Featured item 4-22-10

Today I would like to feature a newly listed item again. I just listed this lovely pair of copper and quartz crystal point earrings yesterday! I dug these quartz crystals out of the Rocky mountains in Montana myself and have done nothing to them except wrap them in copper wire. A very earthy adornment! $25

Featured studio piece 4-7-10

I haven't been able to keep up with my studio featured pieces lately... life and my day job tend to get in that way sometimes.

Today I would like to feature a necklace I made with blood quartz, cherry quartz and some copper wire. I made some little floral designs and attached them to a larger copper wire frame, then added some copper colored chain and some fresh water pearls for extra sheen. A lovely piece that is large enough to make a statement but with just the right amount of feminine touch! $40

Featured Studio Piece 4-1-10

Today I would like to feature a few of my wire wrapped crystal pendants. Not all are listed in my studio yet, but they will be soon. I go to visit my grandparents in MT every year or so. There are wonderful parks and forest up in the Rocky Mountains that we visit each time we are there for the fishing and camping... but also for the quartz crystal digging. So, I end up with LOTS of quartz crystal points to play with.

Lately I have begun wrapping and weaving wire around them and adding on little beads to brighten things up. These crystals range in price dependent on their size and wire wrapped complexity.

Featured Studio Piece 3-28-10

I would like to feature a lovely pair of earrings from my studio today. I don't make a lot of earrings for some reason and I am kind of hoping to change that in the near future. These earrings are called "cascade" because they have three lengths of yellow gold toned chain each displaying a copper wrappe briolette. They are in the warm colors of orange, red and pink. Theses colors are proveded by using blood quartz, pink chalcedony, and carnelian faceted briollette beads. They are hung from hand made copper wire earwires. A stunning adronement for any lady! $25

Featured Studio piece 3-23-10

Today I would like to feature a ring from my studio which has been featured elsewhere as well. This past November this piece was photographed and featured in the magazine Bead Trends. It a very simple and lovely design. A simple copper wire ring made by making a swirl pattern and then wrapped in smaller gauge copper wire. I used one of my favorite gemstones to adorn it: Jade. The green of the Jade perfectly compliments the bright shine of the copper. $20

Featured Studio piece 3-16-10

Today's featured piece is a LARGE necklace I made while selling at a craft show this past November. It is composed of three different sized copper wire wrapped paisley tear shapes with garnet and freshwater pearls. It is attached to atiqued copper chain and adroned with some garnet coin shaped beads. This piece is fairly large (the quarter is for size reference) and is a real statement necklace. $100

Featured Studio Piece 3-15-10

Today's featured studio piece is a personal favorite of mine I call Garnet Bubbles. Its a smaller, more dainty pendant made from copper wire with both green and red garnet beads. The circular shape of the frame and of the beads make it look like a bunch of bubbles trapped in copper. $25

Featured piece 3-13-10

I am on a mini-vacation this weekend so featured pieces might be getting into my blog a little later than usual.

Today's featured piece is made from copper and brass wire, wrapped around a swarovski rhinestone and adorned with different gemstone briolettes. I then used a brass colored chain to dangle it from, completing the piece.

Featured Studio piece 3-11-10

Today's featured studio piece is a very simple little flower. This stunning copper wire rose ring turns lots of heads. Its one of the few pieces I make using a jeweler's vice to create. It is multiple layers of small gauge copper wire, braided and twisted to form this delicate little rose. I also make them with a small focal bead at the top of the rose, though I have long since run out of that style and have yet to get around to making more. Perhaps that will be on my agenda for today! This lovely ring can be yours for just $10 plus shipping costs. I can also make them in brass, sterling, or color coated copper and in any custom size!

Metal magic #1

I'd like to blog today about how the metals a designer chooses to use can also effect how a piece of jewelry feels. Gemstones are not the only minerals out there with supposed "magical" properties. Metals do too!

I'd like to talk about my favorite metal to work with, COPPER! I spent a portion of my childhood in the Rocky mountains of MT in a city called Butte. Butte was a mining town... and what did they mine? COPPER! My mother always loved copper so I grew up seeing a lot of it. Its bright orangey color just sparkled to me. When we moved to northern MN, I missed seeing copper everywhere. The only place it was displayed was my mother's kitchen then.

Copper was regarded and linked to gods and goddesses of the sky and/or heavens in many ancient cultures. It was said to be a link to the divine.

Its also a known conductor of electricity. Many people believe that wearing a copper bracelet or other jewelry piece can ease arthritis and other aches and pains. When worn for its healing powers, copper piece are said to be worn on the left side of the body for those who are right handed or on the right side of the body for those who are left handed.

Copper is also supposed to attract love to its wearer.

I use a lot of copper in my jewelry designs. It is a soft, easy metal to work with especially in wire and sheet form. If I am going to be doing a piece in sterling but want to do a mock-up first, I will often do it in copper. There are several examples of my copper pieces pictured here.

Whatever your reasons may be, copper is definitely a metal worth wearing!

Featured Studio piece 3-10-10

Today I would like to feature a piece that I just listed to my studio last night. I created it back in November while spending an evening on the couch watching WWII in HD with my sweety (he's a history buff especially WWII). When I had finished the pieces, I showed it to him. He told me it was neat. It reminded him of a bright saxophone and jazz music in a smokey bar. And it does look like that to me, so I named the piece "Jazz night". It is made from a copper wire frame wrapped with red colored copper wire and decorated with brass and plastic round beads. I then put it on a brass colored chain. It costs $30.