BeadMam Handcrafted Jewelry
Welcome to my Musings
Welcome to my Musings
| Crazy About Turquoise |
 I made this piece to display the large chinese turquoise cabochon. The cab is set in a pendant I made using PMC3. The texture is crumpled heavy duty aluminum foil. I also made the clasp and bead caps from PMC3. The turquoise beads are from Fire Mountain Gems as are the coral chips. This project took me months to make because I couldn't decide on the design. Finally I just decided to "go for it" and plunged in without a drawing or notes. I just made the components as I needed them. |
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| YoJ 2010 Week 2 - Finally! |
 I decided to go with the lampwork beads I made last week for the three focal beads in this necklace. I used CIM bordello glass which is a very dark garnet color in keeping with this weeks theme. I described my trials and tribulations with this glass in my last blog. I still haven't tamed it but I am getting closer. I adapted the design for this necklace from the one described in Chic and Easy Beading designed by Fae Mellichamp. I am always looking for designs that use lampwork beads effectively and this one does that wonderfully. I also like the unusual way she attaches the seed bead strands to the focal beads using wire "bobby pins". And, it needs no clasp. The necklace is 28 inches long and can be slipped over the head. The strand of round red beads rests on the back of the neck which helps make the necklace comfortable to wear. |
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| YoJ 2010 Week 2 And I am NOT ready! |
It is Sunday and Week 2 is due but I am not ready. The theme is January birthstones, garnet or rose quartz. I chose garnet because it is one of my favorite colors and there is a lampwork glass color that is close to garnet. It is made by a Chinese manufaturer, CIM, and is called bordello.......apt name for this color I think. BUT.......I am having trouble working with it. It burns readily to an ugly brown color or it gets very dark, almost black. For the necklace I want to make I need 3 matching largish beads, about 1 inch hole to hole. So far I have only made pairs that fit the description. Here is a sampling of a few of the 20 or so beads I have made so far.   Back to the torch! |
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| Year of Jewelry 2010 Week 1 of 52 |
The theme for the first week is "Starting Over" and it is very appropriate for me. I have been starting over with my lampworking by going back to basics. I made these beads New Year's day and finished the earrings yesterday. The hardest part was getting the picture. I am starting over with that as well. The lampwork beads are layered and plunged dots which is a basic technique. I am practicing dots and trying to perfect placement and size. That is my emphasis for the next few weeks or months or whatever it takes to improve my basic skills. YOJ is the incentive I need to keep at it.  |
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| Back to the Torch |
| I have been away from the torch and lampworking for a long time. Since I have not been using my skills they have melted away. I saw a challenge on www.lampworketc.com for newbie lampworkers to make twisties and use them to decorate beads. Aha! Just the project I need to start regaining my lost skills. These are my twisties.  Tomorrow ........ the beads made using some of these twisties. |
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| I'm Back! |
| I have been away a looooooonnnnnggg time........and now I'm back. I have been playing with some interesting new things such as copper metal clay. It is a dry powder that I add water to and mix until it is nice and soft and squeezable. Then I can mold it and stamp it and....and... you get the idea. It is similar to silver metal clay. After I fire it in a kiln the binder burns out and the copper metal sinters ( sort of like melting but different) and it is 99.9% copper metal. This is a pendant I made from a stamp I made. It is about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.  The frame of this pendant is made of copper metal clay. The cabochon is made of polymer clay and the cord is made with a Japanese braiding technique called kumihimo.  The copper metal clay I use was developed by Hadar Jacobson, a jewelry artist from Oakland, California. You can learn about it here Hadar Jacobson. I have Hadar's first two books and I refer to them frequently. They are the best references for all the metal clays that I have found. She is now experimenting with steel metal clay. Awesome! I have been playing with lots more stuff but this is probably enough for now........maybe more than enough! |
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| Glass Apprentice - Week 8 |
This week the challenge was sculpture. I have not done much sculpture. Just a few leaves and some hearts. So I was worried. Then, amazing serendipity.......The Mandrel in Torrance Ca offered a two day sculpture class with Judy Carlson. She specializes in fish and sea life so we learned to make shells and fish. I spent the week after the class happily making many shells and fish....... then tragedy struck!  As I walked out of my studio with a week's worth of fish and shells I tripped. The beads flew up in a graceful arc and crashed onto the concrete. Aghhh! Only one fish survived. Luckily it was the best one of my own design and that is the one that I will send to the GA Challenge this week. (Bullseye glass, size 25.8mm nose to tail, 13.6 mm hole to hole)  Back to the torch. |
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| Glass Apprentice - Week 7 Already! |
  13.7mm hole-to-hole x 17.6mm The challenge was to use metals in the bead while fireing it. That ruled out wire wrapping, PMC, etc. I experimented with the "Barley effect" as Corina Tetinger describes it in her Spotlight on Silver booklet. The base bead is Effetre transparent cobalt encased in Vetrofond crystal clear then wrapped in silver foil. The decoration is Effetre rubino, i.e. gold pink, stringer. Then the bead was reduced to bring out the silver and heated very very hot. I put it through a few of the reducing/heating cycles. Spectacular effect! I love the contrast between the silver sparkles in the cobalt and the light edge to the red. If you look closely at the center of the spiral you can see that the silver turned golden. |
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| NEWS! I Won!!!! |
 My earrings won in Beading Daily earrings category. I was so surprised! You can check it out at Beading Daily. I made the earrings to go with the necklace I posted a couple of weeks ago (It's Warm Again). The lampwork beads are Effetre opal yellow and Spiral Designs frit Wildwood. Both highly reactive glass. I used copper wire 10 ga for the dangles and wrapped the coils with 20 ga. |
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| Glass Apprentice - Week 6 - Raku |
  This bead was made with a base Bullseye glass. I am playing around with BE because I want to do small sculptures and it is stiffer than Effetre and the other 104 COE glass I have been using. BE is 90 COE. I love this glass!!! The colors are gorgeous, especially the transparents........a real transparent purple. The opaque colors are much more translucent. They are called opals.......another gorgeous purple too. The base bead is nougat and the raked stringers are Richenbach 108 (aka Raku), dense black and purple to make the "flames". Heating and cooling the bead created the blues, greens, red, and purple in the raku stringers.(27mm x 15mm) |
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