I had to make a necklace and earring set for myself for Christmas this year. I realized that I do not have any holiday jewelry and that just seemed to be a very strange oversight on my part. So, here are my Christmas ball earrings and tree pendant. I am really happy with how they turned out. I did a happy dance!
I used sterling silver 18 gauge wire for the tree and ball shapes, 26 gauge for the garlands, and 21 gauge for the ear wires. I have some really pretty glass red florets, glass green diamond shapes, and silver delicas that I used to make the garlands.
The pendant was a lot of fun to make. I just used a pair of flat-nose pliers to make the shape, bending it until I liked the general style.
I just love the Christmas ball earrings. I did hammer the 18-gauge wire after I made the ball shapes.
I am so happy with how these turned out and will be wearing them to work tomorrow (probably every other day until Christmas too).
So some of our Crafty Sisters have been a little distracted lately and it took an extra week to get our projects posted this week. (I cannot complain as it has been me a couple of times who has been distracted.)
Our found item that must be used in our challenge was resistors. Out of the Crafty Sister storage came a canister full of old resistors. We divided them up and got to work.
Resistors just seem to lend themselves towards jewelry and I was inclined to follow. My foremost concern was an interesting pendant.
My entire necklace is made of resistors, even the hook and eye clasp. The wired ends make wire-wrapping a breeze.
This is a very simple necklace to make and only took me about 2 hours. Most of that time was spent messing with the style and shape of the pendant.
I am pleased with how this turned out and will probably wear it from time to time.
After an additional week due to some time constraints, our Copper Crafty Challenge is complete. We had our final reveal among the Crafty Sisters this afternoon, and boy, we really seem to be at the top of our game for this challenge. I cannot wait for you to see all the projects. We are going to post one project a day, so keep coming back!
I waffled quite a bit on this challenge. I make a lot of jewelry and I wasn’t sure if that was where I wanted to go with this particular project. After a week and a half of indecision, I decided, why mess with a good thing, jewelry it would be.
Using a compass I played Spirograph on a copper disc and cut out the star burst pendant. Amazingly, the copper is thin and soft enough that you can cut the discs with heavy duty scissors. I hammered the star on both sides to give it some depth. I then curled the points of the star (I couldn’t see any other way to really blunt the points. Those suckers were sharp!) to keep from puncturing anyone wearing it or snagging your clothes. I attached the light green crystal bead in the middle with wire and did some wire-wrapped crystals (also light green in color) for the dangles at the bottom of the pendant.
The chain is made up of hammered copper ovals and more wire-wrapped crystals. I did make all the jump rings and the clasp out of wire as well. The wire is standard 18 gauge copper wire from the hardware store.
All the hammering was done on an anvil that my dad made me for Christmas several years ago and with a series of hammers that he made for me 2 years ago. I started all the holes with a punching awl then enlarged then with a Dremel tool and a diamond tipped drill bit. I filled all the edges with a mini file to be sure that you wouldn’t slice yourself open on the sharp edges caused by the scissors.
The star-burst was actually the second pendant I made for this necklace. I wasn’t all that happy with the first one I had made. I showed it around and the other Crafty Sisters and my M-I-L (who joined us from my house this week) thought it was great, which just goes to show how hyper-critical I can be about my own work.
This pendant is made of a copper plumbing pipe fitting.
I did make a pair of earrings to go along with the necklace (my usual M.O.) and I think they turned out rather well.
I really like how the hammered ovals came out looking like leaves. The hammering causes the copper to curl a little and I liked the affect so much that I left it and used the same affect in the star-burst pendant.
That is my completed project! It was a fairly easy process all in all and one that I found rather fun (until my arm got tired of all the hammering). I cannot wait for the next challenge. In the meantime, I have promised this necklace to my M-I-L and and am going to take the earrings apart to make a matching bracelet instead as she does not have pierced ears. So, back to my craft table to work on some more copper!
Over the holidays, I visited Half Price Books with a specific project in mind. I wanted to make rolled paper beads. To do this, I needed a coffee table art book. (Yes, I, the bibliophile, was planning to desecrate a book.) My favorite artists are Picasso, Modigliani and Matisse and I was able to find a lovely Matisse art book. Flipping through it, I was able to find a couple of images that I liked. I ended up choosing Plum Blossoms, Green Background, 1948. It is a lovely painting and has these reds and greens that would show up really well in my beads.
I did manage to cut out the page that I had decided to use (it hurt only for a minute). I cut the strips and flags that I wanted and started rolling around a yarn needle and pin. I used Aleene’s Tacky Glue (that wonderful, all-purpose craft glue) to glue the ends of the strips down.
For the pendant, I folded the 1/2″ strips in half so that the color could be seen from the front. I also covered the back of it with Tacky Glue to give it better stability.
These are 1/2″ strips of paper rolled straight.
I really liked the rondelles, but did not want them to go all the way around the necklace, so I made straight cylinders to finish out the necklace. I wire-wrapped all the beads, made a clasp and I was good to go. For the wire, I used copper coated black wire.
This is just a study and is not meant to be worn regularly. I do like the pendant so much that I will probably make another one and coat it to make it more durable to regular wear. This process is so much like quilling, that I could probably use some of those techiques to improve my beads if I continue making them.
This is a huge step from the rolled paper beads we used to make as kids. You know the ones.
the crafty sisters 