Calorie-free donuts!

This is what I made in the class today (plus one I made after I got home), using some of those Swarovskis and Delicas I was talking about yesterday:

I love these - except maybe the one on the bottom left which I admit looks kind of odd, especially in this picture. Here are the colors I used:
top: bicones are palace green opal, Delicas are color-lined leaf green
bottom left: bicones are rose, Delicas are hot pink (I think color-lined also)
bottom right: bicones are Indian red, Delicas are yellow silk

(If anybody is a Delicas junkie and really wants to know, I can get the color numbers for you - just ask me in comments. I'm not holding my breath for that to happen, though!)

I suspect that I will end up dismantling and recycling the orange-and-yellow one, because even though I rather like it, I don't quite know what to do with it and Swarovskis are too ridiculously expensive to just leave sitting  around in an I-like-it-but-it-doesn't-quite work kind of project. And I have some ideas for other things to try!

These are maybe a little over an inch wide, by the way, although I didn't think to measure. The bicones are 4mm. And the idea is Kay's. She had done some with bright colors and gold Delicas that were adorable - that's another thing I'm going to have to try.

Funky Charm Bracelet, sans charms

I wrote an entry where I talked about two of the three classes I took from Kay Hand - then I ran out of time and never talked about the third. So here's that, for the first day of NaBloPoMo!

The name of the third was Funky Charm Bracelet, and it's, well, just what it sounds like, a funky charm bracelet - it's a sort of multi-part wirework base, with (naturally) charms of various kinds. The supply list called for bringing a focal or two to put between the wirework pieces, and the night before the class when I was looking through all my stuff, I found a copper watch face I had almost forgotten about, so I decided to make one of the focals a watch face. Or in other words, I'd be turning my charm bracelet into a watch/charm bracelet. Kay thought this was a great idea, as I had sort of assumed she would - she's very open about things like that. For the other focal I bought a big green stone flower bead. (Actually it was out of the same bag as the one that ended up in my "Leftovers" necklace.) And I brought a variety of charms and beads with a green theme, because I just like green and because I thought it would look good with the copper.

And here's what I came home with:

We had time to make the three wirework pieces, plus the clasp, and get it all assembled, and get started on the charms. (As I recall, other people got a bit more done than I did - I always do work rather slowly.) The wirework parts are made of 16-gauge wire, as I recall. And it's really very freeform - I had the watch on the other day, and somebody asked me how it was made, and I sort of went blank. I really couldn't think what to say. You just kind of bent the wire back and forth around your pliers, and you sort of had a basic idea about the dimensions you wanted - sort of 1" wide and maybe a little longer than that - and you just made a squiggle til you got there! (I hope the person I was talking to didn't think I was hopelessly rude. I just have moments like that, I'm afraid.)

Well, so I came home really happy with what I'd done so far, and intending to add more beads according to plan - and then somewhere in the next day or so I changed my mind. I think part of it was because I was thinking I'd get more wear out of the watch if it didn't have colored beads on it. And besides, I thought the wirework looked really pretty - so the end result was that instead of adding more beads, I disassembled it and took all the beads OFF. Even the stone one, which I also liked a lot.

So here's the state of things after I took it apart:

 

I knew the two segments attached to the watch-face were fine as they were - and in fact, they needed to stay put because I had specifically made them so they'd match up with the connectors on the watch. (Oh, and it looks at a glance like the stone flower is still attached, above, but it's not. It's just sitting there loose.)

Here it's partly back together again - I'm trying to remember why, exactly, but I decided to put the clasp on the side instead of the bottom. Maybe it was just because I liked the way it looked!

And here's the final product, more or less - although I know I tinkered with it in small ways for days after this. Notice that I had to make another wirework segment, since I didn't have any focals. I made all the jump-rings myself - and I used them in pairs, both for strength and because they looked good that way. And I also fashioned sort of an extender on the end, to make it adjustable, a bit. So except for the watch face, I made every bit of this myself, out of wire. I was very proud of myself!

Oh, and I did start on another bracelet, to be a proper charm bracelet this time - but so far I haven't finished it. I decided to use silver instead of copper for this one.

It did get a little further along than this, actually. And one of these days I'll pick it up and finish it!

Unintended results

A week or so ago - maybe more, now - I was talking about the classes I've taken this year. I've taken quite a lot of them; it's partly intended to be an occational distraction from my real schooling that I have going on. Let's see, if I'm counting right I've taken 8 jewelry classes so far this year, with a 9th coming up next week. In the late spring and summer I took several from Kay Hand - her classes are a lot of fun and I'd like to take more of them if I can ever get my schedule synched up with hers again. The weird thing is that I never come out with finished pieces that are anything like what she taught in the class, really - but I've used a lot of her ideas in things I've made since then.

The first class I took was the Gypsy Diva Necklace - which is essentially the necklace on Kay's home page, if you follow that link above. That was an all-day class and it sort of had several "modules" - one was making painted beads out of Tyvek, which was a lot of fun and I have a whole bunch of them lying around, and I've sure they'll get used in something - or several somethings - sooner or later. The second module was making stamped tags out of sheet metal - those are still lying around too - and then you learned to put the whole thing together and make charms and a wirework clasp and so on. And I was adding charms and such like everybody else, but somewhere along the line I went astray! Basically, what happened was that the Gypsy Diva necklace eventually got turned into the Day of the Dead necklace, for me - at least, I think that was the class where she said something to the effect of, "Just cut into the chain anyplace you want and add a bead, and then do the same thing again and again until you get something you like." And that was essentially what I did with the Day of the Dead necklace. And I suspect that there will be more things forthcoming using that basic technique. The Gypsy Diva necklace got utterly sidetracked for me after I added the skull bead early on. I didn't want charms, I wanted more skulls!

This is pretty much the only existing picture of what was supposed to be my Gypsy Diva necklace:

 

I think that greenish long bead is still floating around my workspace, still attached to that same chain. I really should find it and start over. But the skull was long ago removed and is on the other necklace now. I think part of the problem, actually, was that I felt from the beginning like that wanted to be two different necklaces, but I was too stubborn to admit it at the time!

The second class was called something like Hammered Metal Pendants, and this is what I came home with:

and a second pendant:

They were intended to have lots of charms and things - typically for Kay's classes! - and while I am not at all against charms, I agonized over the first one for a long time and finally decided it was essentially finished. I like it like it is. (And I haven't gotten inspired about what to do with the other one yet. I figure it'll come, eventually.) But anyway, I almost took up metalwork on the spot, it was so much fun playing with these pieces.

And the third class was the Funky Charm Bracelet, which I think is going to have to be a separate post!