Crystal Drop Earrings

A co-worker put in an order for 9 pairs of earrings last week for each of her bridesmaids. They're all the same style but all slightly different in bead color and findings. I used Swarovski crystals, Czech glass beads and stone beads for these. When I was done and lined them all up, I really thought they looked like candy!

lampwork bead and byzantine chain bracelet

One of my favorite beads I forged a while ago was done with copper green, dark ivory, and ink blue with clear Murano glass encasing silver foil. The heat reaction yielded some nice bright red and brown streaking.



I was thinking of making a pendant out of this bead but decided on bookending it with a byzantine chain work (something I've been doing more of lately). The clasp features another one of my lampwork beads, a small copper green round with ink blue frit, and a Swarovski crystal heart.



This weighs the bracelet so that the focal bead is always facing up. It's actually quite comfortable to wear and is a useful design idea for any of your large flat beads.

Chain Mail and Pearl Bracelet

This is one I made for myself a while back. It is faux pearl and chain mail done with sterling silver jump rings. At one point I entertained the notion of making a chain mail vest for my husband, but given the fact that the links took close to 2 hours to assemble, I'm reconsidering:



Better picture of the color of the pearls (excuse the hairy arm):

Crucifix

This is a crucifix I made for my friend's husband. The prayer beads are a dark green jade. The Hail Mary beads are bi-colored hand made glass in red and navy. The crucifix itself is made out of pewter. I linked everything together with 18 gague non-tarnishing sterling silver wire (the kind that Darice isn't making anynore...Whaaaa!)

Some Jewelry Sets

The secret ingredient? Shrinky Dinks! Shrinky Dinks make the best charms because you can pretty much draw whatever the hell you want on them. After shrinking the detail looks especially impressive. These were posted in the LJ several months ago, but I think they belong here. They were all made for a charity benefit for my friends' preemie.

Exploding bracelet... good intentions gone bad.

I wanted to make a charm bracelet out of a bunch of extra copper I had lying around and this is what happened:


This is a perfect example of "over-working" and "over-designing" in my opinion. Although one gets a nice rush of green and copper color, the individual bead charms get lost in the mess. Instead of showcasing a my varied wire work technique, this looks like a telephone company exploded or something. It looks even worse when I wear it. Ah well, back to the drawing board.