Pretty earrings for your Valentine!

I'm trying to get myself ready for the Tucon Gem Show - but I have so much to do before I leave the organization piece just isn't happening!  Ah well - what gets done, gets done and I won't worry too much about the rest.  I finally made some time to make some new designs and even more importantly - I took pictures!  Here are some new earrings I just finished!  I have quite a few more but may not have time to give them their photo shoot before I leave.  Enjoy!

Midnight Blue earrings - AAA, dyed freshwater pearls, black rhodium plated sterling silver with inlay cubic zirconias

I really wanted to use some of my rhodocrosite hearts in a design - they are perfect for Valentines Day! 

Rhodo Hearts earrings - Rhodocrosite hearts on sterling silver heart chain

New Year, new things!

Wow - it has been a while since I blogged about anything!  My jewelry business got very busy over the holidays and I just ran out of time.  Then after the holidays my hubby gave me a virus and while I was down some bacteria gave me pneumonia.  So I started the new year off visiting the doctor but now things are sort of returning to normal.  I'm quite a bit busier in the non-jewelry work world.  My alter ego is a CAD engineering consultant and I have two part time jobs keeping me busy in that area too.  I'm not complaining because I like the work I do with both sides of my brain!  But I do want to share some of the new designs I made over the holidays ....

As I showed you earlier - I had some fun fusing wire.  This time I fused wire to create a 3 link chain with large loops.  On the chain I wirewrapped some cute and fun pink lampwork beads with white and pink dots.   

And at the request of a customer I started making Iphone charms!  You plug these into your audio port on you Iphone to add a bit of fun and whimsey to your phone.  Here's a dashing, red and black iphone charm made with cherry "quartz" and black onyx.

And here's a fun iphone charm for the coffee lovers out there!



A happy customer!

I love hearing back from my customers.  I customized a dog talk for a lady north of me (one day for USPS to deliver!) and she sent me pictures of the tag out of the box and the tag on her dog buddy.

Here's the tag:

Well she had a picture of her dog Buddy wearing it, but it seems to have disappeared from the web.  He was a cutie!

Fusing fun for the season!

Some fun snowman earrings I made!  These were a happy accident.  I was fusing for my earring drops and kind of overfired one of the rings so it shrank a bit.  When I looked at it I thought - SNOWMAN!  And here they are!

Available for sale in my Etsy store

Fusing fun!

I'm going to do a wire fusing demo at the Urban Emporium at 98 Bottles in San Diego. To prepare for it I practiced fusing tonight. I made some figure 8's and circles with my bail making pliers, made sure all the cut edges touched, hit them with the torch and, VOILA, fused finedings! Here is a picture of the various parts of the process - from bare wire to finished earrings.

 

As you can see in the "after fusing" parts - one got a little too hot and the middle ring melted open.  I still like the look so I'll have to melt another one to match! 

Here's a closeup of the earrings:

The earwires were also handmade - heat up the wire until it balls at the end, form the shape, heat them in the oven to harden and run through the tumbler to get them nice and shiny.