New Newy New.

Got some stuff.  Yay, new stuff.

Here I tried something very un-me lately: shimmery and purple. With lots of bits sparrow send me.

I finally finished this gal off w/a nice tobacco tag from hummingbirdeyes:

And I tied some ripped ribbon around the awkward part I didn't like on this one (featuring a tag from my haul):

The following necklace started thusly:

I put it on once and realized the clasp was too small for that big diamond-shaped thing it was connected to.  I went to change it, and also changed the bullet casing for a coin from my haul:

The clasp was fine, but the new square puffy links ere off that close to the focal, and didn't balance w/the slender connector on the other side.  I also realized in a flash of color awareness that the 3 rectangular cube-ish beads were superfluous and too bright anyways.

Which led to:

But then I didn't like the way the red glass beads with the delicious retro spots laid against the neck.  

So.

Finally, I changed ti to:

Just wanted y'all to know all the grief I go through.  For no reason.  For my ART, I mean.

Wait, no. For YOU, to provide you eye-candy.  The both of you.

Here's another re-do.  Before:

The stick pearls hung so awkwardly that no one bought it, though its from forever ago.

After:

Much better.

There's one more thing I didn't get a chance to post or even take decent pictures of:

Tomorrow I'll get to it.  There's always more to do!

Front Page

My buddy Sacredcake alerted me to the fact that I'd been on the front page today.  I missed it, but was able to find it again on craftcult.com.

It was made by dreams and things and features my doll arm dirty boutonniere. 

Beauty is the Beginning of Terror.

Unfortunately, I can't figure out the name of the treasury.  I should ask dreamsandthings...

On a whim- a whimsical whim- I searched my shop name on craft cult and got 7 results.

A couple of said results had me only as an alternate, but I did find:

Third column, third row.


Second column, second row.

Second column, second row.


Second column, fourth row.

Dry Spell Ends, New Goodies

I was recently down b/c I wasn't selling for a good week or so. In fact, it's what prompted my first sale, complete with its own sale section.  

Sale. The Reabsorption of Milk Teeth. Assemblage Brooch.

Though I did sell one or two things from it, when the dry spell ended, of course it wasn't the sale items, but rather the expensive-ish items that sold.  

                             The smallest sacred thing. 

Ain't that always the way?

               Throw Down the Gauntlet. Embellished Glovelette.

Basically, I started renewing a LOT, and I think that's what did it.
ANYWHOO- here's some new things I just listed.

Flowering Sugar Drops

Clogging Buccaneers

Sign of the Pilgrim

HorseHair. Bone and Hair for the Ear.

That's my hair in that raccoon bone, yo.  I wanted the bones to be long bezels for hair.  But then I had no hair.  So I reached back to where, in the back of your skull, the hair is darkest.  I reached in where I hoped it wouldn't show, and cut it at the very root, to get a longish piece.  Then I did it 9 more times b/c I had a lot of these bones.  Still not sure what to do w/the rest of these hair and bone oddities. maybe they'd hang well below some of the circular elements in my haul.

Color

After my last post about color and inspiration from lorelei1141, I thought I'd post some of the stuff I was inspired to make.  These things are still in progress, mind you.

These glass beads make me drool. 60s/70s retro. They remind me of Uruguay. 

The metal tag below is from Uruguay, of course.

More of the drooly beads, a more transparent orangey-red.

Uruguayan enameled tag.

Smokey turquoise w/white and yellow beads.  Guess from where?

Note the mini lock has different shades on the front and back.

New Inspiration

Probably the last thing I need is new inspiration, drowning as I am in my oft-mentioned haul.  However the lovely etsyan lorelei1141 contacted me recently to say she liked ...

 on a whim, and b/c she had such a nice avatar, I poked over to her shop and discovered a world of color.

A freedom in unexpected unions of glazed greens, browns, copper, earthy mustards, corals and every kind of blue.  Nothing looking over or underdone, supremely wearable, gorgeously multi-chromatic. 

Now, if you are a jewelry nut, you will recognize some of these elements as what's popular these days. She often uses components made by other artist, such as resin charms in copper and jaw-droppingly sexy ceramic versions of a badonkadonk.  

However, I have yet to see someone do something to these components that improves on the component.  So many of these would look better alone or a couple on a cord tied around your back. Often, what folks made even detracted from the beads and bits.  

It takes a real designers eye to make them shine.  Just like you can't stick any few cute antique bits on a chain and expect them to look good, it's the same w/artist-made components.

What most makes me sit there w/my mouth hanging open, though, are those unexpected touches of color. The piece right above here is entirely unexpected color.  Who told her she was allowed to bring a big ol' shiny purple bead into that subdued, kind of rustic composition?  Or the green in the 1st piece, or red in the second.  

Or not do any repetition w/the red or black above?

Or the sudden bright seed beads below? Not to mention the sudden appearance of a big blue flower, never again to be repeated, and a big spotted lampwork round, never again to be repeated.

Meanwhile, I've been sticking to this matchy-matchy thing.  If I have a component w/yellow and red, everything has to be yellow and red:

OK, looking at this necklace, I did put in lots of surprises, since no element was repeated.  The amber and tiny hints of orange bring in a sunset-flavored tough.  But what if I'd gone w/royal blue?

One trick is to vary the color, but stick w/the same intensity and hue.  (Remember, the hue is the amount of white and black mixed into the color.)

  When hues are the same, if you turned the image to black and white, they'd all look like the same color.  Which is very evident in this stone series above.  But what about this below?  It's even better than the stone series, color-wise.  

AND IT CLEARLY HAS VASTLY VARYING HUES-- (this just added when i realized my post made no sense). Just imagine it black and white and you'll see what i mean.

Maybe I should just steal her color-ways.  Which is impossible because my stash is what it is. And I'm not ready to pay $6 for one bead.

These are $36.

These are $24 for the three.

ANYWAYS- another thing lorelei inspired me w/is the whole series of beads thing. Specifically, the series on a knotted cord.  Led me to:

In which the navy was not in the focal, but still worked. I'm so proud.  I'll be more so when I finish and get a good picture.  The metal tag is, of course, from my famous haul.  And the effect is still quite "me."  I had been trying to get this guy to work w/just different kinds of metal chains and stuff, and it was awful. So now I have 4 or 5 projects going w/all knotted cord.  Yuppeeee!!!

Thanks Lorelei.

Busy Bee

Finally got my fine wire for my fancy earrings w/the tiny medals and such from Uruguay.

Look! Real gold!  

Paired w/old rhinestones I found a huge bucket of at the school I teach.  Weird score, but I had to get the bezels, though.

 These treasures were all hidden away, forgotten in the back of grandma's drawers or in little old baggies the street sellers never took out because who'd want such things? ME!

The tiny one's on a silver spoon!

By sheer coincidence, when I got back from my trip, 2 packages of particularly fancy beads had arrived, from etsy sellers, of course.

The rondelles I already had.

The pyrite chunks and cubes, the white glass bell caps, the coin pearls, all waiting to be made into something pretty.

These are so sweet and tiny, I can barely stand it.

And I bent and re-bent and sanded and hammered all that sterling sliver and gold-filled wire until everything dangled just right.  Not as easy as re-shaping factory-made ear wires.  But I discovered the joys of dead-soft silver, which hardens up w/just a few hammer bangs.

The white tiger eye barrel's I actually got in Uruguay crazy cheap at a most unexpected Chinese import bead store.  That's also where I got the faux amber barrel closures for this guy.  Funny, I had just bout the exact same beads, slightly bigger, through etsy.

The wire was so inexpensive (for being fine) from this seller from Australia!  Even w/the $5 shipping it was a great deal.

Now my tummy's been rumbling for I don't know how long, and though I'm itching to read sparrow's convo she just sent, I gotta eat.  This is how I stay so skinny, since folks ask me sometimes, I just am so much more obsessed w/making jewelry from old bits than with my own bodily needs.  So my advice for those who want a bit less chunk on 'em is to become obsessed w/something.