Featured Studio piece 3-29-10

Today I would like to feature a cute little bracelet that I strung on silk thread. I love pearls, faux, swarovski or freshwater. I found these lovely dyed blue freshwater coin pearls on a bead hunt one day and just HAD to have them. I paired them with some small white freshwater potatoe pearls and some sterling silver spacers to make this lovely wrista adornment! $25

Featured Studio piece 3-24-10

Today I would like to feature one of my resin based pieces. This lovely bracelet is a steampunk inspired piece using multiple cast resin pieces. I use Easy Cast resin and various molds and am willing to encase pretty much anything that will stand still. In this case, I used gears, cogs and other miscellaneous watch parts. I then drilled holes into the them and used my wire skills to link them together. This fun bracelet is a chunky, steamy bauble that any gear head is sure to enjoy! $25

Featured piece 3-14-10

Today's featured piece is something that is quickly becoming a new jewelry trend: chainmaille. I started playing with the idea of chainmailling many years ago. I am a Renaissance festival nerd and attend several a year all dressed in garb. I looked at how thw chainmaille armor was constructed and wondered if I could do that as well. This bracelet is the fruits of that labor. I made a brass wire chainmailled diamond shape and decided to simply add a length of chain to either side creating this stunning bracelet. $30

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!

New pictures of....

... some pieces that have been in my stock for a while. I am still working on getting some pieces ready for the art auction but haven't finished anything today to photograph. So, I thought I'd take some pictures of some pieces that I have not listed yet due to not having decent photos. I now have some decent photos and am going to share them... and hopefully list them soon too!