The Sunflowers have returned.....

Now a while back I had done several sunflower themed pieces, and there were some bead embroidered centers (both browns and greens) left over that I have just not done anything with until now.

These little gems are post earrings that are 1.75 inches in diameter. I wasn't sure that I would like the look of the rectangular bugle beads as the petals, but I'm real pleased with the effect.





In this close up of the edge, its easier to see the details of the work.

Along with these brown centers, I had a pair of green ones that are the same size. I have started working on those as well, and we'll see where that goes -- the main problem is that I don't have enough of those rectangular bugle beads left for another pair, so I'm using regular bugle beads and I'm not sure I like the look as well.

More on that later!

Another complete piece!

This one is all black and silver.

Two pieces of jasper with peyote stitched bezels backed with grey suede.

The "chain" is all beads too, worked in right angle weave, and the fringing took a lot of hours to complete.

Finished just in time for me to tag it for next weekend's show....YEAH!

Lots of new pieces!

The DH has been quite busy the last week.

These pieces are all his work, I just make up the chains and do the paperwork.

Made out of Art Clay Silver, these are all .999 silver -- almost pure! They have been hardened by tumbling them with steel shot so they will stand up to the wear and tear of being worn.







These three pieces were made by painting the silver clay paste over actual aspen leaves.

Usually these pieces sell quickly as there is something quite appealing about the shape of the leaf and the idea that it is a permanent "record" of one leaf







and yes, we are seeing stars!

These are made with the silver clay, cut and "pasted" together to the desired shapes before they are fired in the kiln.




the curved shape of this one was created by forming the circle medallion over a light bulb while it dried




the original shape was dried flat on this piece then curved using traditional metal working techniques after it was fired





because of the size of this piece it was originally made in 3 seperate pieces, fired (where the clay does shrink about 10%) then the assembly was "pasted" with a special silver oil paste and refired. After firing, he used traditional metal techniques to give it the brushed finish. The stone in the center is a natural garnet -- one of the very few stones that will take the heat of the kiln without changing color.




And don't you love the rustic look of this piece?

All of these pieces will be available at the show we are doing this weekend at Green Mountain High School. If you are in the Lakewood, CO, area on Saturday, please come by and visit with us!

A new bracelet complete.....

And done in record time, I might add.




The big stones in this piece are Lorimar oval, pink quartz rounds, and ruby cab ovals.

This bracelet is different than the previous ones for a couple of reasons:

1) there was no matrix in the stones to give me a pattern to work from, so I decided to make the entire "field" monocromatic

2) on all of the prior bracelets I used all the same size seed beads to create the pattern, while on this one I used one mixed (soup!) tube of beads and picked out the right size and shape to fill the background

This lovely creation didn't stay in the house long, tho' -- its on its way to the Belle Armoire Jewelry magazine editor for consideration for their next issue (I'm keeping my fingers crossed!)

Seascape -- revised!

I finished the rework last night.



Adding the fringe took about 4 hours, but I think the results are well worth it!

While I was working on this I was thinking about some new ideas to finishing a piece I've been working on for about a year now....I may have finally figured out how to finish up the piece I call Let the River Run. That will probably be the next piece I work on -- after this long, I'd like to get it off the "to do" list!

another piece finished

As a result of my taking a day on Sunday to play, I have this lovely piece of jewelry complete.

Using the two new techniques I taught myself, I finished up this piece last night.

The stone is a really nice piece of mahogany tiger eye (it measures about 3/4 inch in diameter), and the "chain" is all worked in size 11 delicas using Right Angle Weave (aka: RAW).

The RAW is the most amazing stitch. Most of the instructions have you actually working around and around, but I just couldn't "get it" that way, so I did a flat piece the size I wanted the outside to be then "zipped" it by working the last row between the two edges of the flat piece. In a way the structure reminds me of when we would use those 4 pieces of plastic to "weave" lanyards when we were kids (it is based on 4 beads -- thus the Right Angle name), but it moves and flows like some of those serpentine chains...a very interesting feel.

I'm sure I'll be doing more with this stitch!


Meantime, I've decided to rework a piece that I've had for a while.

I originally did this piece in 2003, and it was the first one where I started thinking about beads as a painting medium, as well as the first one that really was a multi media piece.

At the show in Springfield it got a lot of looks, but I think the main issue is that it looks unfinished.

For one thing, its not quite square, and for another, I think it can be improved with some sea themed fringe.

I've pulled out a lot of blue/green materials and some shaped beads and we'll see where this all goes.

teaching the old dog new tricks.....

Usually when I work on projects that I'm going to sell, I don't take time to teach myself new stitches.

Since I have just acquired some new materials that I want to put into designs that don't have something behind them (because I want the light to shine through), I figured it was worth while to learn a couple of new things.

For a while I had been trying to figure out how to put a "bezel" or frame around a stone without attaching it to a backing, and yesterday morning I found an instruction on the web to do this.

This is the front of the tiger eye cab......


and this is the back!

Way cool!!!

From here this could be attached into a larger woven piece, or it could just have a bail and a cord.....



And this is the other technique I spent time on. This is called Right Angle Weave, and eventually I will be able to make this into a long tube that can be used as a cord for a necklace.

I still have several other techniques I want to learn, so I will be doing some more "play days" soon. Possibly next Sunday as I have requested books from the library and hope to pick up some more things from them......

new materials to work with

While I was in Springfield last weekend, one of the "sales" I made was to another artist.

She very much wanted a necklace that we had put together (a beautiful piece of pink tourmaline set in sterling silver), but hadn't done so well that she could justify the price.

Her question to me was would I trade some of her work for that piece.

Well, the answer was "yes indeed!!"

These are all pieces of her glass work. She makes some beautiful glass beads that she strings into wonderful pieces of jewelry, and she creates her own glass cabs to use for wirewrapping.

These pieces were what she had on her workbench that had not yet been used for jewelry and I might add that she let me go through an entire tray to pick out whatever pieces I liked.

She uses real silver in with her glass and that is part of what creates the amazing "swirly" look to the bigger pieces.

Now I just need to start working up some designs to use these in!

Another new necklace

I finished it last night, just in time to pack it up and take it with us to Springfield, MO for this coming weekend's Cider Fest on Walnut Street.

This is the first show I've done where I'm taking NO BEARS (nope, not even a little teeny one -- there are a couple of frogs in the tub tho' since those are covered with beads)

I admit to being a little nervous about that decision, but I am convinced because of our recent success with the bears that "Less IS More" when talking about art on the table.

We got the paperwork on where our booth will be and we were given what I believe to be a excellent location -- experience will tell on that front.

the most recent completed piece

The whole idea of this necklace was to use the glass beads in the places that most jewelry artists use metals -- so the bezels and the catch and the open work are all size 11 glass beads.

The "stones" include agates, jaspers, sodalite, denim lapis, rhodochrosite and a piece of shell.

The necklace measures about 20 inches in diameter, and lays nicely around the neckline like a collar.

Welcome to Big Black Dog Studio!

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