"Wildberry"- lampwork glass droplet headpins on 24ga copper wire. As you can see there is a fantastic selection of pink and purple headpins for your designing. I try to leave the wires as long as I can so you all have lots of room to wrap, wrap WRAP those wires! Wire has been untreated to give it that antiqued tortured look.
If you aren't sure how to do this wrap let me know if you would like a tutorial on it. I just borrowed my friends web cam and wondered if I could get a quick video clip tutorial going to demonstrate this.
SPICE-"Raspberry Ink"- a super fun variety of some of my favorite beads and findings in pink, purple and lime green. Set includes: wing dings, glass head pins, flower button, ruffle flower focal, swirly spacers, rubber o's, aluminum jump rings, colored leather, and colored nylon cording!
A close-up of the glassy awesome!
SPICE-"Cantelope Zest"-a super fun variety of some of my favorite beads and findings in coral, aqua, and lime green. Set includes: wing dings, glass head pins, flower button, ruffle flower focal, swirly spacers, rubber o's, aluminum jump rings, colored leather, and colored nylon cording!
Another delicious close-up :D
Wing Dings- "Prism"- a delightful BRIGHT transparent and glitter selection of paddle beads! Yellow and orange are glittery(which isn't apparent in the picture)! Rainbowy goodness!
Wing Dings- "Sandy Bayou"- a lovely sampling of earthy greens and browns. Transparent, translucent and opaque.
Wing Dings- "Jewels"- rich transparent jewel tones perfect for fall! Much darker than my normal bright color palette. Perfect for those of you that love this fantastic time of year with it's darker color palette :)
Here is what the set looks like all together. FUN, huh?!
Flying Hula Hoop- "Blood Orange Blush" necklace- Super fun wing ding dangles, a vintage lucite hoop and swirly spacer center all on an 18-20"(45.72-50.8cm) adjustable necklace.
Flying Hula Hoop- "Blood Orange Blush" earrings- Super fun wing ding dangles, a vintage lucite hoop and swirly spacer center. Earrings dangle 2 1/2"(5.08cm).
Flying Rubber Bumper-"Blood Orange Blush" bracelet- Wiggly and bright colored rubber rings and wing dings slide over colored leather while swirly spacers weave together with silver wire. Fun for every wrist. Bracelet is just shy of 7 1/2"(17.78cm). This bracelet fits comfortably on my 7" wrist with a little room left over for a loose fit.
Flying Hula Hoop- "Kumquat Lime Sky" earrings- Super fun wing ding dangles, a vintage lucite hoop and swirly spacer center. Earrings dangle 2 1/2"(5.08cm).
Flying Hula Hoop- "Kumquat Lime Sky" necklace- Super fun wing ding dangles, a vintage lucite hoop and swirly spacer center all on an 18-20"(45.72-50.8cm) adjustable necklace.
Flying Rubber Bumper-"Kumquat Lime Sky" bracelet- Wiggly and bright colored rubber rings and wing dings slide over colored leather while swirly spacers weave together with silver wire. Fun for every wrist. Bracelet is just shy of 7 1/2"(17.78cm). This bracelet fits comfortably on my 7" wrist with a little room left over for a loose fit.
This is how the bracelet looks worn. As you can see there is only one shot of this bracelet, but I figured the other photos let you know what the rest of it looked like ;)
Flying Hula Hoop- "Original 8" earrings- Super fun wing ding dangles, a vintage lucite hoop and swirly spacer center. Earrings dangle 2 1/2"(5.08cm). The name "Original 8" was suggested by my mom. She said the colors in this necklace reminded her of the "original 8" crayola colors :)
Flying Hula Hoop- "Original 8" necklace- Super fun wing ding dangles, a vintage lucite hoop and swirly spacer center all on an 18-20"(45.72-50.8cm) adjustable necklace.
Flying Rubber Bumper Slide-"Leaf Splash" bracelet- Wiggly and bright colored rubber rings and wing dings slide over colored leather while swirly spacers weave together with silver wire. Fun for every wrist. Bracelet is 7 1/2"(17.78cm).
This was the first thing I saw on my way out my front door. I took this photo with the flash. I wish my camera could have caught the detail I saw with my eyes.
Here is the same picture without the flash. You can see the dew on the web a little better in this picture. It was so beautiful! I am NEVER up early enough to see things like this. I just see the spiders at night when they are weaving their webs at dusk. They are usually gone in the morning. By the time I wake up around 10am the webs are pulled down and the spiders are gone for the day.
Here is my front porch. You can see the shredded up leaves in this picture. This is what the house looked like as well. There was a micro burst in our area so everything was covered in leaves like this.
Here is a picture of the ground. Again you can see it's covered in leaves. There was also hail. My feet were cold walking through the wet grass as I took photos. It was weird. Almost like winter with the trees looking bare after having all of their leaves ripped off.
On the left side of the house you can see this tree that split in half and fell. The larger tree that you see to the right also dropped a huge limb into the neighbors fence next to us. Luckily their fence was still standing and there was no damage to the house.
"I Love Coffee"- This darling Ode to coffee is on a base of one of my favorite odd lot peachy corals with yellow ocher dots. On the front is an aqua coffee mug with delicious coffee inside. Perfect for all of your coffee lover's out there!
"Morning Cup"- The way I love to start my morning! A hot cup of brown coffee in a cute turquoise mug with yellow ocher spots. The chemical reaction between the yellow and blue cause the dark outline around the dots. Super fun!
"Coffee Beans"- Ah the things that make that golden cup all possible! Beautiful red brown coffee beans. This fun little set of 3 would make delightful earrings and a pendant or great additions to a coffee themed project.
I wrap some wire around the mandrels, heat glass onto the end and then decorate! Cool huh? This becomes...
This! Fear not! These babies flew out of the shop, but I will be making more! I just LOVE to design with them! I got some more wire today from the bead shop to make more headpins.
WOW! Kudos to this manufacturer for making BRIGHT colored cording! So what's one of the amazing things about this stuff?
THIS! Can you believe it?! This cord is so small it fits through the 1/16th bead hole DOUBLED! That is pretty darned small! To give you a better size chart the 1/16th bead hole fits a 2mm round bead to plug it up.
"Gazebo Cafe"- Here it is!! This is my very FIRST mixed-media piece of jewelry and the inspiration for all of the other designs! I used the original paper card to make soldered charms that you see on the left side of the necklace. On the back side of the soldered charm is matching scrapbook paper.
Here is a close-up of the "Cafe" tiles.
Close-up of the soldered charms.
Some of the collection all worn together in a set. Isn't it beautiful all together?! The jewelry is very comfortable and has a wonderful weight to it. Not heavy at all for the amount of beads on it! Especially the earrings! :D
"Gazebo Garden"- Upcycled from the original coffee card, I made soldered charms. Accents include my handmade glass drop dotted headpins, knotted colored leather with spacer beads, a strung glass bead design, dangly crystal rings and a coffee cup at the clasp! This is my FAVORITE bracelet out of the series! Bracelet measures 7 1/2"(17.78cm).
Here is the back view of the bracelet.
"C" is for Coffee- What a delicious cup! Fun asymmetrical design is composed of: recycled scrabble tile "C"'s made into soldered charms, an oval glass bead(that looks like a coffee bean), Swarovski crystals, Hilltribe silver stamped spacers, and a leather loop with a spacer swinging inside! These earrings dangle 3"(7.62cm). They are surprisingly light for as many beads as are on them and very comfortable to wear!
"Gazebo Botanical"- A super fun and funky lampwork bead bracelet with botanical designs based on the Gazebo card designs with brown swirls and dots on the back.
"Cup of Gazebo" reversible necklace. The original "Gazebo Blend" sticker was recycled and made into this incredible soldered pendant. On one side is a beautiful flower garden scene and on the other is a warm sun against a blue sky the words "Gazebo Blend" are inside the sun.
The back view of above necklace.
"Cup of Gazebo" earrings- 2 sweet little spotty mugs with delicious Gazebo coffee inside. Cascading down the chain are: sparkling Swarovski crystals, Czech glass flowers and a brown oval coffee bead.
"Cup of Joe"- dangle ring features a spotty aqua and coral mug, a dizzy caffeinated silver spiral and a brown coffee bean bead on a size 7 sterling silver dangle ring.
"Dark Roast"- sweet and simple red brown coffee beans dangle from sterling earwires.
"Medium Roast"- light chocolaty brown coffee beans simple dangle from sterling silver ball ear wires.
"Cafe au Lait"- a little scarlet mug with coral spots and a red brown coffee bean are suspended in a tiny upcycled black frame. Measurements are 4"(10.16cm)tall by 3/4"(7.62cm) wide by 4"(10.16cm)across. Zig-zag metal assembly on back for easy hanging.
"Light and Sweet"- Tiny coral and aqua speckled mug and red brown coffee bead are suspended in a tiny black upcycled frame. Measurements are 4"(10.16cm)tall by 3/4"(7.62cm) wide by 4"(10.16cm)across. Zig-zag metal assembly on back for easy hanging. The name "light and sweet" came from the way my friend Ashley described the coffee she had brought me one day. The terms mean with lots of milk and sugar :)
Ok here is the picture. Pretty isn't it? Some of my very favorite colors. Some bright and some earth tone. So what to do next? Choose the glass colors that most closely match the picture.
Here you can see the star shaped stacked flower. I started out with a red because I didn't have a closer match to the picture. That and the other color I chose was very close to another one of the stacking colors. Why does this matter? If there isn't enough contrast between colors the layers wouldn't be as defined. As you can see in 1 I started out with red for the bottom color. I tried layering the dots and raking the glass with stringers to get the shape. As you can see I wasn't super successful. It's so strange to me how the very first design I attempt looks like poo and the next one is not only better, but like 10x better. Weird...
The yellow ocher/ rust colored flower. I liked the flower labeled 1, but I wanted the flowers more pointy. As you can see in the "design pick" bead I got the petals much more pointy. Would you believe that's the same glass on both flowers? I got a really nice batch of Red Roof Tile that is kind of terra cotta and yellow ocher colored. I LOVE it.
Next onto the more "reddish flower". This one was a little harder to color match up. At first I wanted to use the True Red Coral odd lot I had, but it just wasn't quite the right shade for me. I ended up using a batch of Coral instead.
Spiny tulip. Now this bugger gave me fits. As you can see it took me 5 beads to get the design I wanted. Bead 1 I was still using the red color for the beads before deciding to change to a different color. Bead 2 another trial of the first. Bead 3 yet another trial some of the other colored glass snuck in with the rakes. Gah! Bead 4 you can see where I patched it on the right and the petals still weren't pointy enough for me by just raking the glass.
The glowing coffee bean. This little guy has the rays of light around it with the nice little "Ahhhh" that you hear when you see glowing things desired. 1 I didn't really like the rakes of glass. It was a little too much yellow and looked like a starfish with a coffee bean on top.
Steaming cups of coffee. Ugh.. as you can see this one took me quite a few times. 1 you can see the steam designs are kind of scraggly looking and messy. 2 you can see better squiggly designs, but because of the shape of the heart I couldn't squeeze in a tiny spiral just above the cup and it made the steam look like "whiskers" or something.
I guess I will just have to use the steam design on beads like this older design of mine.
1. Gravity works, that’s why it was invented. Use gravity to let your solder flow.
2. Think of your solder like water. When it’s hot it flows like a stream.
3. Solder will go where ever the heat is. Use the heat to make the solder go where you want it.
4. Take a deep breath in and exhale while doing a stroke of solder down a surface. Not only does it relax you, but it allows you to let the solder glide across the surface.
5. If you think you have enough solder add more, you want a nice thick coat of solder to push around for nice edges.
6. Be patient. If it’s not working out, take a break and come back.
7. If the solder isn’t flowing enough add more flux. The get along well.
8. CLEAN YOUR IRON. If you notice patina on the iron clean it on the sal ammoniac bar. It shines up the patina on the iron and seems to help the solder flow better.
9. Clean off ALL sticky tape residue. If you notice black spots on your solder it’s the tape residue. Scrape off with a razor and then apply more solder. Notice how it sticks this time?
10. To do the “beading” technique on the sides get a generous amount of solder and put the charm on it’s side. Use the thin tip of the soldering iron and hold the iron vertical. You want to heat the solder and almost let it “drip” down the side. This gives you that gorgeous bubbled edge :D
11. You can scoot solder to one edge by going from top to bottom almost like you are brushing hair. When you have “brushed” the solder to the one edge heat and glide along your new formed edge to smooth out the solder.
12. Like lampworking it’s ALL ABOUT HEAT CONTROL! Learn how the heat moves the solder and you’ve figured everything out!
13. Marvel at your accomplishment :D
14. Let your iron get HOT. The hotter it is the better the solder flows. An iron that is too cold is useless and will just make you want to throw your pieces at a wall.
15. If you have a dimply texture to your metal add some more flux and run the iron over it. It should smooth out.
If you have ANY questions about jewelry assembly technique, lampwork, soldering or anything else please feel free to message me. I know how terribly frustrating it is when you are trying to figure out what is going wrong with your technique and have no one to ask at the time you are creating!
Stay tuned for the finished pieces! You are going to LOVE them!
Much love,
Genea
