Purple Moon: Wire-Woven Copper & Agate Pendant

This is where and how I work. Netflix most of the time and always keeping an eye on the squirrels, chipmunks, birds and weather outside in the lilac tree. This is Ripper Street. Love the BBC!

I've liked the look of the various chevron and sunburst weaves I've seen on Pinterest, so two days ago, I wove three or four inches using 18 gauge and 28 gauge copper wire. 

Yesterday, I sorted through my bag of assorted pendants, picked out a large randomly faceted rainforest agate because I wanted to work on forming angles -- but the hole was too small. Rule number one? Always check to make sure the wire will go through the hole before you start to weave.

I picked this large round dyed crackle agate pendant only because the wire fits through the hole and which under normal light looks kinda meh.

But hit it with the right light -- there's a whole 'nother world happening inside this magical stone.

Here I've started wire wrapping the bottom two wire weaves on the left, and what will likely become the bail on the right. 

Uh oh... wait a sec. With fresh eyes studying the picture here on the blog as I'm writing I'm thinking maybe I should have incorporated the wire coming up through the pendant to do the bail... Hmm-mmm-mmmm. But there are still two free wires at the top... maybe I'll make those the bail with the pendant wire. 

As you now see, I never have any idea what I'm doing or where I'm going with something (and don't really care, either).

Unfortunately, we'll all have to wait to see what happens next, because it looks like some transcription just came flying through the virtual transom. Gotta go now. 

TTFN and thanks for stopping by!

Rules for "Furniture Arranging", Decluttering -- Yeah, ME! -- & Some New Copper Chain Components...

I put "furniture arranging" in quotes because people who know me know that I belong to the "it lives where it drops" school of interior design. This applies to the room, the table or shelf of stuff, the clothes, the jewellery, everything in my life: for me, it's all one undifferentiated messpile. Constantly reading decluttering websites 'til the cows come home just doesn't do it for me.

However. Now that I am a one-third proprietor of a booth at the One of a Kind Antique Mall where the goal is to make OUR hundreds of tiny items leap out from the mind-numbing millions of items in the whole 80,000 square foot mall, thereby capturing the eye, mind and heart of their future owners in the three seconds or so allotted to us as they walk by our booth, I'm being forced to learn valuable lessons, if not about interior design or our taste in acquiring gotta-have-this items, then at the very least about how to turn mind-numbing clutter and junk into semi-organised collections -- not chaos -- that will result in constant sales and turnover. (And that is one brain-numbing long sentence. At least, I think it was a sentence. Sorry about that.)

Prior to this, as Lynn and Nancy Mac valiantly attempted to organise thousands of beads, as well as my market table, for me over the past two or three years, I wondered how on earth people did it: make a pile of junky and/or disparate things look clear and ordered. At what point does sick-making clutter of anything veer off the hoarding track onto an "Oh, wow! Look at that!" collection of reeeally cool stuff track?

Here are my short and sweet rules for the store/booth, where the rule is more is way merrier:

1. Gather together like items by picking a theme: colour, era, purpose...
2. Pick the focal piece for that particular vignette
3. Group like vignettes into a larger, overarching theme
4. Can't tell if it's working or not? Photograph your vignette, then step back and photograph the area it occupies: what's not working will leap out at you (this works for anything)

At home, where the rule is less and less is more:
1. Ruthlessly cull or regift (consignment or friends, thrift store, dump) then cull the cull: if you're weak-willed/lazy (I'm both), ask your friends to take everything away immediately for you. Boxes of stuff sitting in a corner are still STUFF IN YOUR HOUSE.
2. Enforce the rule: if something comes in, something goes out (furniture, junque, clothes...)

To the "at home" advice, I finally found out where the recycling depot hides here: I'm talking boxes and boxes of papers to get rid of that would fry any shredder's circuits: outdated and often unread magazines, old computer printouts, university papers that after 20 years I. will. never. look. at. again. Then there are the boxes and boxes of art books hiding out of sight, out of mind under my bed, about 20 of those at last count -- that's boxes, not books.

I think I'm finally starting to get the idea: despite adding a largish side table/magazine table and a box more of stuff to the booth yesterday, after we were finished moving stuff around Nancy Mac said in gobsmacked wonder, "Look at all the room we have!"

June 30

July 6

July 9

It may well be my imagination, but the booth really does feel roomier in the July 9th picture. Even though we've added more items and increased the space the island in the middle occupies, turning the display table 90 degrees really helped with that. The wrought iron screen gives us a see-through wall halfway along the length of that display table and things can pile up and against it on both sides. Overall, there's still plenty of room in behind for people to walk. The new deep green table against the blue seems to calm that whole wall down and rests the eye: there's not that bouncing between the teal blue wall and green as there was with the lighter wooden cart that can be seen in the July 6th picture. The lighter-coloured and lower cart being in the left corner also guides the eye down from the right corner to the left, yet you can still take everything in. 

Yes, there is an estate sale happening this weekend with our name on it!

Meanwhile, after roaming Pinterest and scouring it for ideas, I finally settled down to watch Hannibal on Netflix and bend copper wire. Tonight: hammering. 

These are the tools I use to make these items. I buy all my copper wire by the pound from The Ring Lord. I think this is 16 gauge. I use memory wire cutters on the heavier gauge wire, because it cuts it more easily, and gives a good squared off cut rather than the angled and picky/burred cut that the regular flush cutters give, the ends of which must be filed. For what I'm doing here, a single loop and little to no wrapping, I don't want an angled cut anyway. I want that blunt cut end to butt right into the wire it's looped around to.

I used the barrel of the orange highlighter pen to make the larger loop of the figure-8 pieces at the top (about 15mm diameter), and then the largest part of the round nose to make the smaller loop.

Next step will be a marathon of hammering and then, after a good swish in ketchup to make everything shiny, assembling them into bracelets, earrings and necklaces. One of these days I'll have to play with liver of sulphur to patina my chains, but so far people here seem to prefer the look of shiny copper.

Thanks for looking!

Hammered Tinned Copper Paddles...

No idea what I'm going to do with these yet, but I had fun watching Crossing Lines on Netflix and pounding the snot out of little bits of wire. I find I get caught up in making a pile of components and then figuring out later what to do with them. Makes for a lot of waste, I know.

It's also a sad commentary on movies and TV shows that I am able to not focus on the show a half to two-thirds of the time and still follow the action -- or more accurately, not really care if I've missed anything -- although I did like this show better than most. Love the locations, and love the mix of languages mostly without subtitles, the assumption being that most people watching (Crossing Lines is a European production) will understand. The one thing I delighted in while living in Italy was the seamless switching between languages that so many people I met were capable of. Not me, though. Alas, I am a linguistic dolt.

My Sunday afternoon/evening production:

I used 16 gauge tinned copper wire cut at 1/8" intervals starting at 3/4". The maximum length using 16 gauge wire is 1-1/2" before the paddles get too flimsy to be used for anything. After hammering, once I made the loop, the overall length was about the same as when I cut it. The single long paddle on the right I did as a "bone". Today I want to make copper paddles, but will also make tinned copper bones, but, as noted below, I'll be using 14 gauge rather than 16.

Close-up of the shorter wires as they will look strung on cord:

The short paddles on the top left I did in 14 gauge and I recommend that as the better gauge to make these in.

I really like the way the copper starts to bleed through at the ends. The blackish gunge will come off with a polishing cloth.

I cut the wires to length with memory wire cutters to get a good squared end. Flush cutters cut at an angle and when hammering the ends get super flimsy and sharp which will mean taking a lot of extra time to file them off. Always check the ends for sharp pickies, anyway. The last thing you want to have happen is some irate customer coming back demanding you replace their shirt or sweater, or worse, complaining that they cut themselves while wearing something you've made.

Another note is that I don't hammer on the same table my computer or phone is on. There is also plenty of cushioning underneath the anvil/bench block. I use a folded tea towel. Here is my multitasking setup, although when I'm hammering, I keep the table bare of anything that will jump around and fall on the floor:

Further notes about the wire I'm using here. I love tinned copper for its pewtery and tribalish looks, that it's relatively inexpensive and that it is NOT coated. This wire is from Artistic Wire. Note that you canNOT use "non-tarnish" wire. Non-tarnish means there is a clear plasticky type of coating on the wire, which will crack and fray when it's hammered. You need bare wire. I get 14 gauge copper wire at the hardware store in the electrical department where I can buy it by the foot off a big roll. It comes as seven wires twisted together and I think I remember the guy telling me it's used for wiring stoves.

I keep old raggedy leather winter gloves to use for straightening wires.

There's also another type of wire in the electrical department with about 5 wires twisted together (has a black rubber-like coating that is easy enough to peel off after slicing down the length of the wires with a box cutter) but what's great  is that one of the wires is around 8 or 10 gauge (the others are around 18 gauge), really useful for making pendants or large focals. Canadian Tire, Home Hardware, Home Depot, Lowe's... there are many places to get copper wire.

Thanks for looking!

Skull Bracelets & Necklaces

I made these yesterday while watching Downton Abbey.

I had made the skull & noose bracelet, sent a picture to the customer I had in mind, he ordered it in a necklace version. I had in the meantime dug out those patinaed brass tubes that I've had for years and never used, made a skull necklace version for his approval, as well as two long necklaces, one with an asymmetrical wire-wrapped section of 6 mm quartz crystals and one with 6 mm Indian agate (which I got from Nelson Gemstones).

This morning I sent out the necklace picture and got another order for the plain skull bracelet.

Downton Abbey done for now, I've got The Unit cued up and ready to go as soon as I track down some lunch... or maybe it's an early dinner now. Yes -- yikes, it's almost 2:30. Then it's back to making skully things.

Multitasking central:

Hope you're all having a productive week. Thanks for looking!

Raw Lapis & Javanese Glass Choker...

Strangely unproductive afternoon. I had all these plans for making things but time slipped away. Fridays are like that for me. I have to be pretty much finished up by 5:30, packed up by 6:00 and then winding down so I can be horizontal by 7:00, 8:00 at the latest, and asleep not much later than that depending on how much I read. I did get a half-dozen guy-style chokers with pewter pendants put together, as well as this raw lapis and Javanese glass bead leather choker. What usually happens is it looks okay for real, but then I can see all the holes and/or weaknesses in the colours and shapes when I see the photos.

I'm trying to decide if those beigy-coloured stone beads should get replaced by lapis beads of the same shape. Probably... d'ya think?

I'm also curious if there will be any response to this tinned copper seed bead rosary chain necklace with the very subtle addition of a dangling clear glass skull and Chinese crystal pendant.

I have lots of rosary chains in different colours all made to about 19" in length. I plan to spend tomorrow adding clasps. But now I'm wondering about an all-crystal rosary chain... Having finally finished watching the currently available Bones seasons on Netflix, I will queue up the last few episodes of Human Target and start making a crystal chain. I have been immensely productive here in terms of chain-making. I need to set up a small table at 90 degrees to my computer setup here for my beads and bead mat and I'll be able to string, as well.

It took me a while, but by the second season of Human Target I figured out it was filmed in Vancouver. (Bummer that it's been cancelled. It's a pretty good show. I'm not sure if that's because so many other movies in particular that I've tried to watch are so abysmally awful that this is good in comparison or not. Certainly the fight choreography is pretty good.) My first sight of Vancouver was in September of 1978, arriving at the train station after three days crossing Canada. Absolutely magnificent scenery and, certainly in those days, fabulous food and service on VIA Rail. It was almost shocking to see that it looked exactly like in my memory of the place, minus the TV show carnage, of course.

Thanks for looking!

Changing my mind...

No market today but guess who was bolt awake at 3:00 a.m. and drinking coffee by 3:30? My pal Lynn came by to work on a necklace using the turquoise I'd given her for a birthday present back in January. That inspired me to get stop watching Lie to Me (lovelovelove Tim Roth, whoo hoo) and do something productive. Not to mention right around when Lynn pulled up, I got one of those annoying popup messages asking if I was aware that in the past 48 hours someone using this computer scarfed up 75% of my monthly bandwidth allotment. Uh, ye-ahhh, that would be me. I just signed up for Netflix. I think this is gonna be a huge mistake.

In between lashings of homemade soup, hummus and blue corn tortilla chips and apple strudel with cheddar cheese, I messed around stringing and restringing the two necklaces I started the other day.

"Does this look okay?"

"Nnnnn... needs something here."

"What about this?"

"Nnnnn... what about changing that?"

And so it went for hours.


Raw amethyst focal, amethyst rondelles, high-cut citrine, melon-cut crystal rondelles, 100-year-old Venetian glass seed beads, pewter findings, 21" long, $79:

Kingman turquoise, amethyst rounds and rondelles, pewter and silver-plated findings, glass seed beads, 21" in length, $45:

Before

Finished necklace

For information on either of these necklaces, their availability or perhaps you require a different length, please email me for details. Shipping and handling are extra. I take PayPal.

Thanks for looking!