 Protective Wisdom (custom work) |
Protective Wisdom Necklace This is the first necklace I made (or one of the first), for my mom, back when I started. Tip: split rings are horrible! Use jump rings! This is strung on tigertail, with those old plastic silver beads, and the gold lobsterclaw clasp that came with the tigertail kit.
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 Tiger Forest Necklace - Luna |
Tiger Forest Neckalce (Luna) 1004 Strung beads on tigertail --gemstone, silver plated, wood, nut; contains base metals. 19 1/2" Finally, I got to put something together. Michaels was out of 10mm tiger eye, so I had to use 8mm, plus what I had left from the last incompleted project. Oh, they had plenty of small jasper nuggets though.
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 Tiger Forest Bracelet 1002  Tiger Forest Bracelet 1004 |
Tiger Forest Bracelets (memory wire medium - 2 1/2 turns) I thought memory wire might be simpler to work with than trying to tie off tigertail bracelets. So far, it has been easy to work with (except making the end loops... and getting stabbed in the thumb when the spring steel sprank :X ) The top bracelet has 10mm tiger eye rounds, the bottom has 8mm. Both use small jasper nuggets. Also, the bottom has a citrine endpiece.
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 Tiger Forest (Fiero) Earrings (large) |
Tiger Forest (Fiero) Earrings Very few people in my family wear earrings (I certainly don't!) but they are reputedly easy to make and good for leftover beads. These are done on copper wire to go with the Copper Tiger Forest wire-work necklace below. |
 Tiger Forest (Flame) Necklace (0310)  (detail) |
Tiger Forest (Flame) Neckalce This is my first-ever full wire-work piece! It's not too bad. The dangly bit was crooked because the wire pins in the jasper aren't the same length, exactly. I fixed that, more or less. The clasp is huge and ugly; I need to re-do it. Wire-wrapping jasper nuggets is a WHOLE lot easier with 18 gauge copper wire than it is with 22 gauge steel. I like how the copper accents the synergy between the tiger eye and jasper, but I'm not real happy with how limited a space I have to work with. There's no tiger eye at all along the sides of the necklace. Also with my wood beads (see below), I got a bunch of really cool nut beads. Those above the wrapped jasper are nuts, not tiger eye. I enjoyed working with copper, possibly more than silver. You can see I made a spiral & triangle wire piece that came out looking nice. And the spiral 'head' for the last dangling pin. I tried making sun-symbol spirals, but only ended up with a sorta starfishy design :/ Lastly, the wires are so bright (both copper and silver plated)... I might want to tarnish them.
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 Tiger Forest Necklace (0210 wood & silver) |
Tiger Forest Necklace (0210) Luna-Sylvan This used to be another Tiger Forest style necklace with the plastic beads, but I switched those out for real silver-plated beads, and oddly enough, wood beads. The thing about metal beads (and gems) is that they are heavy! The plastic was much lighter, plus I used it for filler around the back, where you can't see the beads anyhow. So the wood goes with the forest theme and colours, and is much lighter than metal. And.... not as cheap as plastic. I'm not really happy with this design. I think it looks awkward.
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 Baby Blue Necklace & Bracelet (Custom Work) |
This is a necklace I
designed for my aunt, and a matching bracelet. The bracelet is
actually too long; I'm going to have to cut it down. I dangled
the citrine chips from jump rings to make a dangle/extender for the
bracelet. Boy, that was a pain. :X
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 Blue Moon Bracelet (Custom Work) |
I TRIED to use up
all my moonstones and tiny rose quartz. And the blue-dyed jade puff
coins. But nooo, the person it's for has TINY wrists and wanted a short
bracelet. This is 6" on the elasticky thingies. Which I
have to confess, I do not know how to tie off. Anyway, I came up with the idea to use three strands on the sides. Figuring out how to make that work was a new challenge. Also figuring out how long to cut the strings. 8" strings for a 6" bracelet do NOT work. These were 12" long to start. Oh, and I didn't put citrine in, either. Tsk!
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 Seafoam Necklace (Personal Work) |
This is
one I made for myself, using some sea glass from a necklace I bought in
Boston years ago. The silver sea-life beads are plastic, from a
$2.50 kit I got a WalMart. Hey, they look nice though.
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 Sea Rose Bracelet (Custom Work) |
This was a
challenge to create something for someone who is allergic to
nickel. (and no, NOT getting pure gold!) My $2.50 WalMart
bead kit comes to the rescue again with
durable stretchy string, and plastic silver spacer beads. Then I
tried to devise a way to secure it, without metal fasteners. The
citrine chip cinches a loop that fits over the Amazoneite bead.
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 Mother's EarthSea Necklace (Custom Work) |
This is
the second necklace I made for my mom. I suggested she pick out a
pendant she liked... she just said she didn't want to limit my creative
vision, but would like something medium-sized and smooth to the
touch. I knew this one was for her, because it has the symbol of
the Holy Spirit on it. (That's a dove flying downward, in case
you didn't know.)
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 Earth's Fire Necklace (Custom Work) |
This is a
necklace my mom commissioned for one of my cousins. She's a
natural redhead, so I think the colours will compliment her
nicely. This is some of my first wirework, making the pendant and
the bead drop hangers.
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 Blue Tranquility Necklace (Custom Work) |
This is another
commission from my mom for another one of my cousins. I had a
vision of dark blue and gold for some reason. But this is how it
turned out, instead. And, yeah, I used up some leftover beads on
it. The pendant is really cool, its sorta like a geode, but it
isn't hollow with crystals in it, it just has a crystal inclusion in
the stone.
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 Artist's Success Bracelet (Personal Work) |
I put this together for
myself. It's not that visually appealing, I think.
Sometimes it's tough to get the gemstone "effects" you want in a
matching colour scheme.
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 Tiger Forest Bracelet (Custom Work) |
This is a piece I made
to compliment a friend's necklace I made last year. When I bought
those jasper nuggets on their string, they really appealed to me to
just wrap around my wrist as a bracelet. But I had to fancy it up
a bit, you know, and the Tigers Eye colours, pattern, and shape work
well with them.
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