Not Your Granny's Purple

I just completed this necklace and listed it for sale in my Etsy Shop. The name for the necklace kept running through my head as I thought of the poem "When I'm An Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple". And then I'd think that this necklace isn't that kind of purple!

Artist's Studio Tour

It's another red sky at night last night and today is a gorgeous warm sunny day!



I'm going to be participating in a local event - The Powell River Studio Tour.

"The Powell River Studio Tour is an annual self-guided tour of artists and artisans on the Upper Sunshine Coast of British Columbia that is free to the public. 2009 marks the 5th year of the Tour and showcases 30 individual artists and artisans plus another 25 represented at the gallery.

On this year’s Tour there are 27 locations from Lund to Lang Bay with each studio providing an example of the diversity and excellence of the art community in the Powell River region. An added bonus is the spectacular natural beauty that can be enjoyed along the way."

It doesn't actually happen until August 22nd and 23rd but I'm already gearing up for it and I'm pretty excited. As my studio is in my home, it means that lots of folks will be coming to my home. It will be a wonderful way to share my jewelry artistry and more of the detail of what goes into it. I'm planning to do some works in progress to document the process of designing and developing a piece.

Fun With Earrings

For quite a while now, I've been intending to play with some earring designs. Much of the designing I do is "on the fly" and this latest earring design was developed that way. I began with beads looped into a circle and just sort of winged it from there by adding a row of beads and evaluating the look and then adding another. The black and silver pair happened first with several false starts...beading and then unbeading. Ultimately, I'm satisfied with the result. So much so that the silver pair is mine. And then, of course, I wanted to work the design in some other colours so I had to put together a bead order. Which turned into two bead orders. And that's how I have "fun with earrings".



The gold pair of earrings is available for sale in my Etsy shop.

Quartz Crystal Necklace

One of the design techniques I seem to use often is Serendipity. This necklace is a result of that technique. The quartz stone had been in my collection of quite a while. I knew that I wanted it as a pendant and prepared it for that role by stitching it into a netted bezel. Then it hit the "projects in progress" pile. The rope it is a Russian spiral and was actually an experiment using a mixed bag of pink beads. When I saw the two pieces in close proximity in my heap of partly completed projects I pulled them out and set them aside to be finished and finally got to it today. The result is even better than I imagined!







This necklace is for sale in my Etsy Shop.

Maybe My Necklace

This necklace has been in progress for a while. In the beginning I thought I wanted to put a copper closure on it. I searched around the internet and bought a few pieces of copper but just didn't find one that I felt worked with the two bead colours. Finally a light bulb came on and I made a beaded toggle closure. The last stage of the project was figuring out how I was going to handle that large turquoise stone that I wanted to use. I'm very happy with the final result and I'm thinking I should be keeping it for me.



My granddaughter was here on the weekend and she was admiring the turquoise and topaz rope. I mentioned to her that I was adding the turquoise stone and that turquoise is my birthstone. Then I remembered that she and I are both Sagittarians but that I am December and she is November. And she reminded me that her birthstone is topaz. So the necklace has some symbolic significance for us. I may need to keep it.



As I said, I'm very happy with the final result. I've been saving that gorgeous turquoise stone for a long time. Waiting for the right necklace to pair it with.

Fresh Fruit Salad Bracelet

When I was working on this bracelet the colours made me think of a fresh fruit salad...and so the name. This is the second bracelet I've made recently that was inspired by a Toho Seed Bead Mix called "Earth Tone" from Artbeads.com. I love the variety of beads in the mix. There are seed beads in different colours and sizes, hexagon beads and bugle beads. The best part about working with this bead mix is that it forced me out of my comfort zone. This is not a combination of colours I'd have chosen to work with, however, I'm very happy with the result.



Here's my recipe for this bracelet:

2 - 8g packages of Earth Tone Toho Seed Bead Mix
1 - 10g package of coordinating seed beads
20 - coordinating drop beads
25 - coordinating #8 beads
2 - lampworked beads (I got mine here.)

Mix the beads together well using 2 drop peyote stitch. Finish the outside edge with picot stitch and add two lampworked beads with loops as a closure. Enjoy on your wrist!





The bracelet is available for sale in my Etsy Shop.