T-bars and the black bust and it's getting a little jammed up on the back left.

The copper-wrapped Kingman turquoise dangle and purple seed bead necklace has been sold... but I can always make you another one!

Seemingly overnight, it's become hot and humid here in Southern Ontario. Go Spring!!! With a fan blowing all the time now and the street doors left open, I took the opportunity yesterday to clean both the phenomenal accumulation of dust as well as the many nose prints off the glass.

If you happen to see something here that interests you, please don't hesitate to email me with any questions. I live very close by and I can zip over any time (between 10 and 5), check if the item you're interested in is still available -- or I can do up something custom -- and get back to you with a price.

If you make jewellery, I sell many of these beads via email or you can see me at the upcoming Gem Expo at the Hyatt Regency on King Street in Toronto, July 25th, 26th and 27th. Don't forget to get on their email list for discount tickets and prize draws.

Thanks for looking!

New Market Table Location & Configuration...

Ah... the joys of a brand new table configuration and going back to square one: what on earth am I going to do??? After six years in the same location between Chocolate Guy and the coffee pot/Peter's Bakery at the Saturday farmers market, I have moved... across the room to where Oliver's Gardens normally is in the winter. Yesterday, all the produce and flower vendors moved outside for the summer/fall. In October, when everyone comes back inside, I will be going "up" into the second room to a permanent spot.

For those of you contemplating setting up your first shows, here is what I went through yesterday morning. Before 5 a.m. I had unloaded my truck and moved everything in to my spot. After 5:00 a.m. when the meat and produce trucks start showing up to deliver and/or set up outside and as more and more indoor vendors are pulling up to unload, it becomes impossible to get near the doors. Plus, in the summer, people are setting up their tents in two rows all along the front of the market building.

Thursday, I'd gone to a local fabric mill end store to look at buying fabric to cover my tables. It's also time to think about having a coordinated look for the Gem Expo, instead of my usual mishmash of covers and colours. It's a show requirement to cover tables to the floor and looks more professional. After looking at yardage prices and doing the math, I'm going to do like many people do and go with king size sheets.

By the way, after years of insisting I wouldn't find one useful, I have to say I love my new dolly. It cuts eight to ten or more trips carrying awkward and heavy boxes down to only three or four. My main problem had always been that I have too many open boxes with odd-shaped contents. I'm slowly transitioning most things into closed boxes of the same size/style -- rather than my usual mishmash -- so they can be stacked.

The new space: Two 8-foot tables and a 6-foot table. Note that the 6-foot table is coming out from the wall, and it's also a good two inches lower than the front table and I also don't line up with that white table of the next vendor.

I've swapped the 8-foot table running along the wall with the 6-footer coming out from the wall, which also puts me in line with the white table of the vendor who will be next to me:

Covers on and a spare cloth on the back table. The black-painted wooden riser anchors the end of the front table. The far end of the back table is where I'll be sitting and working when there are no customers. I can also see what's going on. That draggy cloth at the front corner will be folded and clipped along the top edge of the table so that no one (including me) will trip on it.

Black cloth clipped (bulldog clips are your friend). Next, the white cloth goes on -- at an angle with this setup -- and I start bringing out the "furniture".

Vary display heights: At this point, I've decided that my skull display will go in the centre of the angle using the emptied bin that holds finished necklaces as a riser. Eventually, I'll get more wooden risers made, but as I'm still in the thinking process, a bin does the trick neatly.

My boyfriend...

Prop flat displays at an angle: I have a ring display box with a plexi lid, as well as display boards that lie flat on the table. However, flat things are far easier for people to see if they're propped up at an angle. I use those free-standing bent-angle metal frames from the dollar store, the kind that have a piece of glass that slides in at the top. First, get rid of the glass!

Almost done. Now that the "anchors" are in place and all my T-bars, busts, earring racks and bundles of necklaces are on the table, I can start to finalise where everything else goes...

And.... finally, I'm done. Hard to believe all this used to fit on one 8-foot table!!! Throughout the morning, I get people's opinions, things get tweaked and suggestions noted for next time. Since a lot of the finished jewellery gets lost on the black cloth, I will need to get another white cloth from Dollarama.

Along the back wall: boards with larger turquoise pendants; Tibetan and tribal style pendants; and then a board with semi-precious pendulums and some wire-wrapped pendants; bins of loose beads on table.

Table coming out from wall: behind the mirror, black free-standing earring racks for sale; mirror; resin bird skull and bone pendants on tall bust; tribal-ish style and crystal pendants lying flat on table; behind the necklaces on the table, three racks of semi-precious and Swarovski earrings with Bali silver; pearl display; pewter pendants;

Angle of two tables: skull and guy jewellery, kids' jewellery;

Front table: finished semi-precious necklaces; handmade, hammered metal necklaces on black T-bar; sterling rings; bracelets; PMC jewellery, turquoise earrings, coin silver and crystal pendants and sterling silver pendants on the vertical boards, respectively; earring carousels up top with my far-too-small sign in a frame.

Where I sit and work, or talk to customers. Tools in the bottom drawer of the little organiser; finished jewellery, price tags and other odds and ends in the top drawer. Behind it, a bin of gauze bags; against the wall, big ziplock bags of silver and copper wire; in the burgundy bag, 1mm, 1.5mm and 2mm Greek leather. Behind me, two bins of beads, findings and miscellaneous stuff on the dolly.

A note on these chairs. Pretty much 99% of chairs provided at any venue will, guaranteed, destroy your back. Invest in an orthopaedic cushion. This cushion lives in my truck. I also take it along to sports venues. Do people laugh at me? Always. Do people envy me after 20 minutes sitting on plastic seats in an ice-cold hockey arena or soggy, damp wooden baseball bleachers? You betcha.

View of my table and potential customers from my chair. Note that all of my ugly, junky-looking boxes and bins are stored out of sight.

Now that I've figured out where things will go, it will take me about 30 to 40 minutes to set up; to pack up, maybe half an hour. Next week, I'll bring some lights and another white tablecloth. Did I sell anything? Uh... that would be a negatory. Just one customer picking up her order. But maybe next Saturday. Did I have fun? Yes. I really like this location, the display works very well, and with things spread out more I got a lot of comments -- and compliments -- on what I'm offering because people could actually see everything.

Thanks for looking!

Lost... & A "Pearl Bones" Necklace-in-Progress Found...

Another week lost due to psychologically horrific (me, the colossally chicken patient -- I am terrified; hear me cluck) dental pain, including an attempted tooth-yanking this past Wednesday -- the fill-in (sorry, couldn't resist) dentist was unable to get me frozen after an hour and 4 or 5 needles -- and not for lack of trying: it turns out I have an anatomically anomalous jaw and the nerves aren't where they're supposed to be, hence the decades-long inability of just about every dentist I've ever gone to being unable to get me frozen, or, if they do manage it, it takes at least an hour and still requires mid-work anaesthetic top-ups -- and me having become the wimpering, cowering patient from hell.

For some voodoo, woo-woo, whatever-woo reason my current doc is the first I've found in some 20 years who's been able to freeze me solid the first time. I'm now waiting on him to get back tomorrow from his vacation (how dare he go away to have fun!?) and wade through myriad stacked-up patients until he can yank my tooth last thing on Wednesday afternoon. After which, early-early Thursday morning I will hop into my packed truck, head to Paris to my magical hairdresser Marie, proprietor of Peridot Hair Design, then finally get on the road to take part in the March 2014 edition of The Gem Expo at the Hyatt Regency in Toronto. To add to my current misery, a pile of transcription work showed up a few days ago, all due before I go.

Meanwhile, I took advantage of six peaceful hours sitting at the market yesterday and finally started putting together this necklace using the copper "bones" I'd made a week ago.

I had about ten inches completed when one of my regular customers came wandering by. I asked what she thought, truly never imagining that she would even like this style -- she's a Swarovski fanatic through and through. She loved it. Sold. Another argument for always be making things while you're sitting at a market or a show when it's quiet -- and go ahead and show unfinished pieces to anyone who stops by. Get their feedback. It'll gobsmack you every time what they will tell you, and makes them invested in the end result. They'll look at the other items on your table with new eyes. And believe me, by showing works-in-progress and starting conversations, I have sold more items in their unfinished state than I can remember. (Just don't forget to photograph 'em before they're gone for good.) Bonus is if I'm able to finish the item while they complete their shopping. Then they're over the moon. I also use this opportunity to plant the seed that I do small repairs inexpensively, often while they wait, and can also remake old jewellery they might have lying around.

These are the short "bones" that I've been making where I cut 14 gauge wire to 3/4", rather than the original 1" and hammered with a twist. I tried hammering them so that both ends are the same, but compared to the angled bones and the light sparking off the copper, the flat bones just look... well, flat.

After hammering, the 3/4" wire gooshes out to about 1". The longer bones I made a couple of weeks ago are great with bigger, chunkier beads, but I found these shorter ones to have a finer and more elegant look, hence combining them with the smaller diameter pearls. The downside, of course, is that you need more bones to make anything -- or you could space them out further. I thought about trying 5/8" or even 1/2" lengths but economies of scale kick in at that point -- any necklaces would cost double, but... the shorter lengths would make a much nicer bracelet, as well as earrings for people for whom longer dangles don't suit. (Is that even a sentence? Sigh... my brain is not functioning at all these days.)

These are a particularly nice selection of small baroque pearls with a beautiful, subtle rainbow lustre I found in a thrift shop somewhere years ago, could've been the Goodwill, Sally Ann... can't remember when or where. But I bet I only paid a buck for them. Took the original necklace apart and then never did anything with them, stayed lost in my stash until they resurfaced a couple of days ago. I've never found anything comparable since.

I'll make similar drop earrings to the crystal ones I posted a week or two ago. I have copper earwires, but I asked what my customer preferred. She wants sterling earwires, despite that they'll look different. What I'll do is make the wires instead of using store-bought and add a copper bead to tie the two metals together.

Question: is there a trend back to matchy-matchy? I've been asked more times for matching earrings, and even a matching bracelet after years of being told nobody wears jewellery that matches these days.

Because it looks like these bones are going to be a popular item, I will make several pairs of earwires at the same time to have them ready to go for more earrings. If you're new to reading my posts and want to try making these yourself, head on over to Lisa Yang's blog for the various tutorials on bones, as well as lucky horseshoe and teardrop bracelets. I'm presently fiddling around with my horseshoes to make a necklace or choker. Haven't quite figured that all out.

One more plug for The Gem Expo. Hyatt Regency on King St., in downtown Toronto. March 14, 15 & 16. Follow the link to get $2 off admission, see the vendor list and sign up for classes. Hope to see you there.

Thanks for looking!

Moving shop, Birthday (ick, another one?) & Working Methods...

Since I have so little in my booth space at the One-of-a-Kind Antique Mall, I was asked last week if I'd mind moving down the aisle to another location so the lady across from me could expand. I had no problem agreeing to that. In fact, it worked out to my benefit as I was able to move into a half-booth next door on the other side of the partition.

However, I should have looked around first. There is another half booth up closer to the front of the building. Man, there are some nice things coming into that Antique Mall. I have to stay away or I'll start buying... and I'm supposed to be selling.

Jewellery, collectible beads and tchotchkes are selling well out of my display case up at the front, and I'm very, very pleased about that.

I had another birthday last week. Funny, isn't it, how they keep coming -- and faster and faster. On Tuesday, Winter took me out to the Banana Leaf, a local Thai place. Good spicy food, and sufficiently large portions that I took half my dinner home for lunch the next day on my real birthday.

Winter makes boxes, trading cards and does a killer job wrapping gifts.

Meanwhile, back here in the still-frozen Great White North (minus-20-somethingdisgustingthismorning-Celsius and it snowed AGAIN), I have been working on more copper bones (see Lisa Yang's tutorials). On Saturday I mindlessly cut up wire for a few hours while sitting at the market and reduced the length of the bones to see what they would look like. The original ones were 1" and with a twist. I cut and hammered a set of bones at 7/8" without turning them, so they look like "real" bones, ditto a set at 3/4" with a twist. Yes, I'm totally bilingual when it comes to bead measurements. I'm fine using metric for bead diameters and weight, but everything else is in inches.

What I was working on yesterday while hammering was trying to keep the bench block from moving so much every time I hammered it, and to reduce the noise. First, I cleared off the table so I don't have to stop in mid-hammer to rescue something from falling off the table.

Oh, yeah -- the blue cloth is a silver-cleaning cloth. I noticed all the black gunk smeared everywhere -- that's from the Sharpie marks used for cutting the wire and it gets ground into the copper and the bench block and the hammer head itself from all the hammering -- and all over my fingers. Next time I'll clean that off the wire pieces first, rather than doing it afterwards. Sigh... But again, that's something I can do easily at the market while sitting. It helps to be doing something that intrigues people, convinces them that you really DO make the jewellery, and it's something that can be put down easily when someone does stop by.

Working at an angle seems to be the best for me. I had put my bench block on a bead mat last time, but I decided to try a folded t-towel this time. Maybe I'll try a bath towel next time. I like to work at an angle. I recently read somewhere that someone likes using their anvil better than the bench block, so I thought I'd try it. I tried hammering, but the towel and the anvil still bounced around with every blow. Working with the anvil on its side gives a larger area for the hammer to hit, but also keeps the end of the wire being hammered closer to the centre of the work surface which helped towards minimising the movement of the cloth, but it still didn't do anything about movement of the anvil on the cloth.

Note the Sharpie sticking out. I worked it out that using my index finger and thumb to hold the wire against the anvil (fingers not ON the anvil, only the wire) had my middle finger pushing the anvil into the pen and leaned the bulk of my hand on the cloth/table, it worked quite well.

Keep the anvil pressed firmly against the Sharpie. Anything would work, a stick, etc.

Showing the back view of how I've positioned my fingers when hammering -- keeping them well away from the hammer.

Showing half the wire hanging off the back of the anvil surface with the anvil pushing firmly against the pen.

Finished 7/8" bones hammered straight and awaiting holes to be punched and then the tedious business of filing all the burrs. I also made more horseshoes for a necklace, and these links came out much more evenly using the barrel of a Sharpie. This is another project easy to do (except for the hammering) while sitting at the market waiting for customers.

Let me know if you try this, and if the pictures help or hinder. Writing instructions and taking photos to illustrate each step is not as easy as it looks.

I'm sure there's some traditional bench gadget that's been in use for hundreds of years that would make this all moot, but for a quick hammering on a few items where you don't require a professional and permanent setup and/or don't plan on hammering for hours on end this works fairly well as it's portable and uses items we all have on hand.

Thanks for looking!

Chain Maille Earrings, Semi-Precious Pendants & Earrings, Lynn's Birthday... & A New Venture at the OOAK Antique Mall

I'm still in the country with no Internet and still coming infrequently into the library to use the computers here. But working hard -- a ton of typing showed up all of a sudden earlier this week and I'm pounding away on hours and hours of yakkety-yak. Plus making lots of jewellery:

I'd seen these chain maille earrings on Pinterest quite a while ago -- apologies to the original designer -- but I had to try making them. As with all chain maille designs, these are endlessly fascinating. It always amazes me how a tiny difference in the size of the jump rings, not to mention different metals and combinations, changes the whole feel of the earrings.

These look fabulous on just about anyone. A great and simple go-to style and very easy to make. I liked how they're all floppy when you make them because of course I started at the bottom, but once dangling, the rings all fall into place perfectly. Hint for making these: start from the top working down from the earwires --  the earwires act as a "handle" -- or am I the only one who automatically dives into the "business end" and starts with the bottom rings???

First iteration where I pretty much copied the original designer's earrings, except I didn't like that the two top jump rings were the same size as the other jump rings, so...

The second iteration, I reduced the size of the two top jump rings. Still didn't like it, so...

...I used small, medium and then large jump rings in a two-tone variation. Still didn't like it, the top part somehow looked too weak and wishy-washy and unbalanced when I tried them on, so in this final third iteration I doubled the second ring and bingo. Fixed all the earrings...

Then got a call from my pal Lynn (who does my displays) and found out that it had been her birthday the day before, on Tuesday. We had already planned to go Wednesday evening to see the new Tom Thomson biopic at the Woodstock Art Gallery (go see it, it's fascinating, not only image after image of great art and scenic beauty, but it's also a murder mystery with forensic anthropology in action -- the title? West Wind: The Vision of Tom Thomson) so I invited her out to dinner afterwards. I picked up a slab of cheesecake from Let's Eat Cake and packed up the all-copper earrings for her. When we met up at the art gallery I was wearing the mixed copper and silver earrings. Lynn greatly admired them, and I said, "Good thing you like 'em, 'cause that's what you're getting for your birthday."

I'd never been to the Charles Dickens Pub in Woodstock, but it came highly recommended, all homemade-from-scratch pub grub. It was really good. I ended up taking half mine home for lunch the next day.

I sent a large order of earrings and pendants off to Toronto with my sister on Monday to take around to her co-workers, so really schmancy packaging wasn't the priority, just keeping them visible, clean and still easy to access to examine more closely.

Sleeping Beauty & pewter drop earrings with sterling earwires; an all-pewter drop version; and two chandelier variations, on the left, matte crackle agate chandelier earrings, on the right, pearl chandelier earrings, both with Swarovski crystals.

Closeup of the matte crackle agate & Swarovski crystal chandelier earrings.

All the pendants that went off to Toronto (on black Greek leather adjustable cords): top row, five raw lapis lazuli pendants, two Nacozari turquoise slab pendants; raw black tourmaline along the right side; five Mexican fire opal pendants; one polished faceted lapis lazuli pendant; one Nacozari turquoise slab pendant; one pearl & quartz crystal pendant. I actually kinda liked the punky/bikerish look of the lumpy bead caps with the pearl, so I'll be making earring variations on that theme and will post the results later.

Aaaand, I started putting items into my booth at the One-of-a-Kind Antique Mall. It's looking a little sparse at the moment, but every couple of days I manage to get another two or three items in there. Forgot to take a picture today after I added a cast brass and copper seahorse bridge lamp and some other odds and ends, but this is what it looked like on Wednesday. When May comes and Nancy returns, it will be chock full of stuff... I tend to attract stuff, packrat that I am. Hooks for the peg boards are on the list, and I'll be putting up a lot of frames that I have for sale.

Hope everyone is staying warm. Can you believe the weather we've all been having across North America? Seems like no one has emerged unscathed, although it's finally a mild and melty day today.

Thanks for looking!