New Heart Pin in Etsy Shop

Freshly listed in my Etsy Shop.

This is a great little pin -- even better than the picture shows here.

All bead embroidered (no glue here!) with a lovely soft velour backing.

Order it now and you'll have it to wear on Feb 14th!

Use the Etsy link on the top right of the blog.

Contributions to The Pink Artist

Over at Girl Gone Thread Wild, there is a further explaination of The Pink Artist if you want the full story.

The short story is that I have created two 2 inch square blocks which will be included in a larger project which will later be auctioned for charity.



This is the block I created as a memorial to my Aunt Janie. She had been a piano teacher (listed in the Who's Who of American Music back in the 1970's), and music is always one of the things I think of when I think about her.

So, here the music lives on with angel's wing.



And this is the one I designed for my son-in-law's mother, who is doing well in her fight with breast cancer.

Both of these have been mailed off (well before the March 1 deadline, I might add!).

When there are updates on the project, I'll post a notice so you can check it out!

New Stuff from the Studio! (at long last!!)

Ok, I hadn't realized just how long it had been since I posted anything here -- lots of pre-Christmas shows, then Christmas doings, then the post-Christmas "blahs" sort of ate up a couple of months here.

It's not that I haven't been working, however, I've just been doing other stuff!!

So, here are the newest pieces from the studio.

At a show before Christmas, a customer asked me to make her a cord to hang her eye glasses from because she was tired of loosing them, and she liked my work.

So I made her one.

Then I made my sister one for Christmas. Then she ordered another one.

Ok, I get the point, these things might be something someone else wants too!



This one has mother of pearl bears at the ends -- nice color combo too -- goes great with pinks, aquas, lavendars -- those of you that are "spring" should do well with this one.

Its available for sale in my Etsy Store, here's the link.




And knowing that one size fits none, I figured there might be an "autumn" out there loosing the glasses too, so I whipped up this one in browns/rusts/golds.

Its got sort of golden stone bear beads at each end. Nice

Its also avialable for sale in my Etsy Store, look here.

See, I'm not gone, just slow getting things put here!

More soon, I promise

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!)