My Tip for Easy Clusters

Let me be honest. I avoided making huge full clusters until just last year. They just seemed like too much work. I mean, these look like they took forever!:

 Swarovski Purple Cluster Bracelet by JBMDesigns

 Green Amethyst Necklace by CreativityJewellery

 Amethyst Gemstone Cluster Earrings by nikkimcl

Maybe I'm just lazy, but the idea of all those dangles... I used to shudder at the thought. Not because I don't have the patience to sit and wire wrap. I love wire wrapping! But when I first thought of doing clusters, the process of making one dangle, attaching it to the piece, make another dangle, attatch it to the piece... rinse, repeat... that's what made me run!

Not anymore.

I work in an assembly line style when doing clusters, now.

1) Estimate how many beads you want for your cluster and slip each of them onto their head pins. Try not to overestimate so we don't waste any head pins (I forgot to take a picture of this step).

2) Take your chain-nose/flat-nose pliers and bend each of the head pins at right angles near the bead. Notice, this is the first step to making a loop.

3) Grab your round-nose pliers and make all your loops. In the picture above, I made wrapped loops.

4) Snip the excess wire for all your dangles.

5) Tuck the pointy bit into the wrap (again, forgot to take picture).

If you notice, each step has it's own pair of pliers associated with it... except the first step, which requires no pliers. Because you're not constantly setting down and picking up a new pair of pliers, it cuts down on the time it takes to make the dangles.

Now, the fun part for me is assembling the cluster. For the above earrings, I took a jump ring and attached half my dangles, my wire wrapped briolette, the second half of clusters, and then the earring wire.

If the cluster looked thin, I could always attach more. But if it was too full, I'd have to take the dangle off and kill the head pin which always seems like such a waste.

Another idea for clusters is to string them onto a head pin like in these earrings below:

For these, I used an onyx drop on a gunmetal head pin. I strung my dangles on top and then a gunmetal round. Then, holding the round flush against the dangles, I made a wrapped loop to hold the round in place. The round is nice and tight against the dangles. This keeps the dangles in place and looking full. It gives the earrings a nice cluster cap.

I also love the look a strung cluster of dangles. Or clusters on a chain! When I make chained clusters, I make simple loops instead of wrapped and it's still rather beautiful.

Hope these tips help you when making clusters! Please don't hesitate to ask me questions! I'll answer them if I can :)

Inspired

I ADORE working with wire. I love wrapping it and hammering it. I love the feel of the spool in my hands and the snap sound it makes when you cut it (or it breaks from over working/pulling too hard).

I've taken to wire wrapping Czech glass beads and lucite flowers. The above will become necklaces tomorrow (I said that yesterday on Instagram but I mean it today... I think :P). And I'm hoping to get started on the sketches below.

I like the wire wrapped beauty in the upper right hand corner of this sketch. I'll be practicing my asymmetry skills here.

This one will be a lariat. I need to get my little hands on a crystal or maybe even a large acrylic drop. Something dramatic for this necklace.

I've been sketching a lot of designs lately. Not just of wire workings but also of future components/beads I want to try making. YEP! That's right! I'm saving up to buy a soldering kit and make my own workstation. I'm not entirely sure yet what I need but it has to be portable because I have a feeling I'll be doing my work in the backyard as my room doesn't have very good ventilation.

SO! To get started, I'm going to try my hand at making some little components. The lovely Keristen Giles, one of my bloggy heroes (along with Shannon LeVart, Marie Dodd... so many others), has posted a little tutorial on how to make your own coil crimp ends. Since I LOATHE the ones they offer at craft stores, I'm going to try my hand at making some. Check out her post here.

Wish me luck, people. I've never had luck with these blasted crimp ends but Keirsten makes it seem easy-peasy. Good God, I hope so. :P

Tuesday Randoms

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

What I think of while I'm wire wrapping:

• Wow. All these songs sound new. Probably because I usually listen to audio books while I'm working.
• I think I need a new audio book. Game of Thrones has become a bit depressing and the narrator leaves something to be desired.
• Hm. I do that a lot. I'll stop reading/listening to a book before it's over. Well, at least I go back to it eventually.
• Wow, there's a lot of rap songs on this playlist. 
• Oh, that's right. I tried to be "gangsta" in high school.
• I wonder if my brother was embarrassed by me when I was in high school.
• I wonder how my brother and his fambam are. They're like my favorite people.
• Really should go look for Legos to turn into jewelry for my brother's girlfriend.
• I wonder if I could make some pyrex jewelry too (she like's pyrex).

I love how my mind wanders when I'm creating. I mean, is that bad? I know some people say that you should focus but some things like wire wrapping... c'mon. Oh it's beautiful, but I can't just count wraps and beads the whole time, can I?

It was unbelievably warm the other day. Like "OH! I can wear my favorite sleeveless dress today!" warm. And my fingers came up with these earrings, now in the shop here. Minty green and tangerine flowers. I bought those beads because they looked like margarita green but are pretty transparent now that I've wrapped them up in shiny copper.

I liked this design so much I made another pair of earrings:

But those are mine. ALL MINE! I'm trying to be more daring with the jewelry I wear myself (inspired by the lovely Shannon). I usually just wear silver studs and a few wrap bracelets but I think these will make a regular appearance on my lobes. Even made a matching necklace... which I forgot to take a picture of. Soon, I'll be brave enough to show my mug on my own blog. Booyah.

I tweaked the design a bit with the second pair of earrings. I think if I make these again, I'll make them just like that. I love the fire polish finish on the Czech glass too. Happiness all around.

Remember my bead soup bracelet? I found some pretty zebra jasper to make more bracelets to sell.

I love the variation in the stone. Some have purple tones. Some are all brown and orange. Some are black and grey! And they were on clearance at Michaels. SCORE!

My latest bead store haul. And yes, I was at Corner Bakery... again... I practically live there. But I think the details on that topic deserves it's own blog post.

Can you tell I LOVE Czech glass? Druk beads. Fire polish. Crystal. Sigh. All kinds.

I've already played with those seed beads.

I'm thinking necklaces. Add a simple chain maybe? Break up the chain with some crystal? I dunno yet. But I'm having fun making the bows.

So, that's my random Tuesday post. Check out the shop where my new earrings are sitting, waiting for a new home. I've marked down some destash mags and added some UK issues. Woot? WOOT!

Color Driven Designs

Remember this post?
Which had the Pantone Spring 2012 color report? 

Well, that inspired this:

Which kinda looks like a guitar, to tell you the truth. The boyfriend pointed it out to me.. but it's supposed to be a heart key...

Then, THAT led to this:

Cabaret pink, margarita green, and gray... LOVE that color combo.

THAT led to this:

More wire wrapping and combining THREE colors- solar yellow, tangerine tango, and sodalite blue. I strung some seed beads to finish the bracelet. Using the colored waxed Irish linen cord led to THIS:

Yeah. I'm not too thrilled with this design. Blue. Bellflower. Yellow. And cabaret.

But hey, you can't win 'em all.

SIDENOTE: Listed 2 magazines into the destash section. 2 issues of Step by Step Wire Jewelry. Want? Check it out :)

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!

Inspired by Mucha

Last week, the boyfriend and I spent the day at the Laguna Beach library. I go through spells of uninspiration and I need to spend the day sketching and doodling so we took root at a large table and I went through piles and piles of books looking for inspiration.

I've always loved Alphonse Mucha. One of my classmates at LCAD used Mucha as their inspiration for our character design class. The second I got my hands on their books, I fell in love. Such beautiful flowy lines. Lovely colors and design. In. Love. So last week, I sat with a book on Art Nouveau (and maybe 1, 2... 10 others :P) and doodled away.

Sunday night, I took one of my doodles and set to work. Oh, copper wire, you are such a blessing when I make loops and curls.

I added a lucite lily because there are a lot of pretty flowers in the Art Nouveau pieces I looked at.

Also... I have a lot of lucite lilies :P

These earrings are up in the shop now. And I love them so much, I made myself a pair as well :P

SIDENOTE!: There are still a few destash mags in my shop! I'll probably go through another magazine purge in a week or so. It's hard for me to part with my wire working and stringing magazines :-\

Fingers

My fingers have developed lovely calluses from making these earrings. The tiny seed beads were a bit of a pain to wire wrap but I love how they look all lined up and sparkly.

This bracelet was a little easier on my fingers. Look at the deep purple of that amethyst.

I've been creating and uploading pretty regularly now for about 3 weeks. My shop has gone from around 30 items to almost 100. I'm told that's how you get sales on Etsy... uploading and such. My fingers are crossed.

I'm a Wrapper...

I am having such a grand time with my seed beads and copper wire. Copper works so well with so many colors and there are soooo many beautiful seed beads out there!

I'm calling this one Rajkumari Necklace. "Rajkumari" means "princess" in Hindi. I'm really quite in love with that faceted quartz drop.

Semi-precious stones work well as well. Here, I have brecciated jasper, which is red jasper with veins of hematite running through it. Both are protective stones and more specifically, brecciated jasper also is said to help give you a positive outlook on live and ease stress. I thought it matched well with the "om" symbol. I finished the necklace with leather cording and it is claspless (sliding knots are happiness, in my opinion).

I promised in one of my previous posts that I would post a better picture of the earrings I made here. The previous picture was a bit green. Sunlight really is quite magical :) These are Phul Earrings. "Phul" means "flower."

Etsy update sometime today... I know. Shocking. Hahaha. Check the shop sometime tonight.

Bread and Butter

I read somewhere that every handmade artist needs to have that "bread and butter" piece. The one thing that they can make over and over again and 1) not really get tired of it, 2) it's the piece that they believe will sell, and 3) they WILL sell it. I think this is that piece.

I had so much fun making this. And I made it during my lunch hour at work (well, technically 2 lunch hours...). I love the color of the seed beads and the feel of the leather on my wrist. It's so easy to wear and... GAH! I just love it. I know, I'm totally tooting my own horn here, but seriously. This is a piece that I drew and it came out exactly how I wanted it to.

...Well, that's not entirely true. I was going to add some dangles to the focal/clasp but decided against it. Do you think it's too plain? I was wearing a t-shirt yesterday at work and decided that this could go with it even though I wasn't dressed "nicely" (hey, I need to do laundry... so sue me :P). But I can see this working with a summer dress. Something white and flowy and pretty.

This one is mine. I'm working on others in more colors. YAY for staying productive! Bringing my jewelry kit to work is really working for me. I get stuff done in the hour I have to eat. It's really wonderful.

What is your "bread and butter" piece? I'd love to see them! Hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend!

Hathi Necklace

Remember the pendant from this post? I added some brass chain and two pink glass beads and VOILA! A necklace. A LONG, clasp-less necklace. YAY! "Hathi" means "elephant" in Hindi.

I've still got the sneezels. No meds yesterday because I'm stubborn... just took a Benedryl and am hoping it will fix me up in time for work.

Hope you have a FABULOUS Wednesday!

PS. Left over Chinese food for breakfast = YUM!

7AM Blogging

I have a cold. I'm desperately trying to deny that this is true but at the moment, I am going to accept that the sniffly sniffles, sneezels, ouchy throat, runny-downness, and the fact that I just cant seem to get warm means that I am sick. ALSO, my forehead itches something fierce, but I think that's because wisps of hair are tickling my dome *scratchScratchSCRATCH*

I made earrings! Haven't named them. I have my trusty Hindi dictionary so I can name them later for who/where they're going to. Almost all handmade. I'm rather proud. The ear wires and jump rings were not made by me. Had a deadline for myself so I went with ready-made ear wires. The connector, though, is mine. I have such a great love for my wig-jig.

My brain is fuzzy. I'm so glad I got up to do this post. I don't think I'd be able to do it later. Rest, yummy warm food (maybe soup?), and a trip to the post office are at the top of my list of things to do today. Its also date night... rest is very important so I can actually have a fun date night :P

PS. I'm not sick. It's just allergies... right?

Didi Pendant

I was at a loss for words when I opened this window to write. Then "Are You That Somebody" by Aaliyah (which was one of my favorite songs in high school) came on Pandora... got me dancin' in Corner Bakery and ready to write!

You may recognize the above pendant from this post. However, it is not that pendant. The pendant from that post currently hangs from a simple black leather cord around my neck. The one above is an almost identical pendant. It's slightly bigger and has a better wrap job... it is, after all, the second pendant I finished (started and abandoned probably three other ones). This one is going somewhere special and I don't want to jinx anything by mentioning where it's going. Sorry, folks. I'll let you know when I can :D

I didn't want to just string it on a piece of cord so I linked some minty green glass bead with copper and added some dark purple crystals. I hammered a hook clasp special for this necklace and finished it off with some brown leather. The finished necklace is a bit asymetrical because of the clasp, but I like it. I'm hoping who I send it to likes it too.

BTW: "Didi" is sister in Hindi :)

Hey, do you guys have any special tips for photographing necklaces? I was having a bear of a time trying to get the whole thing into the picture so I ended up just photographing the main part of the necklace. Do you hang them off a wall and photograph them like that? I should have done that I think...

Messy First Step

 Here's a peak into my bead stash. I pull this out every time I make jewelry.

I know. It's rather horrid. I had a freakout a few days ago because I KNEW I had copper crimp beads and couldn't find them in this mess (really, who could?). I sat on the floor crying, about ready to throw out all my beads and just start over when RH calmly pulled out the bags and said we just need to sort through the mess. Well, of course, there were no crimp beads. But, I decided it was time for a new system.

We went to the Container Store and found these awesome little boxes with tiny compartments. LOVE! We bought two of them and I've taken the first step toward a new bead storing system. I couldn't think of a way to organize and RH asked how my favorite bead store organizes their merchandise. They just do it by color! So, that's what I'm doing. Baby steps. I'll get there.

I like labeling my little beads too. Most beads are glass... this one is stone but I can't remember what kind! Brain fart...

Oh, and if you're curious as to what happened to the elephant charm from yesterday's post...

I made a pendant last night with some brass wire (brass wire is WAY stiffer than copper wire, btw). Used some wonderful new seed beads. I LOVE seed beads. Now... how should I string him???

First Ear Wires

This wire wrapping thing was easier with smaller seed beads! Who woulda thunk? It was such a bear wrapping the beads around the pendant I made in this post. But the wraps on these earrings are nice and tight.

I love seed beads; they're like little gems and I'm loving wrapping them around wire shapes. For the earrings, I used some glass crackle beads I have in my stash. I also made my own ear wires! A first for me!

They're rather thin but the holes in my ears aren't very big so not a big deal. They hold up nicely even for 24 gauge wire. I suppose I should hammer them to harden but haven't done that yet. I added a piece of purple crystal for extra sparkle.

Rather late with this blog post but am still making the blog-a-day challenge for November. Tish led me to the site NaBloPoMo which stands for "National Blog Post Month." I joined up. Haven't had a chance to explore it yet (I'm on vacation :D) but it looks like a really cool community for bloggers!

It's been super hot here in SoCal. Today, the high was 99 degrees! Sigh. Hoping it will cool down soon. How's the weather been for you?

Trial and Error

I like to sketch out my designs.

Sometimes...

 ... they don't turn out so hot. Probably should have used smaller beads. It's a design worth trying again.

Then other times, I surprise myself and actually make something that I hold up and say, "Holy crap! I made that? I brought it to life?" 

Its quite a wonderful feeling. Something that I hope all artists experience. For me, it's rather rare with my jewelry making to bring a sketch fully to life. I'm tickled pink and want to show the world. 

Thank goodness I have a blog :P

Can you tell I've been dreaming of India?