EMBELLISHED CABOCHON FOR FALL!

A fall creation for a birthday bestie...I'm a little behind in getting this posted to my blog.  Let's just say the local and national events of last week threw me for a loop and I've had to talk to myself a lot about it.  I think lots more beading may be in order to freshen my mind and my spirit. 

As I've mentioned in past blogs, my pieces really do come to me based on the person in my mind view.  This one is for Aimee who loves black and brown -- and, I've done that for her on at least one occasion !!! but, I cannot do it too often because color gives me the boost and the enthusiasm to create - that and the limitless possibilities of beads and pendants and shapes and wire and leather -- did I mention beads?  So, here goes... this is a fun, unusual necklace creation for me, starting with the Golem cabochon.  I was so happy with my embellishment and the colors I used for the bezel in 11.0 and 15.0.  I kept thinking I needed to do more, but this really was quite perfect.  (I do tend to want to overdo it... so I had to hold my mind and my fingers still!!)  I also incorporated a bit of leather as part of the strap, painted and sanded the button to pull in the colors of the pendant, and put in three Czech glass leaves for pop.  Love the look and how the smaller leaves move out slightly. 

The earrings are my design - although I have seen other artists do something similar.  18 and 24 gauge copper patinaed wire wrappings to give a cage effect.  Love how the beads are always in movement -- free to go back and forth on the wire.  This ensemble and these colors look beautiful on you Aimee! 

BOHEMIAN STYLIN'!

One of my favorite Baristas was wearing an incredible pair of earrings - they were layered beads and brass leaves, and I asked her if I could take a closer look to see how they were made.  She was so gracious and took one off so I could really inspect it.  Then my head was aspinnin (is that a word?) with the possibilities and I couldn't wait to get to my beading table to get started with some size 18, 20, 22 and 24 gauge wire.  Her beauties fashioned more earth tone beads, and there were more layers, but as I made mine, more layers would have been too long for me, and of course I wanted to use bright colors for spring/summer, so the whole vision of them kind of took a different turn.  Some of my steps are shown below, with the completed earrings at the bottom.  Lots of wire wrapping, and wire twisting, but aren't these fun? 



Step 1 - make wire round in the loop size you want it, with 18 gauge wire, and loop ends.  Step 2 - start wire wrapping about the middle of one side of the round using 24 gauge wire, looping after every 2-3 wraps, so you have a place to hook your next layer - go all the way around to other side, half way up.  Step 3 - Start making basic wire wraps with a metal square or some other bead of your choice and attach to the gauge 24 wire loops.