Silly seed beadiness...

I don't know why I keep making these, but the kids like them and are buying them, so.......... here are some more:

It's very difficult to figure out what people might want at any given time, and I often wait for people to request things. On Saturday, I got a request for eyeglass holders or necklaces, whatever they're called. But it has to be lightweight she said. Unfortunately, the patchwork seed bead necklace she wanted was the perfect weight but several inches too short. I'll be doing another one of those for her this week, but in the meantime I started one with these multi-seed beads to see what she thinks. 

I only need a few of the rubber grips for the arms of the glasses, but had to buy a bag of 100 in a local store. I could to the next town and buy a few, but then have to account for gas and driving time. Cheaper to buy the big bag... I guess I will be making a lot more of these. I remember seeing a whole table full of them at a craft show several years ago, and while I thought they were really beautiful, I don't remember ever seeing anyone wearing them. Is it because more and more people have progressive lenses these days and don't need to be switching between different glasses? Quite possibly, as per this customer, the original ones I saw were too heavy to actually wear. Sunglasses have lived on top of my head my whole life. Currently, they're the kind that are worn over regular glasses so I can dispense with needing prescription sunglasses.

What's taking me time right now is figuring out how to make these holders multi-purpose. I'd like people to be able to take off the rubber thingies and easily turn their holder into a necklace if they want.

I also got an order for a dreamcatcher for a guy's rearview mirror. For the past couple of days I've been researching how to make them, as well as find out if there is any significance to the weaving patterns or other considerations. There are some really gorgeous variations out there. He kind of left it open as to what I end up doing: he likes my style, do whatever I think is best. I can hear all of you who do commissions immediately thinking, "Uh, oh... Been there, done that, don't do it anymore." He likes my style, does he? Hokayyyyyyyyy...

As well this week, I will be going ahead and making another solar quartz necklace with "peacock" dyed freshwater pearls for another tentative commission. This should look really interesting and a total contrast to the one with the natural pearls, the natural pearls picking up the white of the quartz, the dyed pearls picking up the centre patterns in the quartz.

Stay tuned for photos... and thanks for looking!

Peacock Solar Quartz & Freshwater Pearl Necklace & Earring Set

I had posted pictures here of the stones when I first bought them from Bamiyan Silver last summer, then made this necklace (but never photographed it -- or more likely I did, but I can't remember where I filed it) and it has been sitting on my market table ever since, often admired but yet never finding a good home.

This past Saturday, it was bought by a group of friends -- someone is going to have a great surprise on their birthday in a few days. Shhhhh... other than to say this lady has some great friends who love and admire her very much, my lips are sealed.

I will say, though, I had a great Saturday with several sales and orders, plus I met more new people. It was such fun. It never fails to amaze me how the market will start out sooooooo slow and quiet until 9:30 or 10:00 and then kaboom. A trickle will turn into a deluge of people. Was it the sun coming out that finally pried people out of their jammies and into their cars? It got warmer and warmer as the day progressed, Sunday was lovely, but here we are on Monday, phhht... raining and cold, dark and miserable. Must have been specially ordered to match many people's moods as they frantically try to get their taxes done and filed by midnight. Mine are in Deirdre the Tax Goddess's capable hands...

There is plenty of information on the significance of solar quartz available across the web so I won't bore you by repeating it here, but geologically speaking, solar quartz is white or grey agatized quartz cut horizontally from stalactites. This particular string of beads was cut in a graduated, faceted, teardrop shape which has been dyed a "peacock" colour to highlight the detail of the growth rings (where the term agatized fits in -- all those hard parallel bands) and occasional dendritic mossy inclusions. These are endlessly fascinating stones to gaze upon. The solar quartz beads have been set off by creamy white freshwater pearls. Tiny sterling beads wink like distant stars on either side of each solar quartz bead and a sterling heart clasp holds it all together.

I have one more string of the peacock solar quartz, and I will be stringing it with peacock purple/green-dyed rondelle-shaped pearls I got a couple of weeks ago from Titan Beads to see how the quartz looks with dark pearls instead of creamy white.

I can get more if anyone wants to buy just the string(s), or, to order a complete necklace email me for details and prices.

Thank you for looking!

"Patchwork" seed bead necklaces...

These are what I worked on all day yesterday. Haven't quite finished them, but...

For years I've been fascinated by the colourful mixed up patterns of the seed bead jewellery worn by many African women, hence my calling these patchwork necklaces. The hundreds, if not thousands of hours involved making their jewellery blows me away, and that's just the assembling part. They also make many of their beads by hand or in small production batches in simple wood-fired kilns.

I've always known that learning another's craft or art gives insight into how the person -- or the culture -- viewed/views their world and thought/thinks visually. Reproducing a work, studying it from the doing of it, to an infinitisimal degree allows me to crawl inside the artist's motivation and/or way of looking at the world, not to mention provides a deeper appreciation of their art of their place and time, whether it's drawing, painting, etching, calligraphy, bookbinding, paper marbling, and now all the different forms of jewellery-making (wrapping, chain maille, Viking knit, PMC, stringing, etc.). Jewellery, which is to me simply wearable art, if not wearable sculpture, is all positive/negative space to me -- which is why I was always drawn to the monochrome of silver and pewter in particular. Colour adds an impenetrable complexity. Still lots more to learn on the jewellery-making front, not to mention the geology of it which is a whole 'nother colourful and 3-dimensional world within a world.

Since my own use of colour is notoriously bad, I had to force myself to not overthink the process, just pick colours at random, work with them for a couple of inches, pick more colours, and not try to second-guess myself or control the final order. Maybe instead of patchwork, crazy-quilt would be a better term, emphasis on the first word.

I was also curious to see how long it would take to make one single simple strand: about three hours for the long one, over an hour for the shorter one. These still need to have the clasps finished, but here are some pictures.

The "bracelet" I'm wearing in the top picture is actually a 58" necklace; the other necklace is about 26". I've used fine wire to string them with and the long necklace has been double-crimped at each end so it will safely hold pendants if desired, and take the abuse of wrapping when worn as a bracelet.

About 26"



About 58"

More of these necklaces are in production. Still also working on the final design of the clasp loops. I've chosen to use the tried and true lobster clasps as they are the most secure.  
They will be for sale (at first world prices, alas), please email me if interested or you want to commission a particular length.
 
Thanks for looking!

MORE skulls...

Got stuck typing all week, but managed tonight to put a few things together. This is a variation on a theme. I will photograph more stuff tomorrow or Sunday, but here's the first one.

I made a pile of seedbead necklaces last week, all about 23" long, some I've added deerskin strings to, to make them adjustable, add pendants, feathers, whatever one likes.

This for now is a fixed length, but easy enough to add leather strings.

BTW, I just got some mood beads. Are they ever wild! Amazing colours. I guess the '70s are back, bigger and better than ever -- except everyone from then keeps DYING so it's kind of a bittersweet trip down memory lane. I missed mood rings the first time around... I actually knew one person who had one. I thought it was the tackiest thing I'd ever seen, cheap glass set in plastic, basically. But they did turn colours. High tech for those days. These beads I just got are finished nicely, edged in silver colour metal with large holes, so they're a lot more useful.

Looks like I have the whole week coming up free of typing and I plan to get a lot done -- including my pesky taxes. Geez, didn't we just have to do those a few months ago? Time is flyin', innit? Only 8 months and 5 days until Christmas. Get your orders in now, folks.


This necklace is for sale: $35 plus shipping/handling. Email me if interested. Thanks for looking!

Bwahahahaha V, I think...

I've lost track. These are rawther cute, I think. These are the same skull beads -- well, not exactly the same ones, but you know what I mean... don't you? I hope you do -- that my dog ate at 4:30 a.m. last Saturday morning while I was sitting here checking my email just before loading up the truck with my market bags and boxes. I could hear this strange crunching coming from the kitchen but most of the sound was drowned out by the two fans humming away inside the hard drive beside me here. I thought at first he was drinking water very loudly... then I thought is he eating ICE? From where? Crunching on a stick??? But... oh nooooooooooooooooo.......... I rushed in and he was scarfing down the skulls that I had tied into threes with fishing line and indestructable sharkskin price tags for the market. (Those price tags really ARE completely indestructable, btw.)

What do you say to a dog doing his doggy job eating bones??? It was my fault for putting them at nose level, sitting on the top of a bag of market stuff.

Here are a couple of the ones he didn't eat.

In case you're wondering, they all came out in the end largely intact (including fishing line -- I was terrified I was looking at a huge vet bill) during our walk last Sunday morning.

The earrings are for sale, $25 plus shipping. I can upgrade the silver-plated earwires to argentium sterling for $3 more.

Thanks for looking!

PEE ESS: From the Too Good Not To Share Department, a sign I saw today at a local greenhouse, Walter's, out on Highway 5 near 24: "We're so excited it's spring, we almost wet our plants".

Copper washer earrings

It's been two or three weeks of solid typing and aimlesssly banging away here and there on different bits and pieces and playing with shapes, then trying to become motivated in the drag end of the week -- two or three hours late on a Friday afternoon -- to make some jewellery before the Saturday market but finally today I got something put together. After watching the digital version of paint drying -- watching quick-charge batteries recharging -- I took these pictures.


Hammered copper washers, swirled wire doodad, pewtery/Tibetan silver/zinc bead w/copper beads, argentium sterling earwires. Yes, the bubo is from hammering the relatively small washers. Baaaad washers. Baaaad hammer.



I'm still not entirely sure if these are a work in progress but they are/will be for sale (email me). I may dispense with the jump rings and wrap the pieces together with either copper or silver wire. Still debating that. I also have larger hammered washers, but they might be too heavy for here.

Vote/comment here or Artefaccio on Facebook.

Copper triple bail spiral & curved leaf dangles

What I've been designing/working on today...

Consistency is the goal at this point. Then I will work on speed, as right now they're clocking in at a cost of $4.10 each... but they sure are purty. With the triple bail design, I wanted something that is going to sit solidly on a leather or cotton cord in between the beads so the necklace overall doesn't get too floppy -- and here I'm thinking old chevrons, Tibetan dzi agate beads, African handmade sandcast and clear glass beads. I've hammered all the triple bail spirals, so they're thick and thin like the leaf. May make a pile left plain.

Orders taken, please email me if you're interested. I'm particularly interested in producing my designs in quantity. Shipping is extra, depends on destination and need for speed.

Thank you for looking!

Copper headpins and dangles...

These are what I've been making this week -- at least 150 of the little suckers -- with approximate prices. They seem so expensive to me (even made in copper) but time and materials have to be accounted for.
 

3" flat paddles = 35 cents each
2" flat paddles = 30 cents each



2.25" open spiral = 80 cents each
2.25" closed spiral = 80 cents each



2.25" rosette = 86 cents each

I've also been making assorted dangles:

Hammered copper heart with Chinese AB crystal rondelle, pewter daisy spacers, copper swirl headpin



Lapis lazuli rondelles, faceted copper spacers, pewter daisy spacers, 20 gauge tinned copper spiral headpins;
lapis lazuli rondelles, pewter daisy spacers, 18 gauge copper headpins w/hammered loop



These are the headpin prototypes I was playing with this week. They look like copper, but it's just my bad photography. They're 20 gauge tinned copper and are what I used in the dangles below.



Chinese AB crystals, pewter daisy spacers, rosette tinned copper headpins

 Other than making these, I haven't done much all week except type and read and sleep. I was very sick on Monday/Tuesday and had a migraine for the first time in years from all the wind of the past two weeks. The weather now, though, is unbelievable -- 20C the past two days --  and everything is turning green so quickly, but with a hail storm yesterday morning, I suppose to add that little soupcon of seasonal reality. It's forecast to be like this pretty much all of next week, as well, and then we get some more coolish weather down around 10C. I can live with that.

The hammered copper Art Deco-ish bracelet...

...that started out as a necklace.

I finally finished this. I've been messing around with it all week on and off. Actually, I've been typing like a mad fiend since Sunday, finished that early on Tuesday evening, spent a great part of yesterday in bed in a dark room with all the symptoms of a migraine but without the pain. Very curious sensation. Wind is still a trigger for a lot of migraine-like symptoms even though I haven't had a full-blown migraine in years -- for which I am profoundly grateful. I had 13 years of those suckers 4 and 5 times a week with no letup. They disappeared as abruptly as they began.

But back to the bracelet. These Art Deco style "roses" I've been doodling for I don't know how many years, and it struck me one day they'd make cool connectors, and I think they work particularly well because the beads somewhat mimic the shape. Yes, in this case, the connectors came before the beads, but when I saw the beads at Rainbow Trading's trunk show at the Bead Boutique in Kitchener a week ago, I pounced. I just wish I could have afforded another string.

Showing the clasp, still working on refining the design, but so far it's easy on/off and extremely secure.

I cannot get over how hard it is to photograph a bracelet on.

I wish I could've had five beads on this, but... I wanted it to fit a medium wrist. Another bead will add a full 2 inches to the bracelet.

This is for sale, please email me for details. Thanks for looking!

Checkitout... I'm on Facebook!

Yeah, yeah, okay, all right... I'm only ten years behind the times. Big whup. Nothing new about that.

I now have a Facebook store thing! Thanks to my good pal from deviantArt, http://blackowl4.deviantart.com/, I have been dragged kicking and screaming and better late than never into the second decade of the 21st century. Go visit her pages and see her stunning work.
http://www.facebook.com/BoriquaDoll

And then come back and see my stuff.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/giftsfromthegarden

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I'm in a weird mood, I sift through beads, can't get inspired, but what does suit my mood is pounding the snot out of poor innocent copper wire. I've been doing that a lot lately. I wonder if it means anything significant...

These are copper, obviously, earwires, part of an order for Lynn in Arizona:

These are string ends I've been playing with, to use when tying off with leather cord (instead of using plain jump rings) after I've strung 6 or 8 inches of beads on wire, some hammered art deco rose spacers, and some more necklace ends or maybe dangles, respectively. I'm finding that the overlapping of wire on the string end loops and thick/thin hammering means there's less chance that the stringing wire will work its way loose the way it will do through the gap in jump rings, but there's still the flexibility of being able to take things apart if necessary.

I had made this originally as a heart, but didn't like the loop at the bottom. I still don't care for it even sitting at the top, but it makes for an interesting frame for the Chinese AB crystals, which I'm using to keep the cost down. Now to riff on this copper shape which I do like and see what transpires.

TRUNK SHOW ALERT - 1-4 March 2012!
Anyone reading this from Southern Ontario, please plan to go tonight, Thursday, 1 March though Sunday 4 March to The Bead Boutique in Kitchener. Jess is hosting a huge bead trunk show, and the bead selection will be stunning. Here is the link for more info, hours, address...: http://www.facebook.com/TheBeadBoutiqueKitchener