Week 17-Dancing Leaf Necklace

This necklace is my version of a spectacular silver piece in Sharilynn Miller's new book Wire Art Jewelry Workshop. She calls hers the Dancing Man necklace. Since mine was constructed to showcase a gorgeous lampwork glass leaf by Jacqueline Parkes of Gems in Bloom on Etsy and I stink at thinking up clever names, I think I'll call mine Dancing Leaf necklace. :D My necklace is made of bronze wire with paraiba quartz and labradorite as the main stones. It's accented with smaller gems of paraiba quartz, iolite, pearl and chrysoprase that pick up the colors in the leaf.

I'm Loving Coral This Week

I never wear red and it's never been one of my favorite colors. But a couple of folks on the forums I belong to were destashing some red coral beads and they all of a sudden appealed to me. So I played with these beads all last weekend. With the exception of the first pair of earrings, these are all done with copper wire. I would love to pair some with silver in a necklace but I find myself being stingy with my silver wire lately. I'll have to get over that-it's not going down.

Week 6-Amethyst Stalactite Necklace

Here's the stalactite that I got stuck on last week. The stalactite is set in a Margo Farrin O'connor style. I had started this at metalsmithing class trying to solder all of the wires together. But I wasn't happy with my solder joints so I ended up wiring them together with half round wire. Quicker, easier and just as strong. The necklace is somewhat inspired by Emily Gray. I used amethyst and labradorite rondelles above the stalactite, and the larger rondelles holding the chain are paraiba quartz. I ended up cutting off a couple of the rice pearls after I took the pics. I'm not sure about the pearl drops on this. It's one of those things I have to look at for a while before I decide if I like it that way. The pearl drops are actually a natural lavender color although they look a little peachy in some of the pictures.

Week 5-Solar Quartz and Copper Necklace

This isn't the project that I was working on for this week. I had prong set a beautiful stalactite slice and had a vague vision of what I wanted to hang it from. So I got out the copper wire to play around and instead found myself channelling Gosia Domanska and Mary Tucker and bending little leaves in the wire. It wasn't what I had in mind for my stalactite slice so I added some green tourmaline and vessuvianite beads, and hung a cool solar quartz pear briolette from it. I'm not sure about the addition of the keishi pearls but I felt like it needed something to echo the white.

Week 38-Woven Labrodorite Necklace

My favorite stone, labradorite. This one is set in a netted bezel and attached to two 18 gauge wires woven together and then intertwined. What a PITA. I stuggled to get both sides even and I'm still not sure they are.

Week 23-Silver Flower Necklaces

In working on a prototype for a new key tutorial, I ended up with several of these flower motifs in various sizes. The flower shape itself was inspired by Lisa Racine of Julida Designs, an artist whose work I really enjoy. I was trying to achieve one that was about an inch in diameter. Because the size of the flower is dependent on the diameter of the plier jaws where you form them, and there is no way to know in advance exactly how big they're going to turn out, I had to do some experimenting to get one the right size. Rather than consign the extras to the scrap box, I added beads and coiling and chains and ended up with two pretty cool necklaces. Even though I'm still not anywhere close to getting my key prototype done, at least I consider it was a productive day.

Week 16-Labradorite Vine Necklace

I've had this gorgeous labradorite pendant that I got from Szarka at Magpie Gemstones for a while waiting for a project to come to mind. This labradorite has tons of blue chatoyancy so I combined it with apatite rondelle beads and little green amethyst faceted rounds. I struggled with attaching the coiled vine and I'm not 100% happy with the way the wrap wires are showing but maybe I can talk myself into believing that it adds an organic element to the necklace.

Week 13-Rock Quartz and Fine Silver Necklace

I've had this big honking rock crystal quartz briolette for awhile, and when I say big I mean it's 1 1/8" tall by 3/4" wide. I suppose I could have just wrapped it and put it on a chain but noooo, I had to try and get fancy with it. Maybe the folks who are so good at these vining type settings can visualize them in their head but I can't. So I just grab wire and start twirling it. The fact that it was 16 gauge wire didn't make it any easier and I actually had to anneal it a couple of times while I was messing around with it. I ended up with some awkward looking spaces in the middle, hence the pearls. I'm still undecided about this one. Maybe it will grow on me.

Week 3-The Color Turquoise

The theme for this week was men's jewelry. But that didn't inspire me this week. Instead I went with a color which, according to Pantone is supposed to be the hot shade for spring 2010. I was happy about that as it already is a favorite color of mine. This necklace uses a large aqua hydro quartz drop topped with two different colors of apatite, purple amethyst, silvery blue keishi pearls, a filigree bead and a hand woven bail.

This one is a hand forged and soldered copper flower shape. I filled the center with the same blue keishi pearls and two colors of apatite. Very summery.

Week 52-Woven and Braided Silver Necklace

I can finally post this. This was made as part of a Christmas exchange between two of my Creative Wire Jewlery forum friends and myself so I had to sit on it until after the 25th. It's two 18 gauge wires woven together and then woven again into a braided centerpiece. Whew! I can't believe I made it through a whole year and, although not usually on time, I managed to post something every week. I've really enjoyed participating in the Year of Jewelry and seeing everyone's creations, and I'm looking forward to 2010.

Week 50-Woven Silver and Labradorite Necklace

I'm still playing around with forming woven wires into shapes. This started with a gorgeous 18mm x 13mm AAA labradorite cabochon that was netted onto a soldered frame. When I wove the 18 gauge wires together I attached the cab frame to the weaving in several places as I went along and then carefully worked the woven wires into shape with mostly my fingers. I applied a liver of sulfur patina to the whole piece to enhance the details.

Week 48-Winter Vine

I'm the vice president of the Genesee Area Bead Society (noone else wanted the job.) :D At our meeting tomorrow we have the show and tell for an inspiration challenge. We passed out envelopes containing paint chips. We could either use the colors for inspiration or the name of a color. My paint chip was a palette of greens and one of the colors was called Winter Vine. I used copper and sterling silver along with rondelles of rock quartz, moonstone and a green mystic quartz. The tiny green briolettes are tourmaline and the dangles are moonstone.

Week 35-Copper Viking Knit with Kazuri Pendant

When I'm at shows I often work on a piece of Viking knit to keep my hands busy. I ended up with this long piece of copper so I pulled it and pulled it until it bacame a neck chain. I made the end cones with 18 gauge wire wrapped around my round nose pliers. I added a slide made with a Kazuri bead and a large smoky quartz drop. Then I lightly oxidized everything. If you're not familiar with Kazuri beads, they are fair trade beads from Kenya. The company was started in 1975 by Lady Susan Wood, the daughter of two British missionaries. Today they have a factory that offers employment opportunities to single mothers, widows, and people with special needs. They offer good wages, favorable working conditions, child care and health care. Some women are supporting extended families of up to 20 people on what they are able to earn there.

I am now officially caught up!

Week 21-Copper Flower Necklace

Uh oh, late again. This is something from my odds and ends box that I decided to do something with. It was shaped from 14 gauge copper wire, soldered together and hammered. The lilacs are in bloom here so I decorated the center with little CZ, amethyst and sterling silver 2mm beads, and added a chain. I made a flattened spiral and wired that on the back to cover up the wires and make it look neater. Of course, it was given an LOS bath.

Week 18-Skeleton Key Jewelry

This bracelet and necklace are made from part of a collection of old skeleton keys that belonged to my grandfather. The metal is coppper with a little sterling thrown in for interest. But what I'm really excited about is that I learned to create an embossed watermark in Paint.Net. That took longer than actually making the jewelry. :D