Sundries and Plunder Guest Giveaway

Sundries and Plunder Guest Giveaway


These animal masks are so lovely, absolutely gorgeous stuff.

Webtangle Earings

A couple posts ago, I gave a teaser showing bits of jewelry i'd photographed, and also a pair of earings nestled in my hands. Here is a closer shot of these little pretties, that I call my Webtangle earings. This is one of the projects from Stephanie Lee's lovely book, Semi-precioius salvage, that i've slowly been working my way through, project by project :).



Teaser shot again, of more things to come...

Lapis neck piece

A couple months ago, I was browsing flickr and came accross a piece by Cindiesmithdesigns. I was totally inspired by the lovely, lovely shapes created the necklace, and knew I wanted to make something similar in some ways (with my own flare of course!). See inspiration point here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cyndiesmithdesigns/3076304372/in/faves-meisterdalediane/


And here's the finished product! I added many design points of my own, including the entire pendant area and the rivets along the copper.

Here's the back part of the necklace. After rolling over the copper, I hooked in a link and linked it to some chunky chain. It then has a nice toggle closure.

This is the best photo for seeing the pendant. You can see the huge lapis lazuli cab i used on the copper. You can also see the rivet i did to close the filigree together (i later glued a small blue crystal on top, as this rivet was a little messy). You can also see the work i did linking together many jump rings to connect the pendant to the necklace.

Speaking of lapis, I really like the piece I picked up for this project. As you can see in the photo, it has lovely shine and sparkle to it... I can even kinda see my shadow on the surface! I got a pretty good deal on it (i think) from my favorite jewelry salesman. Only 3000 won! (about 3$). I didn't really get into buying stones until after I came here to Korea, but i think the prices are significantly lower here. Anyone else know about how much a 2 inch diameter cab of lapis lazuli would cost elsewhere?

Final photo! This total piece photo shows the work I did on the copper (all cut, filed, and textured by me). You can also see the rivets I put into the copper.

In all, this does not make a 'run out to the grocery store' necklace, but it does make an interesting statement piece. Nice with my little black dress, where it can really gobble up all the attention :)

Wordless post: a look at jewelry to be posted

Ticket to Ride

Have you tried the board game 'Ticket to Ride'? I absolutely love the game, and have wasted WAY too many hours playing this game online.

This necklace i call my 'Ticket to Ride' necklace. When i saw this train picture in an old encyclopedia available for clippings, it immediately reminded me of the game. I knew I needed to use it for something.

After time, i had these large bezels mailed to me, a collection of purple ribbons and beads, a metal corner shape, and this train picture. They all came together with some wire, chain, and resin to make this fab necklace.

Star pendant

Today I'll show my lovely 'star pendant' necklace. The necklace is made from copper sheet, with a cut star of brass on top. The two were soldered together using 'sweat soldering'. This means that i put the two pieces together with the solder and flux sandwiched between. As the two pieces got hot with the torch, it melted the solder between them to put them together. A simple concept, but a good one :).

Here underneath, you can see where i stamped 'Tu lui sais depuis toujours'. This is a quote from my favorite movie ever, Amélie. It means 'You've known them forever'. A lovely quote from a lovely movie.

I have another piece to show here today. I call this 'peekaboo' due to the peekaboo polkadots on the pendant and the fabric poking out the sides of the 'tube beads'. Also, the green beads peek through the resin that covers them on the circular disks.

A couple special features on this one... I used eyelets to hold together three layers on the pendant, being the mesh, the fabric, and the copper. It was difficult to drill all three with a perfect large hole, but on my second try i got it :).

Another feature: the 'tube beads' along the sides. I used a thin gauge of copper and made a tube shape. After, i stuffed the ends with fabric scraps, with some crazyglue to hold them in.

There are the two circular disks on the sides. They are domed circles, and i filled them both with ice resin. I then dropped one little green bead in each one.

Lastly, there is the closure on the back. It's hard to see in this picture, but one side is like a 'p' and the other side has a squigly line for the toggle. I was inspired by the Art Bead Scene challenge a couple months ago and made the clasp, but didn't finish a necklace in time. The shapes are both directly from the rather geometric painting.

Hope you like what you see :)

Bead soup blog party numero deux!!!

It's time for the second bead soup blog party! I had a lovely time swapping beads with my lovely partener, Karyn, of Releases by Rufydoof.


Karyn sent me a completely lovely set of glass beads she made herself, including a lovely pendant. This one was a stretch for me, as there were no holes in the bead! Time to figure out what to do with a hole-less bead... why not glue it like a cabochon to a nice piece of copper?

Here are the results of what I came up with.

Ingredients from Karyn: Beautiful raku black and swirled pendant, Black angular beads, Brown and tan bead, Silver closure

Ingredients from myself: Hand cut, filed, forged, and polished copper rectangle, Copper chain, Copper wire (one piece with bead drawn on both ends), green fabric, amber colored beads.

To do this, I first prepared the copper pendant from a sheet of copper. I then crazy-glued the raku and small amber-color beads. The attachment of the pendant to the mail necklace is a hammered copper circle, wrapped around a wire-formed and fabric wrapped ending. The wire shaping is an idea of Lorelei's I gave a try for myself I created my own 'beads' by using Deryn Mentock's wrapped fabric link technique (thanks again Deryn!)

So, again, i'd like to thank my inspirationLorelei's and Deryn Mentock, my swap partener Karyn, and Lori for hosting this. Why not click on the link to Lori's blog and check out some other bead soup chefs?

star ring

Last post, i put up the copper cuff i made. Here is a mostly picture post of the ring i made to match it. I call it my star ring :)

Ingredients: Glued together stack of scrapbooking paper, ring blank, washer, small star, WIRE RIVET!!! (i was pleased with how this rivet turned out. I'm getting better!)


Tomorrow is my day for the reveal of the bead soup party necklace i made... tune in tomorrow!

Copper Cuff

This is a piece i had a lot of fun making. It was a lot of work but I will be making more of these type of copper cuffs.

I was reading Suzan Lenart Kazmer's book, looking through the chapter about hinges. I decided it was time to make a small bezel, with a hinged lid on top. Why not make this into a cuff? So very fun!
After cutting, filing, and soldering the bezel, it was time for the lid. I decided to use metal with a special kind of patina. After searching through my stash, i found a scrap that had once been part of an old broken doorknob.

The doorknob was cheap for about a dollar at a local scrap place! After MUCH fighting with it, i managed to tear it apart and flatten piece by piece of the pretty pretty metal it was from. It was quite 'damaged' (ie beautiful texture!) by the time i was done... not sure i'd reccomend this to another as it was a lot of work for little gain. Still, this was one of the pieces i'd gained here, and i do enjoy the texture and patina it lends to the piece.

After hinging the lid to the bezel, it was time to form the cuff. First i textured the copper by banging on it with the round end of a hammer, leaving it with almost a rough polka dot pattern i enjoyed. After forming it around my wrist (wow a wrist manderel would be nice... that was a hard job) I curled the two ends under.

Soldering time again! I soldered the bezel to the cuff... but the solder went everywhere! I think i heated it too long so the solder spread past the flux. Unfortunate, but i do still love it.

The closure on the back is a piece of brass, hinged again with a hinge from Kazmer's book Cold Connections. Very very fun, instructive book!

Finally, time to fill the bezel. A pretty little star and some resin, and it's finished! The resin did sadly spill out from the bezel as it clumsily got bumped and
knocked over while curing. I got most of it off, but there are some oddly shiny spots left still. Still... part of the charm?

Hope you enjoy my runthrough of what i did to create this favorite piece of mine... trials and errors included :)

Puffy Clouds

I have been seriously thinking of setting up my own etsy shop. I love the idea of my pieces going all around the world, and it would give a reason for the existance of all these earrings I make, since I myself lack pierced ears. (I know I know. I am a jewelry lover who does not have pierced ears. I guess i just never got around to it.) Also, the money would come in handy for buying new supplies online, as I usually hold off since shipping to south korea can be so expensive.

This is a piece I would have liked to sell online, but the fabric is not holding up to snuff. It has now even further deteriorated and strung apart than in the picture. I will have to repeat these, perhaps using crinolin instead.

Puffy Clouds

Leaf earings

Time for a new post!

I have a huge backlog of jewelry pieces i've made, finally photographed, and now ready to be blogged and posted. Not to be a tease, but i'd rather show them bit by bit, one at a time :).

Next little piece i made.... last fall :S. I had made one pair for a lovely friend of mine, but I had the materials on hand so i made a second pair as well! Here's a photo of the lovely 'Leaf' earings I made last fall.

All components used here were picked up here in Seoul, South Korea. This picture was taken on the pretty rooftop garden on my old appartement.

Thorny Rose

Looking at my blog here, it looks like I haven't been doing much at all! Really though, i've been keeping pretty regular with my jewelry making, just hadn't been taking any pictures. The camera was slowly dying, so we decided to get a new one.





Much better...

I'll be honest... I made this cuff months ago, back in March. However, the pictures have now finally been taken, propperly cropped and photoshopped, and it's time to start showing things here on my blog again!

This piece was made using Stephanie Lee's book, Semiprecious Salvage. This was the first jewelry book i ever made, and i am slowly but surely working my way through every project in the book. I'm about halfway through, as i have a bunch of other books i am interspersing the projects with. This is the project for her wire-wrapped bangle.

The focal here is a paper rose, held in with tabs, discussed in Suzan Lenart Kazmer's Cold Connections book. Techniques from both Kazmer and Lee blended into one piece... wow do they play well together :).

Other things happening: I got my first jewelry saw last week. So far, just practicing how to make straight lines, curved lines, and turn corners. No blades snapped... (yet!). Found an excellent tutorial on the Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist site. I have been enjoying their newsletters so much that i just subscribed to the magazine today... hoping to love it as much as the tutorials on the site! Def worth checking them out, for both the tutorial and the rest of the site as well.

Things I saw today

So, I was surfing my blogs, and Michael DeMeng mentioned that his fab book was being sold with Jenny Doh (previous editor of the Summerset Studios magazines). I thought, 'Hey, i haven't seen anything with her recently', so i went off to check out how her new website of her own, 'Crescendoh' is comming along. I was a bit confused, but generally impressed, with what i saw.

I liked a lot of the little links they had on the front page. It seemed they were putting up daily links to 'things they like on the internet'. Some of the links were to their own stuff in the store, but others were to things outside their site.

I liked the cones that they have happening there. They're pretty materials. While i don't find i need the kit, and would prefer to find my own materials, the inspiration is so lovely! I do so enjoy the idea.... It would be great to have a nice string of these in my 'studio'. They could be neat storage for odd objects. A cone full of all the short dowels i've accumulated (more than you think), a cone for pliars, a cone for.... whatever small, strange objects i have many of that need a home. I could definately go for this.

I also really liked the link they put up to the book, shown on flickr (click picture to see). I love the idea of this. The simple nature appeals to me... it's like an outdoor studio, but you could even work through the rain. Beautiful. As a cold-winter saskatchewan girl, i'm not sure how practical, but they are beautiful.

Still figuring out exactly how the site works, and what their layout is, but i like the inspiration links for sure. I think i'll be comming back time to time to see those.

Hey Americans, or other swapers!

Just letting you guys know that Heather at humblebeads is hosting a bead swap that looks really cool. Sorry fellow canadians, or even fellow people here in south korea, this swap is for people in the states for shipping reasons. Still.... there is an international giveaway.

You only have till march 26th! Hurry and check it out!

http://humblebeads.blogspot.com/2010/03/sisterhood-of-traveling-beads-giveaway_15.html

I myself just love swapping and trading things internationally for one on one trades. I live in Seoul, and so have access to many asian things (JADE), and other interesting things you can only find here in Korea. Anyone want to do a one on one swap instead, let me know :).

Bead Soup

After simmering for almost a month, the Bead Soup Party has begun! As I was a bit of a late signer-upper, I was partnered with the lovely Lori Anderson, the host of the swap. I mailed off a lovely package of mixed beads that worked together well, with a hand-forged metal pendant and clasp. In return, i received such a lovely box of beauties! This is what arrived at my doorstep a couple weeks ago.

In this box were so many little lovelies! I received lovely two tone 'artistic stone', a pendant and lovely beads of adventurine, a sterling silver clasp, and some great silver beads from Bali. I was so overwhelmed with all the pretty little rocks here! I have to admit, when buying beads for myself I am usually buying fairly cheap ones, so I was awed at the chance to work with so many special beauties!

After much deliberation and hard work, here's the final product! I had not too long ago visited a history museum with an impressively inspiring collection of ancient Peruvian relics, including a lot of gold jewelry. I picked up the middle gold piece there, knowing I'd find a use for it and it's many, many holes. I used all the different varieties of lovely beads Lori sent me and am so excited to still have leftovers of some for later use!!!

Here's some more detailed shots to finish the post off. I would highly recommend joining in on our blog party day today, and checking out what all the other bloggers have to offer! Just check out Lori's post here to see all of our many, many participants in this great swap, and what they created.