Lately I’ve been suffering from craft induced insomnia. I’ll toss and turn, everyone in the house will be fast asleep while I’m pondering grand crafting schemes. This pair was put together at 1:00 a.m. using variations on the ladder stitch. If I had continued with the seed bead/crystal pattern on top, I could have turned it into a ring. Happy St. Patrick’s Day
March 15, 2008
Here is a variation on the blue glass drops. I like the little twirl at the end of a wrap. I noticed it on a bracelet I saw in Manhattan and all of the sudden I see it everywhere.
Isn’t it odd how until something is of interest to you, you don’t really notice it? For example, it wasn’t until I was pregnant that I suddenly noticed all these pregnant women and strollers. The angel has been on my bathroom wall for a while. I took it down to dust it for the “photo shoot” and discovered that it was a Fontanini angel from 1967, which of course didn’t mean anything to me until I googled it. My grandmother gave it to me a while ago and I’m sure she knows all about these things without the almighty Google engine.
February 27, 2008
Well, they aren’t quite diamonds, but they will do for now. These earrings feature a red millefiori bead and some small Swarovskis all chained together with some basic loops. I think this lineup would also make a great necklace. Now I just have to see if I have enough crystals. . .
P.S. The Monopoly game was my Valentine’s present to myself. It comes in this girly jewelry box looking box. The tokens are chihuahuas and movie star glasses and instead of houses you build malls. Just a little something to nurture consumerism in eight-year-old girls early on.
February 19, 2008
Lately, I’ve really liked the look of exposed stringing wire. I find it looks industrial and yet delicate. These earrings feature two stringing wires with a faceted bead strung on one of them together with a crimp bead to position it. The drop is strung over both wires and that whole contraption is held together with two larger crimp beads. Perfect for a sunny February day when the crocuses are just starting to peek through the dirt. Happy Valentine’s Day.
February 14, 2008
This pair uses carnelian (I think) beads in combination with sodalite ovals, Thai beads and bead caps and silver wire. The silver bead hides the twist in the wire that keeps the sodalite oval in place. The two ends of the wire run through the silver and carnelian beads and the bead cap to end in a wrapped loop.
January 30, 2008
Lisa from U-Handbag tagged me as amazing and weird (or was that amazingly weird? Let’s not go there.) So here are seven weird things about me:
- I can wiggle my pinky toes independent from all my other toes.
- I think my husband married me because I can whistle using my fingers and once hailed a cab for him when we were first dating.
- I am compulsive about watching all episodes of a television series in one sitting. I just finished watching 34 episodes of Heroes on Netflix play-on-demand within a little over a week. Needless to say, absolutely nothing got done. (I have met the devil and this feature of Netflix is it!)
- I worked at Starbuck’s when a small cup of coffee was still called ‘Small’ and you would get a free cup of coffee with every pound of coffee you bought.
- My favorite task in law school was to edit footnotes.
- I hide from my snail mail. I never open up the mailbox. That’s Joe’s job. I couldn’t finish the House of Sand and Fog because that described me to a tee. One day I too will end up in jail because I couldn’t get myself to open my mail.
- I prefer a stick shift over an automatic. That’s generally not a problem except on family vacations when someone needs to borrow a car and no one knows how to drive ours.
So, that’s enough weirdness for today. And with this I tag Candace, Elizabeth, and Tamara.
January 29, 2008
A pair of dainty little origami hearts. To make them use your favorite origami heart folding technique and make four hearts. I used 5 x 5 cm paper scraps. Then glue two hearts together, which leaves you with one pair. I varnished the hearts to make them more sturdy. I then pierced them (very dramatic) with a pin and eased a jump ring through the hole. From there on out it’s up to your creativity: turn them into earrings, make a bunch for a charm bracelet, or skip the piercing and glue a pin back to the heart.
January 17, 2008
Clasp Earrings
The centerpiece of these earrings are the two halves of a clasp. Just wear the clasps or pretty them up further with something dangley.
January 11, 2008
Here is my project for the year: I want to make 99 different pairs of earrings over the course of the next 12 months. That averages about 2 pairs a week. We’ll see how I fare with this resolution. This is the first pair of the year:
For Christmas my husband gave me a bunch of tools and a bag of potato beads. While browsing for a new technique to try out, I stumbled upon the idea of a wire cage. To make these pretties you need:
- Two 4 inch pieces of wire (22 gauge) for the cage
- Two 3 inch pieces of wire for the wrapped loops
- 2 beads you want to envelop in the cage
- 2 4mm crystal beads to dangle off the loop
- earring wire
- bits of fine chain
- 2 small split rings
To put them together:
The Cage
- Make a small loop at the end of one 4 inch wire and then begin spiraling about 2 inches of the wire. Repeat from the other end.
- Keep spiraling the two coils until they overlap and then pull the center of each spiral out to form the top.
- Insert the bead in the cage and tweak the wire around it until you arrive at a shape to your liking.
The Loop
- Begin creating a wrapped loop, but thread a crystal on the wire before you wrap the loop.
- Move the bead around in the cage until the hole aligns with the top of the bead. Then thread the straight end of the wrapped loop through the top of the cage, the bead and the bottom of the cage.
- Begin creating another wrapped loop at the other end of the wire, but thread the end of the chain onto the wire before wrapping it.
The Finale
- Attach the other end of the chain to a split ring.
- Attach the split ring to the earring wire
- Repeat the whole process with the other earring.
January 7, 2008
