Bead Soup Party

Yeh! My packet has arrived!  Ingredients of the Bead Soup.

Anxiously I open the packet that has come all the way from Burlington in Canada.  My new friend, Alicia sent me these precious beads

I love the focal bead- a beautiful amethyst, oval in shape, yet maintains the natural shape of the stone.  It has beautiful stripes.  I am going to wrap it with sterling silver wire.  But before the final, I am going to practice the new wire wrapping tutorial I got,  with copper wire.

Oh, I am so excited.  Alicia was so thoughtful to send me all sort of purple, lavender, violet beads for me- some amethyst chips, amethyst crystals, fresh water pearls, some cute glass beads of the similar shade and some quartz beads too.

Thank you, thank you my friend.  I love what you sent me so thoughtfully.



And now that I know she  also have my soup packet I may reveal them to you and my thoughts too.

There is this focal bead that I got from my friend, Terri - Look at her stash in her store it is really beads2die4 with no pun intended.

To be honest, I thought twice before giving this hand crafted polymer  bead away, but I thought Alicia will be able to do a better job with this beautiful bead than me. So...

Actually there are two focal beads - (two focii?) The second is a  donut jade. I thought I should send it to Alicia after visiting her store. Look at the beautiful necklace she made with that turquoise bead!

Looking forward to seeing what Alicia does with these beads.

And thank you Lori,  for doing this huge project. You have opened an amazing door for us!

Now it is time to do some blog hopping.














 

Instead - another book

But instead,  I got carried away by another  book ( that has nothing to do with Etsy business)  that I am reading now.  It is by Nicole Krauss- The History of Love.  I love her style a lot.  I am at page 89 now, I am so itching to find another soul who has read it too, or is reading to share little things.. Any way that's all for today.

Power of Tiger Eye - A Pearl and Red gemstone Earring That Brings a Zen Mood

 The power of tiger eye :

I just finished this earring piece today and very surprisingly I was in a calm, tranquil zen mood, yet I kind of felt a sense of confidence ( that does not come all the time, really ).  But today, it did.  I felt some sort of courage and a feeling that with baby steps I'll finish what has to be done.  If it does not get done that is fine too...

So in  this kind of a chin- high mood  I am bringing my humble little creation. Here it is:

 
Now when I look closely and pick up the piece I feel the smooth tiger eye gemstone chips between my fingers,  and then I look into my Healing Gemstone book and to my surprise I see that yes, tiger eye does have the power to bring courage and self confidence.  It also brings luck.   How strange!

I hope it brings the same mood and feeling to the person who wears it, With this thought I put it away in a little pouch ready to go to my etsy store


Now, I am going to browse  the book that I recently got. It is  about How to sell your craft online - by Derrick Sutton.  Did you have a chance to check it?  I'll soon post a book review on it.  So stay tuned.

Amethyst and green quartz earring

This  amethyst and green earring is what I made this weekend.  The green quartz has such a beautiful hue. First I thought it was peridot.  But no,  it has a mint and olive mixed tint.  And it is called prasiolite.  Wow!   what a mouthful name.

PRASIOLITE, kind of pretty and classy, isn't it?   It is also called green quartz, the vendor  in the Gem Show explained.

I decided to get it any way because   it is highly faceted, and beautiful.  I did get some blue ones too.  They are very pretty too.  But let me tell you about this earring.

As I was playing with these two tear drops in my palm, I thought of the purple amethyst beads I had also.  Purple and green together  looks so good to me, and it reminded me of the wisteria tree I have.  The amethyst beads looked just like those violet wisteria flowers playing hide and seek with the green leaves.

Oh,  that is the most favorite thing in my whole garden and it blooms just around my birthday, in April

Any way, coming back to my earring this Sunday, here it is.  I was going to make it longer, but then I thought it is very romantic when it just brushes the jaw line some times.

There is a lot of loveliness in this cute earring piece.  The gemstones are so gentle and protective, as if they will hold the wearer's face with much love, and take care so that no harm can come to her.

Oh yes, that is what I  learned reading several healing stone books and from  respectable sites.

Green quartz transmits negative energy to positive, inspires creativity attracting wealth and  abundance.

Amethyst guards against psychic attacks , geopathic and electromagnetic stresses like envy, or ill wishes of others.

So, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing for Valentine Day?  What do you think?

Oh I should also show you the one with the blue quartz.

Which one do you like better, blue or green?

Jewelry Tools- Three Absolutely Necessary Ones..

What are the three absolutely necessary jewelry tools or supply that you cannot do with out?

Say, you are stuck in a remote island for one year.  And these are the only tools you may choose for your survival-(basic life and artistic life both).  What are you going to take?

I was poked with this interesting  thought by Rena from her blog (one of my most favorite one) . And I could not sleep until 3'o clock in the morning!

Then I came up with these three :

1. Wire.  I can use it for my basic survival- to tie many things if I need to and make jewelry, since I am stuck for one whole year.
2. Wire cutter, or rather just a nail clipper.  This can help me clip and file my nails in this remote island and also cut my wire.
3. Round nose pliers.  That will be handy to poke holes, It has a central spot that can do some grabbing, gripping kind of jobs and then if the Muse Goddess does show up, I'll have some thing to show Her Highness about my passion of jewelry making.

So these are my three things.  What would be yours?  Please leave a comment, I am curious !

Valentine Wire Bracelet for Him

A Valentine wire bracelet for HIM I can say.

This Viking knitted wire bracelet was my answer when a dear friend asked me if I make jewelry for men.

Why don’t you make men’s jewelry, then I could solve the problem of gift giving this month – she pouted.

I have never considered it, because all the men in my close circle and family do not wear necklaces or bracelets and I never thought they would appreciate jewelry as gifts from me.

But I gulped my short coming. Give me a few days – I pleaded.

For the next whole week I researched extensively and to my surprise came to know that there is considerable demand in this line.

Studying styles I learned that the mouse rolling computer engineer has very different style from the guitar playing musician or the sun worshipper surfer. But they do wear bracelets! Yep.

The websites that helped me were Pearl’s wonderful website and the  Fusion beads site.

And many others like www.instrucable.com/id/Jewelry-for-Men/

I pulled my own resources, style and capability and ended up with five pieces.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/91208133/valentine-wire-bracelet-for-men-under-40

http://www.etsy.com/listing/91312812/leather-bracelet-for-men-with-silver-and

Out of them one is sold.
Two others are in my etsy store

Which one do you like best? Do you think the price is right?

I need your comment and feed back please. Thank you.

How to Make a Wire Wrapped Earring for Valentine Day ( a Tutorial)

How to make a wire wrapped earring for Valentine

I made this wire wrapped earrings by weaving wire and using swarovski crystals and garnet beads.

I got so carried away that I made quite a few pairs with different colors and sizes. The thing I learned that you have to keep the inside circle beads smaller than the outer circle beads. You’ll know what I mean when I show you the tutorial.

Materials used:

15 pieces of 4 mm pink swarovski bicones (Fire Mountain Gem H – 20- 9757 CY)
5 pieces of 3 mm size garnet beads (Fire Mountain Gem H-20-6917 KX)
28 g silver plated wire (Fire Mountain Gem H-20-1451WR)
2 French sterling silver ear hooks (Fire Mountain Gem H-20-4902FN)
2 heart silver beads (from Just Bead It, my neighborhood beading store)

I have no monetary affiliation with any of these stores. I am giving the reference because these are what I have used.

Tool needed:

Round nose pliers, chain nose pliers, flush cutter.

Procedure:

Cut the wire to a length of 12” (30 cm)
Bring the two sides of the wires closer with both hands.

String two pink bicones at the left hand side wire.
String one garnet bead at the right hand side wire.

String another pink bicone at the left side wire.
Pass the right hand side wire through this pink bead.
Pull tight.

String two pink bicones at the left hand side wire.
String one garnet bead at the right hand side wire.
String another pink bicone at the left side wire.
Pass the right hand side wire through this pink bead.
Just like last time.
Pull tight.

In the same way string all the remaining garnet and pink bicone beads, each time pulling tight so that it forms a nice circular shape and the wire does not show.

Now let the right hand side wire go through the closest left side bicone bead. Pull tight.

With the fingers of your non dominant hand hold it tight, close the gap if there is any. Now gradually twist the two wires to a single twisted wire. Twist quite a few revolutions. I did about ten or twelve until you have it nice and tight and also enough length (like a couple of inches)

String the heart bead now.

Make a wrapped loop http://www.firemountaingems.com/beading_howtos/beading_projects.asp?docid=652t

Cut off excess wire.

Cut off excess wire.

Insert it into the French ear hook loop.

Make another one to complete the pair.

Voila! Your Valentine earring is done.