A lot to show

So buckle in beeches.
Essomenic- adj, 1771 -1771, showing things as they will be in the future
The metal findings on these were linked together in a something-maggigie from Uruguay. One's silver colored and the other yellow.

Magophony
Can we all appreciate pictures of earrings where the top part is 10x fatter than the bottom but it's all still visible even though the earrings are lying down...? Well, if you've ever tried this you'll know its a feat.

That Look of Otherness.
So here I was still in my Grandma Glam zone. Not that these are grandma glam, but the basic structure...

Your Sorrow Unmasked
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
 And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
-Kahlil Gibran

These are sold except the purples, the rest of the stuff isn't even listed. But I thought I'd blog first since I feel like it's been too long since my last post or something.

Which thank you guys for the support with my dumb self-questioning thing with the making stuff from scratch which I know I shouldn't even but I do even.

So here's an example of not-from-scratch. Y'all saw it a while ago but it took me forever to remove the rivets I'd originally finished this bracelet with so I could make it adjustable. Sheesh.

And this was an empty ring finding in an oval shape which I futzed with until it fit this stalactite, then soldered the whole way around cuz the metal was pretty jacked up by this point. It's a big 'un tho, size 10 and a half. In case any of you have some chunky digits that need adorning. Show off those sausages!

So did y'all hear the exciting news? SparrowSalvage is back! She's doing these amazing Galactic Bohemian pieces that got me so turnt up!

In fact, I'm pretty sure I was channelling her when I came up with these meteor comet things here.

Even though her stuff looks nothing like it, go look.

But these came about because on a whim I bought this random shape assortment

And this random chain assortment just to see what I'd do with them. The shapes I discovered I could make interesting by hammering with the side of my ball-peen. The chains, I was collecting the tiniest pieces on a wire when I realized they would make awesome fringe. And that was not such an interesting story, hu?

Now these are my final inspired-by-Sparrow pair. I'm concerned these are a bit too inspired by. Like she's barely back to making, I should give her some breathing room before I start stealing her ideas.
Anyways, it's her style of piling things up in overlapping layers which... which I think these are ok but I'm not doing anymore, I'm just not cut out for it. I'm like, "Each thing has to be clearly visible in its own allotted space with nothing left to chance!"

Oh, speaking of hammering shapes, these rings RomAntiqueSoul sent me have a similar look to my hammered shapes, except these are made from scratch, lol. You can tell cuz there's a patch of solder on each.
Oh and the amazing thing here is these buttons are the same design but one is flat and one is domed. I don't even think they came to me from the same source...
And I finally finished my kokeshi.
So that's it for ears and hands. Lets look at some lariats, shall we?

This pink stone is a big slab of something Patroness left me with forever ago. I made the wire ring then encrusted it with plumbers putty just cuz why not. And the other bit is my cast pewter solder shape thing.
Oh! And I soldered the links- with a new soldering iron!!! Excitement in the studio!! So, I don't know what kinda piece of excrement I was soldering with before but holy excrement this is so much better! It might make me solder a lot more now that I don't have to struggle so much. Excrement.

Look at this sweet little squee! And I put the leather in the key and the toggle and the thing! Squeee!! And the focal is some sort of archeological find Patroness left with me, as you can see I'm still working through those. And who knows it might be worth a zillion dollars and I'll totally undercharge... or not be that rare and I'll totally overcharge which I've also done.

Another one I did the key thing with, but a much bigger piece. This cast bronze demon(?) from Nepal is ALSO a Patroness abandoned gift bit thing.

And I have like four so I used two this batch:

I finally set this extra-rough amethyst. You can't see but the tip has three different iridescent colors I added. The tip facets were dark and opaque so it worked perfectly.

Also two leather cords instead of one cuz I said so.

This one has two bulbous chunks and a coiled wire ring, along with some of the fatter chain that came with the random chain mix.

But wait! Lemme tell you about the ring.

The other day, I went into one of those internet vortexes where you find yourself reading about the history of Slavic theater after googling, like, "Is popcorn healthy?" At the end of this particular vortex, I came upon these creations:

And yes I realize I don't have links just google image search "vape advanced coil builds". (I can't even see the word "vape" without cracking up.)

Welcome to the wacky world of e-cigarettes and the people obsessed with making unnecessarily complicated coils for the tiny part that heats up to create the vapor. I say "unnecessarily" but they will go on about how each coil affects the flavor and how many ohms pass through the wires, neither of which we joolri makers have to worry about, thank god.

I ended up watching all kinds of youtube tutorials on how to make all of these... Then I found myself on Instagram where people post these images... Then I discovered the tag #coilgraveyard, see below: 

So I started messaging these people like "Give me these now!... Err I mean, do you know anyone who'd like to sell me their old coils or where I might ask..." but Instagram told me I was spamming and stopped me.

Wouldn't those make awesome beads? And instead of bothering to follow the tutes and make them myself, wouldn't it be awesome to just have a bunch already? Which is totally in keeping with my not-from-scratch thang?

I only managed to get an answer back from at etsy coil maker who was like "geez maybe I'll stop throwing my old ones away." ARRGH!

So after all that... I just ended up with this thing:

Not too exciting, but I made a few with different coiled rings, so I ended up using them in a stacked ring necklace, which I haven't made one of those in years:

And some more for my earring station... So yeah.

That's not my only recent internet vortex. There's also been the tacky-tacular world of nail art! Look upon me and tremble in horror!!

And it takes time, effort and... talent to produce these terrors.

Deep breath. But the reason ... The reason.... hold on I gotta go back and shrink all these images to small lest their aesthetic spread like a contagion to the rest of my blog... The reason I was in this particular vortex was these meticulously painted eye sores:

They come with very detailed tutorials on how to paint tiny flowers with all kinds of details.

So but if you combine them with, like....

See where I'm going? For beads I mean, not nails, duh. Plus add tons of grunge... and I was all jazzed and got a set of teeeeny nail brushes... But then I thought why bother and just bought a bunch of flower decals... idk. we'll see where this goes.

Sorry about all that, lets continue...

Speaking of tiny things. It's a game piece.

The hammered fringe below it was actually already assembled, but not hammered. It was just a bunch of stiff wire sticks on an old broken necklace from Uruguay. I annealed it- actually right on my stove top, cuz why not- and then hammered my heart out. Everything went wonky and the wire paddles would overlap each other wrong... but yeah, finally I got it to lay right. Even all pre-assembled there's a ton of ways to fuck up. But still those imperfections make it look extra cool! So yeah, from scratch vs. found bits, the conundrum continues ... I guess it's about your patience, mine being minuscule, and where your inspiration comes from. 

The antique, African carnelian melon is on this wire bit that was originally a fan handle. Instead of drawing a ball with torch, I used solder and I freaking love it more than oxygen omg why do I love this ball on this wire so much I can't even breathe.

And finally, phew, this last one with an ornate medal I paid a whopping $25 for. Which it was well worth but knowing me and my cheaps... and Uruguay and its cheaps.... For some reason I spend a hundred times more money when it's cash for things in front of me than when it's paypal or credit cards for things on the internet and that is bass ackwards.
And I'm the anti-hoarder and I'm anxious to get rid of anything I make as soon as I make it... Also I swear like a sailor and... I... um... snort catnip? I'm trying to say I'm a special snowflake all kinds of different from all y'all. But not really at all. And I don't snort catnip, why would I, don't snort catnip kids.

If you are interested in any of the not-yet-listed guys, please inquire via etsy convo and save me from the bother of listing!

Now some birds getting pets.

Lets go crazy and do all parakeets.

I've shared this bag one before but it's worth many repeat viewings.

Man I wish I knew someone with a bird I could cuddle.

But do I?