First Fall Meeting- Bead Mosaics and Recent Work

This month's meeting was at Caroline's spacious studio- thanks so much Caroline! (The gingerbread was delicious....) We all played around with bead mosaics. Feel free to email Dana for a .pdf of instructions if you're interested.

These are some of the pieces we created with ready-made bezels/frames and freshly grouted (so a bit dark).

Caroline's piece as a work-in-progress. It takes patience and good eyesight to place each bead!

Mimi's piece in progress. Instruction sheets are available. Such fun with colors!

Some of the group working (the other part of the group was eating and hardly working....)

Art in progress...

Now for the fun part- recent work! Karen's acid-etched cuff is not quite done, but it looks pretty good to me!

Sharon's boulder opal pendant (with hand-made chain!) encorporates a partial bezel and decorative granulation.

This is Caroline's work in progress- trying to find a method of encapsulating ribbon accents under a silver leaf-bezel and maintaining it's texture/tooth.

Amy's impressive collection of chain mail creations- some complete, others works-in-progress.

This is Sharon's silver cuff completed over the summer- so modern!

Ellen's pendant with gems is pretty far-out.

These were some of the charms completed over the summer for Patti- one of our own who's fighting brain cancer.

Some of us got together over the summer for a resin workshop (poured into silly putty as a form).

See everyone next month!! Thanks so much for all that you share!

Crop Circle Bracelet

My latest inspirations: Crop Circles. This is titled BarleyUK0605 and is made using fine silver with 23K gold keum-boo. The design continues all the way around and I used a fairly rough mop to get the texture of barley on the surface.

Constellation Cuff Bracelet

And here is my first cuff bracelet of constellations; a gift for my good friend who has three boys. One zodiac sign for each son. Again, I added a 14K ball to represent the brightest stars in each of the signs.

Constellation Cuff Bracelet

Constellation Series

I thought one day.....what would be better than to wear star constellations? So I created zodiac earrings with 14K gold balls representing the brightest stars in the constellation. In this case: Aries for myself, and Capricorn for my dear daughter.

June "Swap Meet" Our faithful few: Lucia, Sharon (hostess w/the mostest), Bodil (and Dana taking shot)

We had a great time chatting and swapping!



Bodil's new necklace- acid-etched shell design, faceted gem, soldered frame/bail combo- very inventive!

Bodil balled up silver and patiently drilled through them to make beads. She then made 2 special gold beads the same way, and fabricated a gold clasp. We thought they were pearls at first- but once you feel it you know they're metal! Very cool...

Dana's final spiral stitch (thanks for teaching us this, Mimi!) with hand-made end caps and toggle with grouted seed-bead mosaic.

Hopefully we'll see each other again before the Fall. Have a great summer!

Fun meeting at Mimi's! She demo'd a spiral bead stitch- it was hard! We all gave it a try. Pictured: (l to r) Sharon, Karen, Bodil, Ellen, Mimi, Barb, and Jodi. (Dana taking shot)
Great meeting- talking, eating, looking at recent work, trying a new skill.

Ellen's little bowl- perfect size for rings at the end of the day.

Made of thick sterling with pierced and cut out designs, and tube-set gems.

Bodil used Deco oil-paint based paint pens (extra fine) as a resist and used nitric acid to acid-etch hearts and her daughter's name is this terrific pendant.

Bodil framed some Roman coins in gold for these cool earrings.

Sharon set this red jasper and handmade the chain and clasp.

Jodi's gorgeous enameled pendant.

Barb knows her way around the clays! Polymer clay framed by silver art clay.

Another gorgeous piece by Barb- polymer clay insert into silver clay.

Barb's large chain in nu-gold and bronze.

Karen's loop in loop balled chains in silver. One regular, one irregular.

Dana saw a penny chain in one of the magazines this month and had to try it. Pierced an sawed-out, every other link riveted. Even the clasp is made from a penny. (use them before 1982 for solid copper)




Great meeting- see everyone again!

Early Spring Meeting

This get-together at Dana's house included some AWESOME show and tell and also a Viking Knit Demo! You won't believe what everyone's been working on:


This large starfish pendant was created by Patti, who JUST started taking an enameling class. Pretty amazing for a first project!

This is Mimi and her AMAZING metal paper-doll series- a work-in-progress created for an upcoming show. Mimi has a studio at Vis-Arts in Rockville, Maryland.

All of the drawings for this series were created by Mimi and then acid-etched using PNP paper onto brass, copper and silver. All will stand and have many outfits to choose from!

These are still being worked on, but you can see the amazing level of thought and design that went into each creation.

Each outfit is designed within an inch of it's life

Can't wait to see the finished project during the show!

Just too cute- a raincoat.

No body bothers me! (No body bothers me either!) (Omigosh I'm dating myself....an old commercial for martial arts....)

Finally, these spiral-stitch creations by Mimi are a hint at the next meeting- she's invited everyone over to learn how to do this- with #12 needles, Nymo thread and #11 seed beads. She has supplies so we can try it out! Looking forward to seeing everyone!

January Get-Together- Recent Work

Today's get-together was the first of 2010. We hadn't seen each other for a while- everyone had some really interesting work! This is Bodil's experiment with Colores Resin (from Rio Grande) in Red. It looks like glass, doesn't it? It's very lightweight and framed with a fine silver bezel. She pushed an old Roman coin into Silly Putty, then poured the Resin into this mold for at least 24 hours and viola! An old Roman glass artifact! Great for earrings, too, because it's so lightweight.

Colores comes in MANY different colors. Another thing to experiment with and spend money on! (Great for kids, too??)

This is Patti's ring using a bead set in a cuttle-bone cast shank. Pretty cool!

These are Karen's cuttlebone castings. She carved the bone with dental tools after sawing the bone in half. Then she wired the 2 halves together and poured in the molten silver.

This is Bodil's fold ring. It was created by sawing a pattern in 16 ga. sheet. She then etched the sheet (top of ring around stone) and folded it to produce the shank. The only soldering was the gold bezel to the top.

This is Karen's fold ring- a work in progress. She, too, is cutting away from sheet and will also set the stone using the tabbed prongs.

Karen's been going chain-crazy! Various chain types made by fusing the ends of wire loops together, then using a mandrel to form, hammering, and folding.

Detail of one of Karen's 18 ga. chains. She uses a tumbler to polish.

Dana's viking knit chain. Using 26 ga. sterling wire with a rustic pendant to match.

These could all lead to workshops so we can learn from each other all these techniques and benefit from each other's experience. Fun! See you next month...