I was talking to my friend Heidi the other day and she asked me if I’ve ever met a craft I didn’t like. The answer is yes, but not many. Anyway, I learned a new craft this weekend! Metalsmithing jewelry!
This all started out when I finally got my hands on a chasing hammer and bench block. From there I had to go and get silver soldering supplies. My first attempt at soldering didn’t go so well as I didn’t know what it mean when the solder flowed and I didn’t heat it long enough. But once you know what that looks like it gets pretty easy.
Here is my first piece – it’s made from copper wire. The solder is silver which is why you see 2 colors. I need to figure out how to copper plate the solder.
I’ve been totally in the mood to make some jewelry lately. In the past few days I’ve made 3 necklaces and an a pair of earrings. The first thing was a necklace made with some semi-precious beads I had around. I think they are either some form of quartz or jasper. This necklace is hand knotted on a silk cord with some seed beads. I tried out using a knot cover finding for the first time.
Next is this necklace I’ve had in my head for awhile…it’s using gunmetal chains and amber glass beads. I am thinking of adding some amber glass drops too…but I want to think about it.
Lastly is this cute little beaded necklace with purple glass beads. I have tons of these bead packets from ACMoore. Basically it’s a bunch of coordinated beads and when they’re on sale it’s like $1.50 each. They’re great for quick and easy projects. I put the beads on tigertail then used crimp beads to secure it on the chain.
 
 
(click on photo to view bigger)
If anyone is looking for a great idea for a gift to make for a woman check out these earrings. The directions come from fusionbeads.com. I actually ended up buying my beads at artbeads.com because I wanted to get a lot of different colors and Artbeads sells by the piece. I believe the cost was less than $3/pair and that with using all Swarovski crystals and sterling silver or gold filled components. The only thing you need to know how to do is make a wrapped loop, and the website has easy instructions on that.
I got enough to make a pair for all of my female relatives and some extras. Hmm…I have a lot jewerly to make in the next week and a half!
PS If you’re my mom/aunt/sister/cousin/grandma…you didn’t see this.
I tried my hand at crocheting jewelry this week. At first I was trying to crochet onto some hoops but that wasn’t going well, so I ended up just freeform crocheting. My initial attempts were using 99cent 32ga wire from the crafts store, which gave me an idea of what stitches and hooks to use. Then my 
sterling silver dead soft 30ga wire arrived on monday. I also bought some (too expensive) pink tourmaline beads at the bead shop.
Here is the final product. The box is about 4″ square to give you an idea of scale. I used a G hook and prestrung my beads. I really like the organic feel of crocheted wire, and since you can only buy sterling silver wire in 1 oz spools (I got mine from artbeads.com) I still have plenty more wire (and beads!) to play with.
These are a gift for a friend who told me that I should make Lorene originals rather than copying some stuff I saw in a jewelry shop. Although the necklace I liked was $5000! And, yes I am still planning on making my own version of it.
I made a bracelet yesterday. I bought the beads and the hemp cord at Michaels. The construction technique is inspired by a bracelet I saw in Portland. However that was done with teardrop crystals and leather.
I can never find what I want in stores. So I quite often end up making it myself. In this case it was a necklace and earrings. They are both made from Rose and Crystal Swarovski Beads (and teardrops) and sterling silver findings.
I like the necklace but I LOVE these earrings. They are actually made from a multi-strand holder thing (the technical term) for a necklace. You couldn’t really see them since my hair was down but I’m sure I’ll be wearing these again. In fact I need to buy some more stones/crystals so i can make more!
My friend Amanda’s birthday was this week and I needed to send something off for her so I decided to make her a necklace. She broke her arm a few months ago so I decided to make her an agate necklace. One of the metaphysical properties of agate is healing. I got 2 stands of 4mm beads and on of 8mm beads. I’ve made necklaces before, but after the amazing bead flying incident at fuzzy’s bbq last week I wanted to try out knotting.
The smaller bead section is knotted between every 8 beads. The large bead secion has knots between every 3 beads. I used a bead awl so the knotting was pretty simple to do, but I’m surprised I don’t have a blister on my left index finger. Altogether the necklace is about 49″ long. So it can be single, double or triple wrapped.
I also made up a little pouchette for the necklace. Healing stones made me think of the little crochet bags my mom used to make when I was younger. I used to have a collection of stones I carried in the pouch around my neck. I decided to do a simpler version (my moms had patterns) with #3 pearl cotton. I used a 0 crochet hook and double crochet so it went rather quickly.
I’m sending her the necklace with a wee baggie of sea salt for purification. I hope she likes it.
A few months ago I came across some cool silver ladybug beads in a craft store. I bought them with the intentions of making some jewelry for my mom for mothers’ day because she likes ladybugs. At some point I even bought red and black beads too. And then mothers’ day came and went and I totally forgot about the beads. But I found them last week and I made her this bracelet tonight.
I’d also like to give a shout out to crimp beads. I’ve been making jewelry since I was a little kid and I’ve never been any good at making knots. With tigertail wire and crimp beads I never have to! Woo! I’m also a big fan of toggle clasps. They are so much easier to do than lobster clasps. Especially on things like bracelets.
