Be still my heart

When I saw this group of beads from Gaea I knew exactly what I wanted to make. I had been stalking Gaea's Facebook page for a few weeks trying to pounce on a winged heart and a good looking set of beads before someone reserved them.  Finally success!  You can also buy Gaea's beads at her website and at Lima Beads.

Even though I knew what I wanted to make, it took me awhile to get around to putting the piece together because they arrived just before the start of school and all the difficulties of the fall term.

The wirework is dark annealed steel which matched the loops on the pendant.  The spacer beads are copper, the enameled bird is from Gardanne Beads, the little etched copper charm I made myself, and the tuquoise seed beads are vintage from my stash.

The necklace it about 36" long and the seed bead length hangs around my neck and ends just above my collarbones.  The wirework has a nice drape because of the Goldilocks weight of Gaea's beads (not too heavy, not too light).  The smallest beads are about 6mm and the largest around 12mm.  I sand my steel wire, then rub it with steel wool before forming links. For this necklace, I lightly hammered each loop and jumpring.

This was my first attempt to etch copper.  I followed at tutorial similar to this one from Copperheart.  I bought my ferric chloride from the hardware store...it is used in pool cleaning.  For resist I used StazOn permanent ink and a stamp with tiny detail.  I have more to learn about etching, but I was happy just to get any result.  I need to practice a little more.

a little over exposed

Flower Power

my finished piece -below is the story (& more pictures) of how I got here

The problem with designing for Lorelei's Jade Scott Enameled Flower Challenge is that my flower is so gorgeous I didn't want to do anything with it except look at it.  I put it in a tiny glass vial on the window sill above my kitchen sink and admired it every chance I got.  Now this doesn't mean that I didn't have a thousand ideas floating around in my head.  This precious little bloom really inspired me.  Thanks, Lorelei, for making my love affair with a tiny piece of enameled copper possible!

look at that cute number six

I decided I wanted to do something with a bunch of beads, some chain, and some bead woven components, but still keep the focus on #6.

At first I wove some tiny Russian leaves.  These were dainty and didn't detract from #6.  For a few days I played with Russian leaves and made these earrings with matte golden copper Delicas, some dicro lined 15/0s, bronze wire (from Cool Tools), some dyed stones, and sterling silver wire.  I think I wore these everyday this week.

After I got over how much I liked making Russian leaves, I started to think that perhaps trying to go too stark and simple in my planning.  I had ideas about drilling a single pebble to make a necklace version of an ikebana vase.

source

I thought about tussy mussies and how I could make the bouquet holder from art clay or copper sheet.

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Finally it hit me that I was thinking too small.  I whipped up a giant Russian leaf from green Picasso 11/0 seed beads and got rolling...some ceramic beads, some wooden discs (I didn't like the original finish so I sanded them and restained), some copper chain, some waxed linen cord.  I made a beaded toggle closure, but then I started channeling Fairysteps and decided to make a copper toggle with a leather leaf "ring."

tiny Russian leaves - about the size of my index finger nail

some large red white hearts set off the red enamel

the leather and copper toggle closure - I punched each side of the slit so the leather will not split.  I got this idea from  my Muse belt.  Check them out; they are great.

Click the links below to see all the other flowers:

1. Lorelei Eurto

2.  Serena Trent

3. Susan Raber

4. Shawna Tobias

5. Lucid Moon Studio

6. K Hutchinson

7. Gigi - check out Gigi on Lorelei's Blog

8. Lois Moon** you are here