Waiting for Books

Today I was waiting for the UPS driver to bring the wonderful paper cutting books that I ordered.  Last year I was very naughty and swapped a lot of books through www.paperbackswap.com , the idea was to find good homes for my crafting books.  Unfortunately I asked for more books then I traded away!  So now I have more than 20 books more then traded.  Still it could be worse, though I now have over 100 books on embroidery and lace making alone.

The book "Creative Paper Cutting, Fifteen Paper Sculptures to Inspire and Delight" is a lovely book.  The projects are quite different from the Scherenschnitte paper cutting.  Instead
Creative Paper Cutting" gives a variety of sculpted paper projects. Having read the book using the Amazon "Look Inside" feature, I immediately went to the projects.  But instead of starting on the first and easiest project I jumped to project 10.  The 10th project is a sculpture of a beetle and very detailed.  Instead of laying the pattern on cardboard and cutting the pieces out I just printed the images directly by copying onto the card stock.  This didn't work because the card stock was to soft to emboss and it was hard to cut all the printed lines so that they didn't show.  The project also called for white tissue paper which I do not have.  It was a sad looking beetle especially since I lost one of it's wings!  Not a very promising start!  Next time I will take advice from the book on cutting and embossing.

The last few days all the projects I have tried have not come out well.  This last weekend I worked on learning the flat 10 strand Kumihimo braid worked on the square foam board.  The practice strand out well only a few wobbles.  Then I cut 10 pieces of size 10 crochet cotton and strung each thread with 50 size 8 seed beads.  The strand started well but when I started adding the beads it failed.  From what I can see the project needed a thicker thread or smaller beads.  The project just couldn't keep the beads in place.  Also the glass beads wore the cotton thread badly.  Lesson learned!  Still I hope to make a necklace using the Kumihimo technique.  Tomorrow I hope to make the hummingbird project, it was this project that inspired me to buy the book.

Aftermath

Now that my time is my own again I have begun cleaning up and organizing the crafting supplies again.  This is going to take a great effort to clean up.  Since getting the flu twice I have not recovered the little energy I usually have.  Working on tree ornaments has meant dragging all types of supplies out and now I cannot find anything.  Right before decorating the Asian style tree I decided to add a necklace to the gifts.  I had been planning the necklace for a while but couldn't find the stones I wanted.

 

Amazonite necklace.

 

In the end I decided on these amazonite 4 mm stones in pale and medium blue green shades.  Then I added A quality rice shaped pearls and 3 and 4mm clear crystals.  The patterns of the strands were based on odd number and I made three different strands. 

 

 

Close up of amazonite necklace crystal drop.

 

Finally I added a large odd shaped crystal drop.  The crystal had two holes so that it could be added directly into a necklace.  To hide the second whole I added wire wrapping to the crystal.

The necklace is really beautiful and was a bit of a wrench to give it away.  In the end it was placed on the red dress, I hope whoever gets the necklace will like it.

After hurting my left wrist last year I had stopped making jewelry to give it time to heal.  So it was fun making jewelry again.  Here is a picture of the necklace I made for the Marie tree.

 

Necklace gift for Marie Antoinette tree.

 

The cameo was from Michael's craft store.  The whole piece is quite large.  I hung the cameo from a thick chain and then wired some black crystals to drape on either side of the necklace.  The person who got this tree said they really liked it.

 

By a strange chance the Monday after Elks tree festival the woman who got the Marie tree stopped at Beverly's to get some pink decorating supplies.  Even stranger Linda was the person checking her out.  Linda asked her what she was making and the woman explained how she had gotten a beautiful tree at the Elks.  She also said that the tree was made by the people at Betty's Fabric.  Linda said that it wasn't made by Betty's and the woman asked how she knew this.  Then Linda explained about our merry little ban of crafters that made the tree decorations.  The woman was impressed by all the work and thanked Linda for the tree.  The really great thing about meeting her we got to find out what she was going to do with the tree.  The tree was a present for her daughter who is a Christmas baby.  She is going to have a Christmas tea birthday party and is going to serve out of the silver coffee server.  Sounds like it will be a very beautiful party.  The woman is going to keep the 17th century party lithograph for her work room.  She makes period costumes!  I can't think of anyone who could have enjoyed the tree and gifts more.

 

So back to the cleaning and sorting.  The beads are everywhere right now and I was sorting through them when I saw some of the lovely green opals and Italian marble.  So next thing I know, instead of sorting I'm making more jewelry!

 

 

Italian marble beads and golden pearls.

 

 

Golden leaf clasp.

 

The Italian marble necklace is made 8 mm marble beads in fall colors, specifically the colors found in grapes and opaque white marble.  The beads are wired together with a rosy colored brass.  The colors look great with the large leaf clasp.

 

Next I made a more complex necklace.  Using 20 gauge copper wire the necklace was wired together using poppy jasper, burgundy crystal pearls copper beads and bloodstone.  In the middle of the necklace I made a drop of burgundy crystal pearls and bloodstone and attached a tassel made from copper chain and a bead cap.

 

 

Burgundy crystal pearls, poppy jasper, blood stone and copper wire and beads.

 

 

Copper tassel.

 

I actually made two more necklaces but couldn't make up my mind on how to finish them.  It seems once I tried again I got past the fear of breaking my wrist.  My last osteoporosis test scores were -3.6 and -3.8 with the worst score possible being -4.0.  So fear of breaking bones is unfortunately real.  This was the reason that I started embroidering again, far less stress on the bones.  But when I see beads they seem to make a project in my head so easily.  Anyway I look forward to embroidering some ornaments for Christmas and making chocolates.  I have a great truffle recipe on this blog here is the link to the instructions and pictures http://ravingsofamadcrafter.blogspot.com/search/label/chocolate

 

Hope you all enjoy the season

 

Lois

Wire Wrapped Pendant

This tutorial was postrd on Craftster.org. 
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=409755.0

It was so pretty I had to give it a try.  Mine is a bit different, I was going for a kind of peacock look.  If you turn it upside down and add more wire it could be an octopus!  It was a bit of a challenge but fun! 

Today is the 22 day of my challenge to be creative.  It is a lot harder then I thought it would be.  One nice thing is using up supplies.  But after 3 weeks there are craft supplies everywhere!  I'm excited to see if I can do this for a whole year and wonder if the house will be to cluttered to walk through!  I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Hand wire wrapped pendant.

Wedding Jewelry Classic Pearls

Today I did a a simple necklace but very beautiful.  My niece liked the asymmetrical look and this is what I made for the brides sister to wear to the wedding.  The pearls are cream colored crystal pearls and the crystal has a checkerboard pattern of facets.  Crystal pearls are harder to damage than glass pearls, they cost a whole lot more too.  But they are definitely worth the cost because they are so lovely.  I see a lot more pearl necklaces in my future because There were a lot off leftover from the wedding.

Finished necklace.

Close up of crystal.

Some more jewelry I've been working on!

This is jewelry I've been working on in the last month.  This first piece is very different from what I usually make.  Sometimes the project just has a life of it's own and lets the crafter know what it will be.  I've learned over the years that trying to force a project to do what it doesn't want is why some art never looks right.  This was made with copper chains, beads and end caps along with fire agates.  Fire agates are agates that are dyed a deep orangish color and then fired to create white web like cracks in the stones.  Very pretty!

The necklace is hanging on my dress maker model

Here is a close up of the drop and tassel

This is a closeup of one of the fire agates, you can see some

of the wirework on the bead

This is a closeup of the clasp I made.  I wanted it to be large and strong looking like the necklace itself.  The necklace can be put over the head without using the clasp, many people tell me that they like not having to us a clasp.

These next pictures are my attempts to do chain mail and is why my hand has been hurting!  I wrapped the wire around knitting needle and the cut them with handheld wire cutters.  Slowly I am getting better at this and work hardening the jump rings.  This does take quite a bit of hand strength so I can only work for a few minutes at a time on these.

This is an example of byzantine chain.  The reason it looks so open is I do not have the size of the jump rings small enough for the wire gauge.  It still looks nice and it is easier to learn the pattern.

Here is a plain double link chain, it does have a nice clasp that I made.

Closeup of clasp

I don't remember what this chain is called but it is really lovely.

Here is the same chain but from a different angle.  The chain forms links into a square pattern.

Finally some pictures!

Just posting what I'm working on and showing few pictures makes it rather a dull blog.  So I am going to try and take more pictures as I'm working on making lovely things.  It has been hard to get pictures that are in focus because I shake so much but this week I think I've gotten the hang it!  Currently I'm taking a break from crafting because I may have a hairline fracture in my hand.  It always concerns me that I can feel pain while taking endocet, and I'm not stopping the meds to see how bad my hand really hurts.  So I am catching up on my blog and updating my website while my hand heals.  So here goes nothing : )

This first picture is of my first cabochon.

I didn't have any green seed beads that matched the stone, which is dyed serpentine.  So I used gold plated size 11beads around the outside.  Then used size 11 silver-lined gold seed beads and finally size 15 silver-lined gold beads which had a slight rose tint to them.  I wasn't sure the bead colors would work together but they blended rather nicely.  It has several problems but is not bad for a first try.  Now I need to add the backing and pin when my hand is feeling better.

These next pictures are of the goddess I've been working on.  I used heavy copper wire and bent it into the shape of a goddess.  This was done without a pattern.  Then I used 30 gauge copper to wire the ends into the middle of the piece.  With the 30 gauge wire I then strung beads and wired them into the inner shapes.  Like making a mosaic.  The bodice piece is formed with wire weaving and the crown was tatted on a needle in the same 30 gauge copper.  Unfortunately I accidentally cut the wire and the crown will need to be remade.  But the goddess was lots of fun to make and used a lot of beads I had left over from other projects.

I hope that this blog entry has been of interest and maybe even inspiring!

Lions and Tigers and Beads! Oh My!

This week a giant order from Fire Mountain Gems should arrive.  It is always fun and exciting to receive stuff in the mail but waiting for Fire Mountain is exceptionally so.  They have the most beautiful gemstones in so many sizes and styles it is almost impossible to decide what you want, and then the waiting is sometimes agonizing!  This order I took advantage of their quantity discounts and got several strings of A grade amethysts, which are for me!

I've been waking in the middle of the night with design ideas dancing in my head.  The order included different jaspers, bloodstone, aqua terra, dalmation and rutilated quartz.  Added to that we ordered a ton of beautiful crystals!  I can't wait to start putting combinations together.  The aqua terra is a beautiful stone and I look forward to playing wih it.  Even after making several projects we will have a lot of stones left over.  I'm thinkng of selling some jewelry at Christmas Fairs this year.  Otherwise there will be a lot of great Christmas gifts this year!

I really love making jewelry.  It is one of the easiest hobbies on the body.  It is a fast for gift making, how many hobbies can you make a gift in 10 minutes!  It is a lot of fun and I think everyone should try it!