Week 8: Atmosphere

Well, the intention and idea were good. I'm not so sure about the execution.

The donut is one I picked up last year in Kansas City at the Bead Blast in May. It's blue goldstone, and is a really deep, rich navy color with flecks of silver embedded. I wanted to wrap the donut a little differently, and it really looked raw in the center.

Based on that, I coiled some half-round wire into a spiral and fitted it into the center. It did make it look more finished, but wouldn't stay put. The half-round wraps from the center to the outside were supposed to look like a star, and they do...but I'm not happy with the way they look.

And the bail is just awful, IMO. It looks sloppy and just wrong, but I had a hard time getting it to finish right. I may redo this one at a later date, or I may just pull it apart and do something completely different with the stone.

Final pendant was oxidized with hard-boiled eggs...if nothing else, the resulting blue tones from the egg did work nicely with the navy blue of the stone.

And finally, I'm caught up and back on track!!!

Week 7: Stormy Weather

Getting caught up after being behind. I've been creating, just not on YOJ theme, so I wanted to get something that was somewhat close. :)

This ring is much better than last weeks - it's the right size at least! Angie had given me this moonstone when we did a swap last year, and I was going to put it in a bracelet, but I like this application better.

The base of the ring is 18g hh round, wrapped with 18g hr. I curled the ends down to use as a frame for the stone, and can see that one of the curls didn't quite make it all the way down. Not sure how I missed it when I was making it (it's so darned obvious now!) but it may have loosened up in the tumbler.

The stone is set on a 24g wire and then wrapped down to the next half-round wraps on both sides. It does flip around if I want to switch which side is up. No visible difference from the front to back of the stone, however.

No LOS in the house, so I used hard boiled eggs. They were really fresh, and I left the ring in the bag with them for quite a while and got a really nice, deep blue finish. Finished up the ring with a polishing cloth and then tossed in the tumbler for about 30 minutes.

Week 6: Wild Winter Winds

I forgot to put this entry up - it was late due to a holiday trip to Florida, but I didn't post it here!

Sterling silver with Swarovski crystals encased in a swirling open bead wrap that made me think of winds blowing like crazy. While I love the look of this ring, and the feel (it's super smooth to wear and despite the overlap on the back, it doesn't catch on anything!), it taught me something about wrapping a ring like this - keep a handle on the size! It went from being a 7.5 that would have fit me perfectly to an almost 12...too big for my pointer or my thumb!!!

Someone suggested I make it into a pendant, and I did think of that. It's a pretty piece, so perhaps that is in it's destiny.