Copper Armoured Dragon Necklace

For the last few weeks I have been working on samples for Maria of Rypan Designs. I delivered the last of them to Maria this afternoon. I decided to make something using some of the lampwork beads that I purchased last month.

One of the sets was called dragon eggs. They looked like mottled green dragon skin to me. I combined them with copper beads, spacers and Swarovski crystals.

I looked forward to wearing this tomorrow and seeing what my co-workers think of it.

Flashback Friday - Owl Babies

As a children's services staff member at Toronto Public Library I do Ready for Reading storytime for toddlers and one of my all time favourite storytime books is Owl Babies by Martin Waddell.

At a TBS garage sale a few years ago someone was selling these cool little wooden owl beads. I knew just what I would make with them, so they came home with me. I combined them with other wooden beads that I had in my stash to create this bracelet with three babies owl (Sarah, Percy and Bill).

Owls, in general,  are a favourite of mine. Knowing this Maria gave me a number of different owl beads from her recent trip the bead shows down in Tuscon. I look forward to make some new wise and fun owl pieces soon.

Flashback Friday - Herringbone Pansy

This morning I was looking in the hanging storage boxes of my finished jewellry to find pieces to use for Flashbacks. I found a number of pieces that have not been blogged about. Here is the first piece.  

This is necklace featuring a beautiful pansy bead by glass artist Kirsty Naray. Instead of stringing it with other beads as I have with many other necklaces, I beaded two herringbone tubes which cover the beading wire. It is a simple but elegant way to wear an amazing lampwork bead.

Chain Linked Heart Necklace

With Valentine's Day just over a week away and a beautiful heart bead set from Crafted Gems I decided to make a necklace. I combined this beautiful heart bead set with red and crystal Swarovski crystals.

I made a center section of the lampwork beads crystals, which I linked to small sections of crystals. I finished it by adding a length of chain on each end.

Flashback Friday - Lariat

This week's flashback is the vesatile Retro Lariat from Rypan Designs. With no closure the lariat is a long band of beadweaving. You can make it as long as you want. It can be worn is so many different ways, including as belt (if long enough).

Retro Lariat

This is a simple netted design, colour placement creates the zippered look. The lampwork beads add interesting breaks in the basic beadweaving.

Fringe Detail

 Here is the coordinating bracelet and earrings.

Indo bracelet and earrings

Have a great weekend.

Briolette Earrings

On Saturday January 22 I was helping Maria with her classes at Bead Rock, a bead store in Ajax. Of course I could not resist looking about and I found these great blue goldstone briolettes. I also got two stands of fire polished rondelles.

I played around with a few ideas, but was inspired by instructions I saw on how to wire wrap a briolette. I decided to try a few with the plan to use them in a necklace. The necklace design is still a work in process. I decided to make a few sets of earrings.

With just briolettes

With Swarovski crystals accents

The success of these earrings had me digging in my gem and mineral drawer to see what other briolettes I had. I found a strand of moss agate briolettes. There was a mix of colours from a moss green to a pale gray.

Moss green stones with Swarovski crystal accents

Pale gray stones with purple Swarovski crystal accents

I am getting better at wire wrapping. I hope to find just the right chain style to make my original necklace idea work soon.

Flashback Friday - Gothic drapes

This is a variation of Rypan Designs  single drape Gothic necklace. My friend Anna came up with the idea to use Swarovski pearls instead of the original fire polished beads. I made up the necklace as I can almost make any of the gothic drapes in an evening.

I was reminded of this project as I was making up a new sample of a three drape gothic for Maria to use in her booth at upcoming shows. The new sample used Swarovski cubes and rounds. Here it is on the kit cover.

 

Here is an older display board with the various gothic necklaces.

I like the versatility of the gothic design. You can use larger crystals, different shapes and of course make it the perfect length.

Here is the Crystal Rhapsody that I did back at the fall 2008 Creativ Festival. It is made with all Swarovski crystals. It sparkles like crazy and is fun to wear.