December 31, 2010

Goodbye 2010

May your new year
be filled with
joy and happiness.
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Happy New Year






Meanwhile, here at the Tombstone Winter Studio it really is winter. Thirty degrees, spitting show and sleet. I actually dug out a coat, hat, gloves and heavy woolly socks. I can't see the Huachuca Mountains under the clouds, but I'm sure they are snow capped by now.

December 24, 2010

Happy Christmas Eve

Happy Christmas
&
Best wishes for the Season

I had some black steel wire left over from my recent necklace projects. This quick idea came to me with my first cup of coffee. Little bits of wire, round nose pliers, bending, wrapping, spiraling around a toothpick and adding some orphaned crystals gave me a 15 min. completed project. Hang it on your Christmas tree, in a sunny window, or add it to a last moment gift package. Feel free to take this idea and run with it. Bend your own wire, use up some of those orphaned beads and have something just a little bit special to give to someone who might need a holiday lift.

As for me, I'm singing, "The weather is delightful, nothing frightful . . ."
Frost on the ground early on, bright sunshine, classical music on the radio, and no snow anywhere.

Have a happy, joyous Christmas.

December 19, 2010

Quiet AZ Sunday

The sun is out in full force and it's a cool 60 degrees here in Tombstone AZ today. It's sort of a puttering, lazy Sunday before the last of the Holiday rush. Had a nice brunch of home made waffles and NH maple syrup (local made by a friend).

I finished all of the components for this necklace while driving West last month. I'm finally getting around to putting it all together. It's been out & put away several times and I think it's really time to get it all done. Hopefully my table will stay clear of other projects long enough to finish up.


I confess . . . I collect old cookbooks and read them for fun. It seems that when you collect, you collect all sorts of odd things. Besides beads, I do cookbooks, returnable pie plates, balls, kitchen tinware, frosted glass shards, rusty metal and other interesting trivial bits & pieces. This book's title bothered me until I figured out that I'm used to seeing cooky spelled cookie. Somehow this seems appropriate reading for this time of the year. In fact, it has been back porch reading, in the warm sun today. Warm sun, rocking chair, good book and a glass of something cold - my idea of relaxing.

Last night the sunset was fantastic. Watching the sunsets from my studio window is one of my favorite pastimes here in the winter desert. Each one is better than the last. No clouds in the sky, so tonight may well be no color with just a flash of light as the sun goes down.
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It's a nice feeling to let Sunday develop as it will with no plans, lists, or ideas of gotta do. The best part is that I still have the rest of the day left to unfold as it will.

December 17, 2010

Take it to your beading table?


Bead Crocheters . . .
What would you think of having your bead crochet patterns on an Android Tablet? Being able to design on the same tablet and taking it to your beading table to string from either the graph or a stringing table? Yes, I know it isn't an "i-anything", but the 8" Android tablets are way less expensive and more in the price range of beaders like myself.

Do any of you have (or plan to have) an Android Tablet? If this project keeps going like it is right now, The programmer will be looking for someone other than myself, to do some testing. What I've seen so far impresses me as it's so quick & responsive and I can rotate the graph to see how things line up. I can't wait to see how the stringing table, with the working line highlighted, looks. I'm excited and never realized something like this might be on my wish list. For heavens sake, I don't even use a cell phone.

If you want me to get back in touch with you, you'll need to give me your email or other way to contact you.

Oh, and another thought:
. . . other nice thing is that you can put other beading patterns on this if they are PDF's. This tablet (sigh, the programmer's, not mine) has the full content of "Bead Crochet Ropes" & "Triangular Bead Crochet Ropes" on it in PDF format and I can scroll through the pages with a flick of a finger. Could I even think about getting rid of my piles and piles of paper patterns?

December 11, 2010

Wire Play ~ Done

This is the first necklace that I finished. It was a learning piece and I think the clasp should have been a lighter weight wire than what I made. All, in all I'm happy with it and it has that nice combination of wrought-iron looking wire with pearls and faceted gemstone beads.


Once I was comfortable with what the wire did, I bent, twisted and hammered away on the components of this necklace. I'm most happy with the way this one finished up. I had fun rummaging through my collection of beads to combine with the nice blackened wire.

I gave you a rundown on most of the wire experiments in Wire Play. I did clean all of the wire with rubbing alcohol and then rubbed it down with paste wax. The wax cleaned more of the coating off. Once it was buffed out the surface color was very stable and no longer left black streaks on my hands. It also left the wire feeling nicer than in it's untreated state. I think these spools of wire will go on my studio shelf and get used from time to time. However, that galvanized steel wire has already been relegated to the garage - not nice stuff to work with.
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Wire work isn't my first, nor even fifth choice for beadwork. However, one of these will be a gift, and I did have fun playing with it as a complete change of pace.


December 7, 2010

Wire Play

I've had a request from a family member to recreate a Vogue necklace in less expensive materials. Not the actual design, but something that resembles it. The original was done in gold and faceted gemstones and cost the earth. I'm going to use it as an inspiration to make an industrial-looking necklace for a gift.
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I started with galvanized steel wire from Home Depot. Well, that's where I was when I wanted materials, and wanted them right now. Research said that I could use vinegar and salt to either remove the galvanized coating and/or darken the wire. Yes, it worked to a certain extent, but the results were all a dull, ugly gray with a not-so-nice feel to it. Plus, the 18 GA. was almost too stiff to bend right. I might try the 24 GA for some wire bead crochet with 8/0 or 6/0 beads.
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That meant another trip, this time to an ACE hardware store. The guys in there have learned to not ask what I want it for and just tell me where to find what they think I'm talking about. This time I got Dark Annealed Steel Wire in 24, 19, & 16 GA. It was in the fence and stove pipe section.
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The thinner wire was in nice small packets at very reasonable costs. The large wire only came in a 5 lb. spool - cheap at $4, but what the heck am I ever going to do with 5 lbs. of this stuff?

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One thing I've learned is to not use my jewelry tools for this stuff. I went out to the garage and grabbed the utilitarian, heavy duty pliers and cutter.
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The wire also comes with a black, greasy coating. Again, research said to clean it with rubbing alcohol. Right now I'm trying to figure out how clean is clean. Will a quick rub of paste wax keep the finish at a color I want? That's next on my list to try out.
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So, I've made a few jump rings.
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...and tried out a couple of components. I like the way the gray rock pearls look. I'm thinking of using them as singles in the necklace and as dangles with multiples.
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I'm not sure I want any bling in this necklace, but a grouping of faceted and matted gemstones along with the gray pearls.



Today I've got to get some more yard cleanup done while this beautiful 70 degree weather is here in Arizona. Then maybe I'll have some time to get back to playing with the wire. It's always fun to try something different, even if it turns out to be a one-time project. I've always found that stretching creativity in another medium gives me fresh ideas all the way around.