The July 2014 Gem Expo... More Pictures

I stole these pictures from The Gem Expo Facebook page and from Ruth's page. That doi-oi-oingy blue thing around my neck was supposed to be for my keys which I kept misplacing, but it was so stretchy I thought the keys would end up around my knees. It was sure a lot of fun to play with... probably why it was finally taken away from me.

Ruth's stunning wire-wrapped amethyst and pearl necklace. A quickie little wire-wrapping tutorial at the Gem Expo last summer on a slow Friday afternoon is how Ruth and I first met. Now I can't do the shows without her. The second necklace is mine and is made with particularly nice labradorite rounds and pewter beads with a carved soapstone focal.

An out-of-focus wire-wrapped chunky carnelian necklace by Ruth. This got a lot of attention and admiration throughout the show.

As a follow-up note to the suncatchers I posted a few weeks ago, I just found out that one finally sold in the last couple of days, whoo hoo! While I was in Toronto I bought more crystals to make rainbow chakra-style suncatchers. They're sitting staring at me now on my table. Meanwhile, I'm watching Suits at night and pounding away on a wire-wrapped pale pink seed bead and skull necklace commission that needs to be ready for Saturday's market. This morning I'm pricing pure copper and mixed copper/brass bangles from Katanga Province in the Congo that I acquired from Nharo! at the Gem Expo. They'll be ready to go into my showcase at the OOAK Antique Mall later today and also be available at the Saturday market. Great price, too: $15 each. I'm already getting rave reviews on how pretty they are and how comfortable they are to wear.

Thanks for looking -- and hope to see you at the November Gem Expo!

Copper-Wrapped Pearl Necklace Experiments...

The robins have decided not to move in. I can't figure out if this is normal, that she would build the nest and then not lay her eggs immediately. Is it because it's too cold out here? Guess I could check online...

Here's my blue flowered back lawn... I LOVE these flowers, and forget-me-nots, too.

Meanwhile back inside the ranch sitting at my little TV dinner tray parked in front of my stoopid computer, as a lot of you have already discovered, holes in pearls typically are frustratingly tiny -- 24 gauge wire being about the only thing that will get through them. Unfortunately, at the moment all I have is dead soft wire in that gauge and it makes wrapping incredibly difficult and floppy. I have to say that it is almost impossible to do a decent wrap with dead soft wire. Most of the larger pearls I can use hard temper 22 gauge wire I buy by the pound from The Ring Lord, a great source for wire in bulk, carrying the full range of wire gauges and tempers across all the common wire types. I have no idea why I didn't buy 24 gauge hard temper. Or maybe I did and it's just lost in my messpile.

Anyway, these pearl chains are what I'm playing with these days. I will dig out my wrapped seed bead chains and start seeing about adding them, as well, but I've always wanted to play with the pearl colours. I watched the first season of Orange is the New Black on Netflix while making these this week.

I haven't quite sorted out how I'll join up the different colours on this fuschia, white and deep teal blue pearl necklace. FYI, the two burgundy-ish brown segments really tone down the red, white and blue direction this was going in. Very interesting, the difference with and without. By using jump rings, I can easily balance out the beads if someone requires a different length or if I decide to make it a double choker length.

A little dish of pearl soup. I need more colours. Sigh...

Alas, there was only the one season of Orange, so now I'm watching Once Upon A Time In Mexico for the umpteenth time and hoping that there are plenty of other Rodriguez films to get me through the weekend.  

Thanks for looking!

Are jewellery sets becoming more popular?

My blue sponge coral necklace sold yesterday at the market after only two weeks out on the table. Whoo hoo! I'm so pleased. Now to make more.

The buyer asked if there was a matching bracelet, but all I had was an adjustable leather bracelet that included the smaller, carved agate bead. They were happy with that. They particularly commented on the large pewter heart clasps that I've used all all my necklaces.

Earlier in the morning I sold a summer-casual white pearl and dyed bright blue agate necklace to an older gentleman for his wife's birthday and we also spent several minutes looking through my earring racks for similar pearl earrings to make up a set. He was very definite about his wife's taste and mentioned that she loved jewellery -- I got the sense he'd bought a lot of it for her through the years. 

Have any of you been asked for sets, or at least similar earrings/bracelet/necklace to make up a set? Is this the new trend, or is it confined mostly to gifts, for greater effect?

It's raining all day today, a good day to be sitting here typing most of the day. It's the Grand River Bead Society meeting, garage sale and par-day tomorrow evening in Guelph -- maybe see some of you there! I'll be bringing turquoise and matte lapis, as well as destash items. I'll be handing in my application form for the GRBS bead show coming up on October 5th and 6th. Mark your calendars for that. It gets bigger and better every year with a variety of great vendors.  

Thanks for looking!



Mixed Pearl Necklace & Earrings

It's February 15th! Happy Half-Price Chocolate Day to you all!

A long silence. With both the weather and roads being the height of crappy the past two Saturdays I erred on the side of caution and skipped the markets. I had visions of sitting at my kitchen table, the only semi-clear space in here (I have four -- count'em -- work tables each of which is completely buried a foot deep in stuff plus the kitchen table), snow silently piling up to the eaves outside and putting jewellery together, but with another onslaught of transcription to plough through not much jewellery-making got done at all.

I finally got around to adding this pretty heart clasp to the mixed cream, pink and purple pearl and Swarovski crystal necklace I started two weeks ago. I have a feeling the clasp could be sterling, but like a lot of things there including these mixed pearls, unmarked and unpriced bags of this, that and the other surface periodically and with no idea from where or whence they came. No .925 on the clasp anywhere to be seen, but it has the sheen and weight of sterling, so mebbe. Sterling earwires for sure on the matching earrings.

Necklace is approximately 25" long

I have a million ideas of things to make but unlike so many of the prolific bloggers I follow, I'm mired deeply in the winter doldrums (and those pesky files). Fortunately the emergence of the sun the past few days is working its slow but sure magic. Now if the temperature could just get above freezing and stay there... how nice that would be!

This is what my pal Lynn (aka Lynny Claus) over at http://cattaildesigns.blogspot.com/ has been working on -- the jewellery display frame AND the earrings. Once the hangers are attached, this and its duplicate will be winging their way to her daughters (2 frames, 2 daughters) as combo V-Day/B-day gifts.

Again, Happy Half-Price Chocolate Day everyone, and thanks for looking!

Coming up with a classic &/or signature design

I've been making jewellery now for almost six years and I think it's this weekend that will be my fifth anniversary selling at the Woodstock Farmer's Market. Without consciously directing myself (if for no other reason that I had/still have no clue what I was/am doing) I've come to some realisations about jewellery, one of which is the need to come up with one or more classic, easily replicable best-sellers, rather than constantly trying to reinvent the wheel. Yes, there is a place for completly original, one-off designs, but ya gotta think bread and butter.

For me my first classic design and five years of bread and butter were and still are my pure silver Precious Metal Clay lily of the valley earrings made with either Swarovski crystals or pearls, of which I figure I've sold over 100 pair to date. That's a whole lot of teensy-tiny flowers that I've made.

There have been minor variations and tweaks along the way: I've experimented with coloured Swarovskis, which some people love and some people want nothing to do with. Mostly, people prefer crystal AB Swarovskis, but the earring versions with pearls have sold well. I've tried various combinations of Swarovski crystal shapes and sizes, and either made or used store-bought sterling earwires.

What sparked this particular blog entry today was reading my online pal Lisa's blog today about how her herringbone weave copper earrings came to be. Go check out Lisa Yang's classic design. Her Etsy shop is Nota Mona.

Shameless plug: I sell these pure silver lilies of the valley by the each or in bags of 2, 5 or 7 or larger quantities. Please email me for prices/availability. I also make and sell Solomon's Seal flowers in three sizes as finished jewellery or by the each. For a further description of how the flowers are made, go poke around on my website.

What's your classic? How did it (or they) evolve?

Thanks for looking!

PS to Joanne: Note the dog hair, just for you! I can't believe it. The hair made it through editing the photo and I didn't see it until just now.

Christmas in August & Work in Progress...

Remember that last post where I was doing my little happy dance? No, no, no, I didn't have to go to the bathroom! At least not quite then. Sigh........ old age ain't pretty. But who's old? Not me. I forgot to grow up. No, not throw up... clean out your hearing aid. GROW UP! Who? Me? 

But I digress... talking to all my imaginary friends here...

Anyway... Am I done? Yes? Thank you. Finally! Okay, here we go. Goodies from Utah and Arizon-i-aaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy!

Mmmmmmmm...

...TWO bags..........

Purty rocks from the Free Store, Utah...

Moany groany time -- the plumpest and juiciest and bluest Kingman turquoise chips... (the blue in the picture below is a little more accurate)

Clockwise from top left, 6mm phosposiderite rounds, Kingman chips, Kingman boulder "bamboo", phosphosiderite "bamboo", phosphosiderite heishi, apple coral heishi, that amazing pretty pale apple green Kingman turquoise heishi, and 6mm Kingman boulder turquoise...

Meanwhile, just for funzies here are a few things I've been working on in between typing like a mad fiend, which I'm supposed to be doing right now, but shhhh... puhleeeease don't rat me out. My work tables are piled high with notes to myself written in wire and beads. Paper just gets lost. Actually, to be truthful, it gets buried under more paper.

Regardless, and unfortunately, most of my notes, paper or otherwise, never get past this stage -- or acted upon -- because I've forgotten the great idea I had, or whatever I started doen't look so hot once I've got this far. Who knows if anything will ever get done with these bits and pieces, but at least I've been doing something.

The eternal question, lost in variations on a theme, did I totally overwork the feather motif in the partial necklace? The plan was that there may be another much larger silver-plated feather dangling from the centre ring, along with the wrapped dangles and maybe a wrapped crystal. This was made using tinned copper wire and of course, I didn't attach each little bit together with jump rings, meaning if I change my mind about the feathers then everything has to be cut apart.

The pearls were wrapped with Argentium sterling (fyi, +/- 1 metre of 22 gauge for each 10" string). Note my fluent bilinguality in inches and millimetres.

Trying again the bead soup technique on a 10" string, wrapped with 20 gauge tinned copper, ditto tinned copper wrapping the base metal/silvertone/Tibetan style beads.

Closeup of the silver and pearl string...

Closeup of the silvertone/silver-plated/base metal/Tibetan style bead dangle with tinned copper wrapping... Oh, yeah, and the cool roundish bead in the middle? I very, very cleverly bought only ONE PACKAGE of the suckers. Eight beads. What was I thinking? I love them.

Silver-plated base metal shield beads & feathers with tinned copper wrapping waiting for me to get around to making more heavy beaded (or not) Argentium sterling earwires. I find a lot of people prefer the plain-silver-skip-the-colour look.

As always, everything has a price and I can often remake a piece to your specifications if it's the wrong length or it's already been sold. Please email me for information, cost. Note that shipping prices will vary, but figure around $8 to $9 to almost anywhere in North America with insurance, $4 for flat items, no insurance.

Thanks for looking!

PMC3 Silver Lilies of the Valley Earrings

I'm way behind in making lily of the valley earrings. I haven't given any new jewellery to Studio Works in Paris for... oh, boy. Three months? B-a-a-a-d. Decided to get started on that tonight, and ended up making these chandelier earrings instead.

 

PMC3 lilies of the valley, pearls Swarovski crystals, sterling silver chandelier & headpins,
Argentium sterling earwires & jumprings


Tomorrow I have free and I intend to get a lot of stuff put together to take into the store either Saturday or Sunday, plus get some more things together to take to the consignment store, as well.

Got all my typing done. Very scary, the prospect of not having that one client's work to count on. Well, nothing I can do about it. Toes and eyes crossed that the volume of work I've been getting in keeps up.

Rough Hubei turquoise choker

Despite how heavy this is (8 grams of silver, and these are pure copper beads, not plated crap) this is surprisingly light to wear. I played quite a bit to get the length right.

I had an interesting day at the Woodstock Farmer's Market yesterday. It started out super slow for everyone. And then all of a sudden, we were inundated with people -- guess people decided it wasn't going to rain after all (monsoons were in the forecast, and I think all it did was spit a few times). There were many new faces, too, something which is also puzzling a lot of the vendors. I didn't sell any big ticket items but there were queries about the turquoise. I did sell a lot of earrings yesterday, two, three pair at a time. Funny that that's what's been selling lately: mostly designs from two or three years ago. Means I have put down the murder mysteries and get busy replenishing the earring carrousel.

I also sold two long strings of pearls, one black and one white. Pearls sell very well. Maybe I should ditch the turquoise and silver and just sell pearl jewellery. Now there's a thought.

More transcription came in, due Tuesday, so I should get on top of that today. I have a pile of things to go through to take to Rekindled (the consignment store in Woodstock) either Tuesday or Wednesday, as well as drop off my long-overdue application to the new Woodstock Art Gallery gift shop which will open when they complete the move to the new premises on Dundas Street. Question: do I have any CDs to burn to and do I even remember how to do it? Do people really still use them? Gahhh.

Sold a bridal set -- and I have my truck back on the road... yay!

Yesterday at the market I was almost packed up when a lady came by and asked if I had anything pink. The earring carousels were still out and I showed her some pink ones, but she wanted a necklace for a gift. All I had was the set I'd made with a wedding in mind, so I dug that out. Of course it was in the last box I opened at the bottom of the bin.

The price for the set was $140. Much dickering ensued, but her budget was $100 and she was sticking to it. On the other hand, I figured it had been sitting on my table for months and $100 of something was better than $140 of nothing. Long story short, I sold it. Meant I had to eat the hours and hours it took to design the flowers and string and restring all the components until I finally found something that pleased me to. Not to mention all the silver headpins I used. Those little glass flowers are expensive suckers, too.


Seed pearls, tanzanite Swarovskis, vintage glass, sterling silver heart clasp & findings SOLD

Better yet, my truck is finally back on the road. Still some repairs to come -- if I don't sell it beforehand -- which means I'll be going nowhere without a jug of water to periodically glug into the radiator overflow. I'm mulling over buying a Ford van to camperise/workshopise with the idea of being able to travel from day market to day market through the summer (and maybe even do some travelling in the winter). Rather than drive back and forth for hours each day to get to a market, which begins to sound more and more like a full time job with concomitant horrendous gas costs and the prospect of zero sales, I could drive to the next venue and, because I'd also have a laptop with an Internet stick, be able to park somewhere and either type or work at jewellery-making while I waited for the next market to start. Bonus is Max could come with me. However, there will be mucho logistics to work out before that ever happens.

After the market, I drove to Brantford to Alexandra's Beads to buy another wire brush so I can continue cleaning fired silver leaves and flowers. I literally wore the bristles down to the wooden handle in about two weeks.

Rene's plans to host(ess) a bridal event some time in August are coming together, with more participants committed, too.

I have to get busy making more wedding jewellery samples. Luckily I bought several strings of different diameter pearls at the wholesaler's a couple of weeks ago. I find it odd how much I love pearls given my taste overall for "tribal" design, rough cut stones and turquoise.