My Bead Buddy

This blog records my process of creating art jewelry, with adventures, examples, and techniques! Not to mention creative inspiration! Click on the images to enlarge.

Oh, it's great to have a beading buddy! Someone you can share inspiration and techniques with, lean on and moan to. Someone who can urge you to take the next step and then when you get stuck, push on your butt to get you up there.

My beading buddy is CGailDesigns, and you can visit her Etsy store to meet her and see her wonderful work. She lives right down the street from me, and her daughter and my son have been in the same class at school since Kindergarten. Her focus is primarily on wirework, and you will see the top level craftsmanship and delicate esthetic in her designs. She uses semi-precious stones to enhance the silver work.

I had to buy this piece with its lovely amazonite rondelles and beautifully antiqued sterling silver beads and spacers. The small beads around the one side are vintage steel nuggets from France, and they are lovely even if I did wear the bracelet so much that it ended up in the washer one day and got a wash and dry.

You're not supposed to launder your fine jewelry or even shower in it, but you can see the piece is no worse for wear!

Oh, my dear beading buddy, you inspire me!

Teacher Gifts

This blog records my process of creating art jewelry, with adventures, examples, and techniques! Not to mention creative inspiration! Click on the images to enlarge.

I made this book thong for my son's 4th Grade teacher.

You can see I've put a lucky eyeball on there, as well as a reindeer charm in honor of the season. This is very similar to my Eye-Popping Keychain, except all the metals are sterling silver instead of pewter. Maybe I've got a series going here?

Resources: Lucky eyeball from Fire Mountain Gems, Bali silver spacers from Artbeads.com, square white and yellow tube bone beads and sterling reindeer charm from All About Beads, Christmas beads from a local bead show, and 1mm waxed cord from a necklace in my drawer. See right for resource links.


For my son's science teacher, I made these Christmas themed earrings with frosty Czech leaves.

Resources: Frosted cubes in green, light green and red from All About Beads, frosted leaves from Michael's Crafts, sterling silver balls from Artbeads.com. See right for resource links.

Pop Goes the Blueberry

This blog records my process of creating art jewelry, with adventures, examples, and techniques! Not to mention creative inspiration! Click on the images to enlarge.

Okay, about Etsy. This is a site where you can buy wonderful handmade things by artists all over the world. You can take a look by clicking on my link at right under Resources. I found out about Etsy through my beading buddy, Candy, who sells her wire jewelry in her Etsy shop. Since it only costs 20 cents to list an item, and the only commission is Paypal's, it's a great deal for artists. It's also wonderful for buyers as well, because there are the most amazing and lovely items for sale. You will never visit retail again, it's that good.

This is my first purchase, from Julie Persons. It's called "Pop Goes The Blueberry" and it's a needle-felted wool pin. You can visit Julie's Etsy shop via my links in Resources at right.

I thought you knitted with wool. Julie wets the wool and shapes it into wall hangings, pendants, bowls, and pins. I'm considering a birdy next ...

The Handmade Pledge

This blog records my process of creating art jewelry, with adventures, examples, and techniques! Not to mention creative inspiration! Click on the images to enlarge.

Okay ... I did it ... I took the pledge. No more Walmart. But with Etsy, who needs Walmart? I can shop from the ease of my office chair, here at home, in my pajamas. I can talk to the craftsfolk on the Etsy chats and convo them after the sale with photos of me wearing their stuff.

Of course, I have an Etsy shop, too. That's how this all got started. But I sure hope I sell more than I buy. Yikes, it's too easy to find AMAZING things on Etsy.

Go see Etsy for yourself. The link is over on the right in Resources.

Saving Silver Wire #3 - Final Assembly

This blog records my process of creating art jewelry, with adventures, examples, and techniques! Click on the images to enlarge.

This is the third part of a series that focuses on working right from a coil of round sterling silver wire to avoid waste and measuring pieces of wire. Here I'm just finishing my assembly of the earrings, and using simple beading techniques, nothing fancy.

Part 3. Assembly of the Final Piece


Here are the parts of my earrings. (Yes, there's an extra black crystal in this demo, because I decided the earrings were too long and redid them with only one black crystal. You can make them either way.)



Hold the earring wire in one hand or flat nose pliers and bend the end of the loop carefully towards you to open the loop. Place the bead unit over the loop and close.



Open a loop on the bead unit the same way, and place the pine cone charm on and close.



All done! That was easy! Here is the final set. I love it!


To see the completed project, come to my Etsy shop. There's a link at right in Resources.

Saving Silver Wire #2 - The Ear Wire

This blog records my process of creating art jewelry, with adventures, examples, and techniques! Click on the images to enlarge.

Now that silver has gotten so expensive, we want to save as much silver wire as possible, don't we? I've developed a few techniques to save my wire – I often work right off the roll of wire. This way I don't waste ANY wire at all and there are no odd lengths of wire to throw away. Here's how I do it on a recent earring project that involves a pine cone charm, a bead unit and a handmade ear wire.

There are three parts to this project. Last post I did Part 1 (The Bead Unit). Here's Part 2 (The Ear Wire). Come back for Part 3 (Putting it Together). I'm using 20 guage round sterling silver wire.

Part 2. THE EAR WIRE
Yes, folks, I use a jig for this. I know some of you think only amateurs use a jig, but I use one whenever it is convenient. Actually, this is the only thing I use the jig for, because it makes all my earring wires come out the same. And it's dead easy.



First, I hold the wire coil in my left hand and flush cut the very end.



Then I grab the very end of the wire with my round nose pliers one-third of the way up.



I roll around to make a loop.



Here's the loop.



I fit that loop right on the small peg of the jig.



I wrap that wire right around the fat peg as you can see here.



I pass the wire between the fat peg and the other small peg and pull a tad to curve the end.



I then flush cut the end of this wire.



I repeat these last couple of steps to make a second earring wire, right over the first one. This way they turn out the same size.



I flush cut the second end so it is the same as the first.



Voila a matching set of earring wires!



You can pinch the shape in a bit if you want.



Don't forget to file the ends a tad for comfort.



My last step is to put each wire on the bench block and tap lightly with my ball peen hammer to harden the wire a bit.



Here they are, nice, huh?

Saving Silver Wire #1 - The Bead Unit

This blog records my process of creating art jewelry, with adventures, examples, and techniques! Click on the images to enlarge.

Now that silver has gotten so expensive, we want to save as much silver wire as possible, don't we? I've developed a few techniques to save my wire – I often work right off the roll of wire. This way I don't waste ANY wire at all and there are no odd lengths of wire to throw away. Here's how I do it on a recent earring project that involves a pine cone charm, a bead unit and a handmade ear wire.

There are three parts to this project. Here's Part 1 (The Bead Unit) – come back for Part 2 (The Ear Wire) and Part 3 (Putting it Together). I'm using 20 guage round sterling silver wire.

Part 1. THE BEAD UNIT

I hold the roll of wire in my left hand like this and work from the end.


2. I flush cut a tiny end off the wire so it will be nice and even.


I slide the beads onto the wire.


Next, I grab the very tip of the wire with the round-nose pliers, a third of the way up, and roll the wire around, making a loop. I bend the wire a little bit at the base, so the loop is centered like a lollipop on a stick.


I go to the other end of the beads I have stacked and hold the wire in the round nose pliers, again a third of the way up.


I then make the second loop. I center that loop and then flush cut the end.


I wiggle both wire ends back and forth a bit until the loops are completely closed.


I place the bead unit on my steel bench block and tap very lightly on each loop with my ball peen hammer to harden the wire.


Here's the finished bead unit.

Planned Chaos #1

This blog records my process of creating art jewelry, with adventures, examples, and techniques! Click on the image to enlarge.

Here is my bead table. I do all my work on a space roughly 5 feet by 3 feet, and believe it or not, it works. (This is because I already have an office for my web design business and the bead table must be relegated to a corner of that!)

It's sort of a mess, but that's the way beading is. You'll never see some of the most amazing combinations unless you mix up the beads a little. That said, you have to have some idea of where everything is stored, or you'll go mad.

I have a tool rack (salt/pepper/napkin caddy) to the left, out of the picture, but I do try to keep the tools I'm working with to the right, as I'm right-handed. That way I know they're there.

I have melamine containers and silicone mini-cupcake cups (you can see an orange one holding my wire scraps at the right) to catch odds and ends – at the end of the session most of this stuff ends up returned to the craft bins along the back of my table.

My most ingenious find was these colorful CD trays and they're great for controlling your wire. I was going bonkers trying to use plastic bags, because the wire kept poking out. Even if you're in a hurry, you can just sort of coil it up and shut the lid quick!

For some reason, it works for me that the steel bench block just sits in the lower left of the tray. Dunno why. But I've gotten used to it there.

I really love having a tray on the table. That way, if I want to bead while watching TV, or watching TV in the kitchen, or sitting with a bead buddy (CGail Designs) at the dining room table, I can take the project there.

What is that shelf, you ask? In the back sits an adjustable bathroom shelf I originally got for the bathroom sink which has a very small vanity. It didn't fit there, so it finally ended up here, holding some of my bead bins. It's nice not to have to take down a whole pile of bins to get at one on the bottom.

Come back for Planned Chaos II, and I'll show you my Ongoing Projects Box and my Take Along Bags.

To see my completed pieces, visit my Web Site or my Etsy Shop.

Eye-popping Keychains

This blog records my process of creating art jewelry, with adventures, examples, and techniques! Click on the image to enlarge.

Okay, I've got all these terrific necklaces and things up on Etsy, and what does someone want? A keychain. So I go to my desk and whip out my leather pieces. Turns out these are 2mm in size, and all my bead holes are too small. So I string it up on a tough piece of Beadalon, pop on an evil eye bead, a key chain ring, a small pewter dreidel, and I'm done.

The evil eye bead and the pewter barrel bead are from Fire Mountain Gems, the yellow bone bead is from All About Beads, and the pewter dreidel is from Kosher Creative. There are links in Resources on right.