BTW: Working on a story...

Apparently, my last Bead Table Wednesday post was last month. Sigh. Horrible, I am.

Wire wrapping

I haven't really been inspired with my jewelry. I have sketches upon sketches of ideas but it seems my passion went on a vacation the last few weeks.

Making jump rings

The only real pieces I've made were blog challenge pieces. I even missed a deadline for a magazine I regularly submit to.

Black and white pictures... because the color is part of my story...

But this challenge has got me going. It's Erin of Tesori Trovati Jewelry's Challenge of Literature Blog Hop tomorrow and I HAD to get something done.

I'm wearing my piece now. And I'm rather in love with it. And feeling the wire in my hands and playing with the beads... I think I'm ready to come back to jewelry making. Yay!

Right?

YAAAAY!

Come back tomorrow to see my creation.

What's on your bead table today?

Check out the BTW Flickr group!

BTW: Replenishing Supplies

So. Not really a table post, but it does have beads! Lol. Supplies are low so I had to go and buy more. Well. That's my excuse, really. I've just been depressed and needed to do a little retail therapy. Not much... just a little.

This is one of my fave bead stores. It's a tiny little store in Orange, CA called Beads Beads. It's on a busy street and is so small, you'll probably miss it on the first few goes. I always shoot for the Bank of America it's next to but still tend to miss the shop and have to double back.

It's tiny but chock full of beady goodness. A really good selection of Czech glass beads. I usually buy strands here. I have yet to look at their charms or stones, which they keep behind the counter but I make good use of my time and money buying beautiful Czech glass.

And seed beads, of course! For someone who mostly wire wraps them or uses seed beads as spacers, their little tubes are excellent. The white capped tubes are only $0.95! Red is $1.25 and if you need something fancy, black caps are $2.95. There are their size 11s. Size 15s, 8, and 6 are on the other side of the shop and just as well priced (in my opinion).

Here's my haul. Not very big, but it makes me all warm inside. They have some lovely wood beads and I snagged a strand. Their lucite flowers aren't the best priced but they have flowers I haven't seen elsewhere so I snagged some too. Czech glass and seed beads made it into my basket as well as a half-off strand of stone labeled "oyster opal," which I must do research on but for $2, I had to have it. I had a list of beads I wanted to buy on my phone but somehow, managed to forget the amethyst and peacock blue size 8 seed beads! Oh no. Another trip will have to happen again soon... :P

I also needed some buttons and made my way to a craft store. BUT! They didn't have the buttons I needed. Sadness. I'm wondering if they're no longer carrying the design I want and am a little worried I won't be able to replace my used up stock. I finally have a few designs that are popular and the buttons I need feature in one of them. Blah.

My last stop was San Clemente Art Supply. They carry my waxed Irish linen cord. I haven't had the funds to buy all the colors I want in bulk yet so when I get the money, I make my way over to San Clemente and buy 20 yards of a few colors. It lasts me a good while and they're awesome. When I was in art school, I tried to get as much of my supplies from them as possible. I don't do much painting and drawing now but when I do, I still buy from them as often as I can. Support small businesses!!!

Sorry this wasn't a real table post. Tomorrow, I'll try and have something more to show you!

What's on your bead table today?

Check out the BTW Flickr group!

BTW: Bracelet Frames

[[[ If you're looking for the Bead Soup blog post, it's HERE. :) ]]]

Happy Bead Table Wednesday! Lets take a look at my desk...

I'm making bracelet frames. I LOVE this bracelet so much I wanted to make more to sell. I wear mine day and night. I only take it off to shower... Very comfy.

 There's my anvil. And yes, that hammer is tiny. The idea was it wouldn't hurt as much if I struck my finger with it... Yeah. Not so much. Also, it was like $5 or something like that. Oh, and I don't have a pad thingy for my anvil. I WAS using my planner but I figured out that if I kept it at home under my anvil, I never used it. :P The book works pretty well for muffling the sound of my little hammer.

Here are some of the frames. They then become...

This! Zebra jasper the tag said. But when I looked up the stone online, zebra jasper was black and white... this looks more like "landscape jasper." But I'm going to trust my bead tag until someone else tells me it's wrong. Then, this becomes...

This! And it's even listed in the shop! I'm all kinds of productive today.

I want to make a bunch of these in different colors. Here's where I bought this silk. I've had it FOREVER. Last night, I almost bought a bunch of silk but stopped myself. I think I'll make the frames first AND THEN buy the colored silk to match. See! Then I know I'll use the ribbon. :)

What's on YOUR bead table today?

Check out the BTW Flickr group!

BTW: 1/25 Heart Clasp

[I'm really sorry about the crappy pictures. It's just that taking pictures with my phone is so much easier when I'm working. I just grab and click. Next time, I'll try and take better pictures :-/]

A few days ago, I made this bangle. You see, it's hard for me to shop for bangles as I have pudgy hands. I rather like my hands... but not when I want to buy bangles so I got it in my head to make my own. 

After making this bangle, I thought that the heart I made would make a lovely clasp! It's only a few bends away from a hook clasp, after all.

Today, I sketched out some ideas.

Sometimes, the pen gets away from me. That's what happened with the top sketch. Looks like a guitar pick, huh? But I liked the other ones.

After some wire bending and happy hammering, this is what I came up with.

I sooo wish I could have made more but I'm out of heavy gauge copper wire and don't have it in my budget to buy more until next week. Oh the joys of unemployment. Lol.

After making these, I wanted to alter the clasp somehow. I remember reading an article from Handcrafted Jewelry, 2010 about different ways to alter metal... but I couldn't find the blasted magazine so I had to go off of what I remembered.

White acrylic paint and alcohol inks. That's really all I could remember. Sooo...

I painted the heart with some white acrylic. Rather rough...

And then rubbed some alcohol ink onto it. The effect is rather nice, I think. I sealed it with some Krylon sealer... because that's all I have. Lol. I'm interested to see if it holds up. Anyone have any other suggestions on how to seal the ink??? It seems to be ok. I rubbed it and threw it around a bit and it seems to be holding up ok but... eh... I just don't know.

And of course, I wire wrapped the other hook. Because I went outside my comfort zone enough today, thank you very much :P

I'm glad I decided to make these hooks today. The hammering was really therapeutic. I have an interview tomorrow for an assistant manager position at Aaron Brothers. I'm so nervous. I need this job badly... it's the second interview but you never know. *fingers crossed*

Anyhoo, the hammering really helped to calm me down a lot.

What's on YOUR bead table today?

Check out the BTW Flickr group!

BTW: 1/18 Wire Worked Earrings

I spent the morning clearing up my workspace. I should have taken a "before" picture rather than just an "after" picture. The table was full of little baggies and the bowls over against the wall held my finished pieces. I got that lovely set of blue drawers from my boyfriend for Christmas and today, I filled it up with my jewelry and went label crazy. Then I took the baggies of beads and dumped them into the bowls.

 Oh, I have a few plastic storage things but who am I kidding? These beads usually just stay in baggies and wind up strewn across the table, thrown in my backpack... or even in my purse! So I just put them in these bowls until I can actually get around to sorting them out.

After getting the table all clear, I pulled out my sketchbook and set to work. I still have oodles of doodles that are begging to be made into wire lovelies.

A few bends and some happy hammering and I've got a lovely frame to wrap with seed beads.

I lose myself in the wire wrapping. It's great fun. Usually, I have an audiobook playing and I just listen and wrap.

The finished earrings. Originally, I was going to have a pearl as the dangle but I thought the teal Czech round was more dynamic.

I'll have these up in the shop tomorrow afternoon.

What's on YOUR bead table today?

Check out the BTW Flickr group!

BTW: Ugh...

I know, I've been gone a while. Had my open house last week. And decided to take a little break after that. I will blog more about it later. For now... the aftermath:

My desk is a mess. A huge mess. And because I wanted to just take pictures and fill up the shop with all the jewelry I've amassed, I just shoved it all aside for that tile I use as my background in pictures. That's what's on my bead table today. Lol. Maybe next week I'll have something more worthwhile to show.

At least the shop is filling up nicely.

There's a coupon code for all you lovely people out there. 20% off with coupon code DEC2011. I will continue to add lovelies to the shop. Now's the time to grab what you want for that special someone!

Half way to the weekend, everyone. Aren't you excited???

BTW: No Big Eye Needle?

I'm not sure where my big eye needle has gotten to, but I was too lazy to go out and buy a new one. Sooo...

I just put one end of the memory wire into the bowl. If I didn't get the angle right, the beads would just jump out of the bowl and into my face. Lovely, no?

Lots of sketching today. I even got to work on my ballerina drawing. Above is a detail of the ballerina shoes. Ah-dorable, if I do say so myself :P

Hey look! Tomorrow is Thursday! Then it will be Friday and the weekend will be here. YAY!!!!!

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

BTW: Hooks in Progress

Here's what's on my bead table today:

I'm making hooks! Shaped and hammered some copper wire.

Wire wrapped pretty seed beads with more copper wire.

Aaaand HELLO Paisley Hooks! Aren't they adorable?

These will be added to the shop at the end of the week. I have a few more I want to make before uploading them.

Check out the Flickr group here!

Happy Bead Table Wednesday!

BTW: My Weakness

Here's what I was working on today: Etsy shop update. Blah.

I love making jewelry. I love taking pictures. I even love editing the photos. But when it comes to creating the copy for each piece... it's like pulling my own teeth.

Hoo. But. I must get this done. So I can make some more stuff!

Maybe I can hire someone to do the uploading for me :P

What's on your bead table today?

BTW: Rainy Wednesday

Currently on my bead table- a little peak into a work in progress from one of the printer tray compartments.

A rainy day today. Quite different from yesterday. It rained a little yesterday afternoon but then was hot and sunny most of the day. Today, gray and wet. Lovely, really. And a perfect day to be sick, I think... which I am. Lol.

Not much energy. I get sick a lot. Stress makes me sick and I catch other people's colds all the time. I'm stubborn about it too, once I have something. I try doing things while I'm sick until my body just can't take it anymore and I can't get out of bed the next morning. But because I'm always sick, I actually need to get stuff done so really, what's a girl to do?

I've actually been much better lately. Not many colds. Might have something to do with the multi-vitamin I've been taking... and the fact that I'm happy. Yep. I said it. I'm happy. Over the moon, really. I'm loving my life and enjoying every minute I have creating things. Hopefully, I can share more with you guys soon.

This is my first Bead Table Wednesday post. Thank you to bloggy hero, Heather Powers for starting it. Check out the Flickr group, too!

Happy Bead Table Wednesday, everyone!