Wordless Wednesday: Watch out, angels about!

Handmade Monday: lots of creations

Hi everyone,
I've been away for a week in S Pembrokeshire, visiting the family.  Have to admit, we had some traditional seaside weather - torrential rain, thunderstorms, hail - but luckily most of it was in the night or at times when we weren't walking on the beach!  And the rest of the time, the sky was pretty blue and there was some extraordinarily warm sunshine.  Lucca the dog found time for some digging, as usual!...

 ...chilling out in the sun room...

 ...and a little ice cream - well, he has lost over 5 kilos, so he's allowed one!

Anyway, what about making things?  I made 12 items, so quite a productive week.  A bit of intricate wire work on this cherry quartz pendant

Something festive and something autumnal

And some new style multi charm necklaces and bracelets on faux leather cord

...to show but a few.  Now there's the marathon of listing them all in the shops!


Here's the link to visit other crafty folks' blogs

Handmade Monday: Beaded flowers

An exciting time for Blue Forest Jewellery, as my wire rose necklace and earrings were featured in Bead Trends this month.  I'm waiting for the hard copies to arrive so I can show it to you, as the mag is only available in the States.





While I was thinking about that, I started to list and make some more wire rose items

 I took these to the filming of the BBC show 'Handmade Revolution' in Hanley at the weekend, but was too chicken to show them in the end! 










And while I was making those, some daisies popped into my head as well!

 I've been mad on flowers for a while now, and thought I'd share the technique for these beaded beauties.  I've been turning them into rings.

 Here's a quick run through how to make them.

You will need:
Monofilament
5 4mm beads in your main petal colour
1 4mm bead in your chosen centre colour
Jewellery glue (optional)

Thread three of the beads, including the centre one, on to a length of monofilament.  Cut more monofilament than you think you will need so that you have enough to feed back through the flower for strengthening at the end.

Take one end of the monofilament (it doesn't matter which) and thread it back through the two main colour beads.  Pull tight to form a triangle of beads.

Thread the other 3 main colour beads onto one end of the monofilament.  Again, it doesn't really matter which end.

Take the other end of the monofilament and go back through the 3 beads you just added.  Pull the thread tightly and the flower forms.

When you pull, the centre bead will automatically become raised as it get pushed up by the other beads.  Go through all the main colour beads as many times as you can with the monofilament and the flower will gradually strengthen.  Knot the ends or continue to work them, and add a spot of jewellery glue if desired.  Done!



Here's a link to see what other lovely crafty folk have been making this week.

Alison x

Catching up

New on Folksy - heart charm necklace

This poor little blog has been neglected recently and I keep promising tutorials that don't materialise!  I must be more strict with myself.  I've missed handmade Monday for a couple of weeks too.

Wire woven leaf earrings

Mostly my excuse is restocking my Folksy shop, when I've now got a substantial number of items back for sale and have had a good number of sales.  Etsy is good too at the moment, with a recent big order for bag charms and my lovely wire work dragonfly has flown away to the US too.  Here are a few things I've put in since.  Weaving, charms and wire work continue to be themes.  I went a big paisley crazy with the earrings - they are quite big and bold.

Paisley earrings

Quartz swirl earrings

Vase bag charm

Next week I'll be a better blogger.  Already planning a tutorial, and hoping to show some more metal clay creations.  Honestly!

Handmade Monday: Weaving wire tutorial

Fossil bag charm sold

Butterfly key ring sold

This week I've been busy with an article for a magazine (watch this space for further details!) and a couple of sales, and today I'm in a competition. But I managed to fit in finishing a necklace and earring set using hammered and woven wire.  I've always found it tricky to get fine wire secured when starting off - this design solves that problem by having the links hammered first so that the thick wire is flattened which really makes it so much easier.


Here's a tutorial if you want to try it - a very straight forward if fiddly technique.

You'll need:
Thick wire - I've used 1m (18 gauge) here
Thinner wrapping wire - 0.4m (24 gauge) here
Pearls
Chasing hammer and block
Chain nose pliers

Step 1: Make the connector shapes in wire and hammer.  If you're making earrings, make sure you make and hammer two at the same time so they are identical and a mirror image of each other.

Be careful hammering the coloured and coated wires.  Try to tap them gently with the hammer covering the surface as evenly as possible.  More taps are better than a couple of hard knocks - you're less likely to scratch the coating.

If you have curves on your designs as I have here, you may need to readjust them after hammering.  Be careful using the pliers on hammered wire as the wire has been work hardened, but this means it is also more brittle.




Step 2: Get your thinner wire ready for the weaving.  You can work off the spool here to minimise wastage.  I've threaded on enough of the pearls for both earrings.

Look at the state of my steel block!  Really must give it a clean.  But like all tools, it seems to work better in the 'used' state ;-)That's my excuse for slovenly home economics anyway!

Step 3: Start to weave with the fine wire.  Leave a reasonable tail.  The more the thick wire connector has been hammered, the easier it is to make the thin wire stay in place.  Decide how many coils you want between each bead, but you may need to do a couple more for security at the beginning and end anyway.

Step 4: When you're ready for it, move the first bead or pearl up and gently manipulate the wire so that it's laying in the correct orientation. Continue the weave after the pearl in the same way

Step 5: Continue.  If you want to be really neat, make sure that you always keep the same pattern around the pearl.  So if the wire was coiled in front of the connector before the pearl, coil it back in front of the connector for the first coil after the pearl.

Step 6: When you're finishing off, make the same number of coils as at the top and snip your wire.  Neaten the ends of the coiling wire with the chain nose pliers so that the ends are tucked in at the back of the component.

 There's one done. Here are the finished earrings and necklace.  Can't quite decide which earrings I like best.  Some of the lovely folks on the Jewellery Maker facebook page helped me with designs, so they should get the credit for them really!

Earrings 1

Earrings 2

So which do you prefer?

Here's the link to see what others have been doing this week

Handmade Monday: Simple stud earrings from wire

Bea, one of the lovely guest designer on Jewellery Maker, showed this method of using wire to make stud earrings a few days ago.  I always like to have a go, and a couple of folks who missed the programme asked for a tutorial, so here it is.  This would work best and was demonstrated with a flat backed bead or gemstone but does work with the rounds I've used here - Brazilian jade beads. Similarly, I've used 0.8mm wire (20 gauge) but the original demo used 0.6mm I think.  You just need to check whether the thickness of wire will go through the butterfly backs you're using.

You will need:
A length of wire about 6 inches or so
Wire cutters
Chain nose pliers
Round nose pliers (optional)
Cup burr or file
2 beads
2 butterfly backs

Step 1: Pop your bead on the wire and bend the wire around the bead.  One side will form the stud back and the other will circle the bead twice, so leave a short end for the stud and a longer one for the circling.

 Step 2: Work the longer end of the wire around the circumference of the bead, pushing the wire gently and keeping close to the edge, going in front of the shorter end of the wire.  You might want to push this shorter end out of the way as you go past it.

Step 3: Keep pushing the wire around until you have gone round the whole bead twice.  The wire will be just at the hole of the bead where you started winding.  At this point, you can choose to simply snip the wire and push it gently with the chain nose pliers so that it lies flat to the bead. 

Step 4: I've chosen to add a loop for a small bead dangle.  You need to snip the wire, leaving just enough for the loop....

Step 5: ... and gently form the loop with the round nose pliers.

Step 6: Go back to the other shorter tail of the wire now and bend it gently round the back of the bead to half way down the bead.  A bit fiddly now with a round bead, must easier if you are using a flat back bead.

Step 7: Use the chain nose pliers to make a right angle bend in the wire as shown and you've made the stud post.

Step 8: Tidy up the end of the stud post - you can use a nail file if you wish.  A cup burr like the one shown is a very useful little tool and will give you a nice rounded end and won't remove the plating on the wire either.

Add your butterfly backs and additional bead drop if required.

You need to be quite careful putting the backs on and off not to pull the stud post away from the bead.  You could try using a spot of glue on the post. 

The finished earrings, with a little faceted red jade bead added. The others are faceted peridot with pearl drops.






Enjoy making!  And don't forget to sign up to follow the blog for more tutorials, crafty stuff and photos of my dog!