Breaking News! Jean is Blogging!!!!!

I purposely put off blogging for awhile to keep the focus on Lori Anderson's Bead Soup 7 Reveals.  I hope you all got a chance to check those out.  It is absolutely amazing what people come up with when they are working with beads and components that quite often are things they are not used to working with and would never pick out for themselves to create with.  And, it is equally amazing that most, if not all, designers manage to come up with something quite new and innovative that is absolutely beautiful gorgeous and many times they even learn new techniques that they might not have otherwise learned.  I guess that is a couple of reasons why most of us that try it once are hooked from then on.  I can't tell you what being involved in that experience has meant to me.  You simply must try it even if you think it is something you don't want to do.  I think you will be surprised.

Anyway, I have had a lot, no a LOT, going on the last few weeks and have a lot of things that I want to get onto my blog (for my own personal record if for no other reason) and hopefully some of you will even find it interesting or worth a quick read.

Here is my plan.  Since I know that you guys come here to look at jewelry, I am going to start today with the new earrings that I just made. 

 These were made with Trinity Brass Co. copper "leather tooled" look charms (I drilled the extra hole), larger than usual opaque red Czech glass beads, and brass "worm eaten" look arrow charms. 

 The little green beads on the earwires are beads that my Dad's life-partner, Joyce, gave me last week.  They were in a little box of beads that she gave me that had belonged to her mother who has been gone many years.  Remember, Joyce is in her late seventies or early eighties (I felt it rude to ask her, but Dad was 82).  These were the only two like this in the box and I thought they were perfect in these. 














I have made some other custom pieces recently that I am glad to share with you also.

 These were made to go with a necklace that a repeating client of mine purchased for his mother-in-law.


African Turquoise, Hill Tribe Silver and sterling silver earwires.

I made the bottom headpin from sterling silver FILLED wire rather than solid sterling so that when I made the balls on the end, I could get a nice silvery rosey pink.  It is such a nice little surprise or pop of color at the bottom.

Also, great movement on these.

Here is the finished necklace.  I took it from 18-1/2" to 24" by adding the African turquoise nuggets at the back and including some Hill Tribe tube beads.  I also changed the clasp to a toggle clasp.

It is a beautiful set and the client AND the mother-in-law loved it.

And, for another repeating client for Mother's Day.  She started out wanting pink roses, she describes herself as a "pink" girl, but when I didn't have pink roses, she told me her favorite flower was the calla lily.  I showed her these red breciated jasper hand-carved calla lilies that I have and she decided that she only thought she wanted pink roses, she really wanted red jasper calla lillies.

It turned out so pretty with the tiny little freshwater pearls in purple, a larger pink pearl on the necklace and the hand wrapped copper stamens.  I was proud of this one.







Well, that's all for today, but with more to come in the next few days.