Mew-mew Earrings

Have you seen the movie "Thor?"

One of my favorites.

Well, these earrings were inspired by his hammer, Mjolnir (or "mew-mew" as one of the girls calls it in the movie :P).

These are up in the shop right now. Sea glass and copper... Such a lovely combo. So lovely, in fact, that this happened...

They're waiting for payday so they can have earring wires. Lol.

My sister loved these so much, she asked me to make her a necklace. That one is currently waiting for payday as well... because, well, a necklace can't be a necklace without a chain. :P

I've been on an earring kick lately because these are also a new addition to the shop

Am I too late in the game for the feather trend? Are they still in? All I know is I've always loved feathers. These were bound together with floral tape and then a fold-over crimp was added.

Fun times.

Challenge of Literature Blog Hop Reveal!

Erin Prais-Hintz, the lovely lady behind this blog challenge says, "Reading can transport you to a million different places and that is what this challenge is all about."

When I signed up for this challenge, I was nearing the end of the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. I don't know if this series has replaced my previous favorite book but the characters are wonderful. Especially Saphira, the dragon. (Side note: If you get the chance, this series is FANTASTIC in audio.)

Saphira, on the cover of the first book, Eragon

One of my favorite parts of the series is when Saphira loses a scale. The following excerpt is from the fourth book in the series, Inheritance.

"You're fine," said Eragon, exasperated. “Stop worrying. There’s nothing you can do about it anyway.” 

     Saphira growled and continued to study her image in the lake. She turned her head from side to side, then exhaled heavily, releasing a cloud of smoke that drifted out

over the water like a small, lost thundercloud.

     Are you sure? she asked, and looked toward him. What if it doesn’t grow back?

     “Dragons grow new scales all the time. You know that.”

     Yes, but I’ve never lost one before!

     He did not bother to hide his smile; he knew she would sense his amusement. “You shouldn’t be so upset. It wasn’t very big.” Reaching out, he traced the diamond-shaped hole on the left side of her snout, where the object of her consternation had so recently been ensconced. The gap in her sparkling armor was no larger than the end of his thumb and about an inch deep. At the bottom of it, her leathery blue hide was visible.

     Curious, he touched her skin with the tip of his index finger. It felt warm and smooth, like the belly of a calf. Saphira snorted and pulled her head away from him. Stop that; it tickles.

I'm not sure what Eragon did with the dragon scale, but I started thinking that the jeweled scales from Christopher Paolini's dragons would probably make beautiful jewelry.

So...

I took some glittery scrapbook cardstock and punched out two dragonscales. Take some copper wire and wire wrap some yellow crystals. Take even more copper wire and make some jump rings. Now, I bought some sequins and I'm pretending they're baby dragon scales. Attach them together with those jump rings you made aaaand...

Pretty earrings. They sparkle like you would not believe. I wore them on Wednesday and they're super light because I used sequins instead of glass beads. And they're deliciously long, but that could be because I have a short neck :P

I imagine my dragon would have been teal. I would have named her Chaiti, the Hindi word for "teal."

Won't you join Chaiti and me while we go blog hopping? Here are the other participants of the Challenge of Literature Blog Hop!

Erin Prais-Hintz

Rebecca Anderson

**Rose Binoya** [YOU ARE HERE!]

Lori Bowring Michaud

Shannon Chomanszuk

Marlene Cupo

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Kim Dworak

Beth Emery

Therese Frank

Amy Freeland

K Hutchinson

Jennifer Justman

Susan Kennedy

Linda Landig

Lisa Lodge

Lisa Lowe

Kirsi Luostarinen

Beth McCord

Melissa Meman

Sharon Misuraco

Tracey Nanstad

Melinda Orr

Kashmira Patel

Alice Peterson

Sally Russick

Niky Sayers

Pam Sears

Amy Severino

Tracy Stillman

Emma Todd

Melissa Trudinger

Lesley Watt

Shai Williams

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 :)

Our Day Off

[For the Wrapped, Stacked, and Layered Challenge post, click HERE]

Before I lost my job, the boyfriend and I made frequent trips to LA and Pasadena. Our day-trips were put on hold when Borders closed and we haven't really had one since because the drive and eating out is so expensive. Yesterday, we decided to have a mini-day-trip and drive up the coast a little.

 We were in Newport and Huntington Beach for a while. It was a very cloudy day (even misty at times) and chilly. I wanted to see if there were any shops I could aspire to selling my jewelry in but most of the shops we saw weren't very handmade-friendly.

We drove inland a little and wound up at JJ Beads in Huntington Beach. I was able to buy some balled headpins at a great price and even a strand of yellow crystals for an upcoming challenge project I'm working on. We drove up into LA County and wound up in Torrance where we stumbled into a cool little new age shop. They said it was a book store but they didn't have many books which was a bummer as I love reading about the Hindu religion and Tibetan Buddhism.

Rod jumped onto the freeway and we drove back to Orange County for dinner (pizza... yay!) and hit one of my favorite shops: Papersource. I tried to get a job here and the person who interviewed me was super awesome. I felt like we clicked and had a great interview. She said that I would definitely hear back from the GM... after 2 or 3 weeks, I decided to call back and she wasn't very nice. There's probably a better way of letting someone down than "Oh, we're looking for the best of the best, sorry." My face twitches reading that. Lol.

Back on our turf, we hit Starbucks. I hadn't had coffee all day so you can just imagine how awesome it was to have a hot cup and my sketchbook.

More on those earrings in another post.

I love day-trips. As our luck is slowly starting to turn, I'm hoping we can have more of them. Eventually, I think we want to move to Pasadena or somewhere thereabouts. That's where he lived for a while and where I always want our day-trips to take us.

Do you like day-trips? Do you do a lot of research before heading out or just get in the car and drive? Do you have a special place you love going?

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!

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.

Monday Muses: Hooooot...

Orange Owl Print by OrangeOptimist

Night Owl Jewelry by BethMillner

I LOVE that ring...

Burrowing Owl by rctees

Brown Bird Bag by retrofied

Owl Stationary Cards by Ringocrafts

I love owls. They've been pretty popular in design for a while now and it seems they'll be popular for a while.

They used to frighten me. Nightmares of owls swooping over me in the dark of night... but then I saw an owl one night in high school. It's hooting woke me up which was strange because it didn't seem that loud. I saw it perched on the brick wall separating my parents' house from the neighbors. Not sure how long I stood staring at it but was just so beautiful.

I made these earrings today. I really love the pair with the seed beads.

I'm a happy girl today.

My Poor Shop

Been working on pretties for a submission.

All of the above are now in a padded envelope at my editor's office. My favorite is the first pair of earrings.

I've also been working on some affordable single wrap bracelets. Probably price them at around $6 each.

But even these pretties won't be making it into my shop right now. They're going off to a fundraiser sale for my cousin's home school group on Friday (I think...), along with some studs and hair accessories I've been making. So busy... and none going into my shop.

I must make something for my shop. I must... maybe tomorrow. But for now, I think I can make a few more bracelets before dinner...