Crunchy, crispy, bouncing rain outside... perfect white paperwhites inside...

'Nuff said:

Groceries have been brought in and I'm permaparked to sit out the duration of the freezing rain currently sitting on top of us. I am so very, very tired of winter and looking forward to turning this little cottage into an even bigger bower of flowers this summer. Meanwhile, I content myself with watching my little shelf garden of paperwhites from the market go nutso next to the french doors.

Since supervising flowers blooming is as productive as staring at and willing water to boil, I'm currently watching a YouTube video which goes into painstaking detail how to layer wire-weaving right from the very beginning of the design. Living in the middle of nowhere it can be difficult to get to classes particularly in the winter, and you gotta love YT. (Which is sortakinda funny, because jewellery-maker yukonreddy is -- duh -- from the Yukon.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DOW1zNYgPg

I'm totally in love with that sinuous, hammered and bead-layered look that so many people on Pinterest make look so easy.

...except now, digging through my stash, I find that almost none of the silver or copper wire I've accumulated over the years is the correct temper for wire-weaving. Sheesh. I could've sworn I had some 26 gauge in dead soft temper.

Go check the link out, and if you've found other good wire-weaving/layering tuts I can to add to my stash please let me know.

Thanks for looking!

Experimenting with "vine-wrapping"...

I was busy at the market yesterday. I mentioned back in late September about taking a "vine-wrapped pendant" course from Judy Feskun through the Grand River Bead Society at our meeting in Guelph. I finally got Jan's undrilled lump of malachite wrapped and she flipped. The difficulty came because I had to hide a glob of glue that I was never able to completely sand off the top and while I'm not 100% sure I like what I came up with, Jan walked by my table at the market every hour or so muttering, "I love my pendant, I love my necklace." Always nice to get positive feedback!

Note the snowman earrings -- from last year.
White jadeite & red Swarovski crystal spacers with a matte black jet heishi hat.

What I really like is that Jan can wear the necklace with either side showing. She also likes that the necklace is longer so she can put the necklace on over her head without having to undo/do up the clasp (which is oversize anyway). I notice people have been commenting on the larger clasps I've been using -- some think they're overkill -- but then they become converts when they realise how easily the necklace or bracelet go on.

Because there was an extra bead from the original necklace, I started playing with vine-wrapping that in order to bulk it up a bit to use as a pendant for a second necklace I'm making to use up the rest of the 4mm malachite rounds I'd bought to lengthen the original necklace.

Every angle is different, and the wrapping hides the chewed-up bit on one side of the bead:

Note that this is the true colour of the malachite but while the wire looks like brass, it's actually bright copper. I'm still working on overcoming the weird light at the market.

Then I strung some pewter skulls with some extra beads left over from a restringing project to make a bracelet for one of my male customers:

And finally, here is the finished version of Winter's raven skull necklace (originally two separate projects) that we worked on over the course of a couple of Saturdays. I'm a big believer in sending people away to test-drive their jewellery for a few weeks and then come back for adjustments. Turns out she decided she wanted both necklaces to be combined into one (because she found she wears them both at the same time), plus she wanted a way to be able to add more stuff in the future (hence the large jump rings).

The necklace is adjustable for length in three ways: first, overall; then the shorter centre piece with the raku skull and body parts can be loosened off or tightened up; finally, the height of the raku skull cord relative to the overall necklace and raven skull can be changed by loosening off and moving a knot on either side of the main piece of leather cord.

For all you procrastinators, there's still time to order something for Christmas (I adhere to the Italian gift-giving date of January 6th on the Feast of the Epiphany so there's plenty of wiggle room) so contact me either by email or come and see me at the market on Saturday and we'll see what we can come up with.

Yo to procrastinating sig/others: I can't tell you how many ladies have told me what they hope their sig/other will get them for Christmas. A gift certificate or a promissory note for something from my table tucked into a card will make a great and perfect and stress-free gift. Just a suggestion/reminder/kick in the pants.

Thanks for looking!

Display & Storage

Like everyone, I have a problem with storage, both at home and to and from a market or show, as well as the display itself. I try to make my table displays do double duty, so that display box lids are closed and 1-inch foam slabs (from a camping foamie) cut to size are used to cushion boards loaded with earrings, necklaces and doodads and everthing gets packed firmly into shopping bags or bins -- where they reside until the next market.

The plasticated or Tyvek flat-bottomed reusable grocery bags are cheap and so handy. Most sizes and heights of earring carrousels fit perfectly into flat-bottomed Tyvek grocery bags, and your earrings won't go anywhere because the bags don't collapse or fall over: cloth bags don't work at all well for this purpose, anyway, and I stopped using them. It'll take a couple of dollars and a bit of experimentation to find which size(s) work(s) best for your personal needs: beads and jewellery and wooden boards can start to get reeeeeally heavy. Overall, though, I've found it's best to try to keep the size of your bins and bags pretty much to the same size for easy storage/loading up your vehicle.

This is my newest acquisition:


Tiny drop marks of water damage I can live with -- when it's on the table the lid will be open.



Secure lock -- this is the second item I have with this lock style.



I have scraps of foam and black stretch velour to line each compartment.
Sometimes being a packrat pays off -- I always have stuff to fix things with!

I'm thinking that if I cut those ribbons that keep the lid propped half open,
then the lid might fall back flat and I could drape necklaces in there... or I could line it with velour and very thin foam and pin things...

 I admired this box on the table of another market vendor on Saturday and Brenda, of Brenda's Magnetics, offered to sell it to me, saying she was bored with it.

"Oooh... how much?"

"Five bucks."

"Sold."

She said she didn't have space in her tiny apartment to store unused display items so she gets rid of them. Unfortunately, I have tons of room here (space I'm rapidly running out of because I have so much freaking STUFF!). I have years' worth of display items that I'm no longer using and no good home for them. Nothing wrong with these items; I simply don't use 'em anymore.

I periodically cruise the Goodwill, Value Village, Sally Ann and lawn sales keeping an eye out for interesting boxes, clamp-on lamps/spotlights and things that can be repurposed into displays. But, still, you'd be amazed at how easy it is to acquire something you admire from another vendor just by asking.

Thanks for looking!