Make Art Monday!
I’ve started a new handmade beaded necklace, inspired by one of my favorite women, The Lady of Shalott.  She was immortalized in a poem by Tennyson (the 1842 version), loosely based upon the Arthurian legend of Elaine of Astolat.  I’ll be sharing more images of it with you as it progresses.

Image: Cyndi Lavin

Make Art Monday!
There are so many different ways to make beaded flowers.  Some of the most intricate and beautiful that I’ve seen have been done on thin wire in the French style.  I decided to figure out a way to do mine with needle and thread instead.
You might remember awhile ago I shared a piece that I made, inspired by my mother’s flower garden.  I thought it might be nice to show you one of the simple ways that I made some of the flowers for this piece.
Gather up your seed beads, thread, beading needle, and some 8mm crystals or …read more

There is so much that can be learned from artists who work outside the realm of jewelry.  In the case of Wendy Talaro, she has graciously offered to share her expertise in glass fusing with us!  Have you ever wanted to try fusing, but weren’t sure quite how to begin?  Wendy has demystified the process for us.  Today, I want to introduce you to Wendy’s work, and tomorrow for Technique Tuesday, Wendy has written a tutorial on glass fusing that I know you’re going to want to see!

Glass artist: Wendy Talaro
Website: Fawkes Artglass
Wendy writes:
The 9 1/2″ x 9 1/2″ slumped …read more

Make Art Monday!
I’ve got another CopprClay project for you to try!  I’m going to break it down into two tutorials: first we’ll look at how to use CopprClay with a mold, and then the following week, we’ll go through step-by-step one possible way to use a pendant like this in a finished necklace.
If you haven’t had a chance to mess around with CopprClay yet, you can look through the general directions that I’ve posted about working with it.  If you don’t have any metal clay of any type, you could also do a similar project to this one using all …read more

Make Art Monday!
Several months ago, we devoted ourselves to polymer clay artists.  Well, I didn’t quite get enough!  I started thinking about all the wonderful jewelry that we saw, but I realized that I just don’t want to personally work with clay, at least not enough to get really good at it!
So, turning our attention back to polymer clay for a brief moment, I want to share a necklace with you that I made using one of my friend Amy E Fraser’s polymer clay medallions for the centerpiece.   This piece commemorates one of my favorite summer pass-times…fishing!
Tomorrow, I’ll show …read more

Make Art Monday!
I picked out and received some Swarovski Crystal Beads recently from ArtBeads.com. They generously provided the crystal components and beads so that I could create a project to share with you. It was hard to make a choice, but I fell instantly in love with a new-to-me color called Bermuda Blue. I think that the ring components have only become available in this color pretty recently. Bermuda Blue has a metallic coating on one side that gives each bead and component an extra flash.
Tomorrow I’ll be sharing the step by step with you.  In the meantime, gather up …read more

I’m really pleased with the way this necklace turned out.  Even more, I am pleased overall with the workability and user-friendliness of CopprClay in general.

Tomorrow and next week, I’m going to give you the step-by-steps for making a necklace similar to this one.  We’ll be starting with making the focal discs themselves, and then looking at how to assemble the whole necklace.  In the meantime, you can brush up on the basic details of working with CopprClay:
General instructions for working with CopprClay

Last week we were able to share a tutorial by Mary Lyon for a lovely lapis necklace.  Well, Mary has shared another design with us!  This time it is a beautiful two-strand rose quartz collar style necklace.  Gather up your materials and tomorrow for Technique Tuesday, we’ll have Mary’s instructions.

MAGNIFICENT TWO-STRAND ROSE QUARTZ
COLLAR WITH PENDANT DROP:
Materials:
Beading wire
12 large faceted rose quartz nugget beads, graduated in size from ¾” to 1¼ inch
1 extra-large faceted rose quartz nugget bead, preferably in a different shape than the 12 other beads
1 2-inch x ½-inch x 5/8ths-inch handcrafted silver dichroic glass 2-hole spacer bar bead
52 …read more

A seasoned journalist with a degree in studio art, Mary Lyon is chock full of many wonderful craft ideas ranging from recycling household items to making beautiful holiday keepsakes, with an emphasis on crafts that parents can do with their children.

But Mary’s other love is designing what she calls faux jewelry, which are simulations of semi-precious stones such as turquoise, coral, jade and ivory from polymer clay and wire jewelry where the wire itself is bent around various kinds of furnace glass beads and turned into magnificent design elements that are both whimsical and totally unique. She works with …read more

Firing the clay is a bit more work than silver. Copper and Bronze must both be kept from too much oxidation or you’ll just end up with a black burnt-looking surface. Therefore, these clays must be kiln fired. I used the recommended coconut shell-based granulated activated charcoal and a steel firing pan. (All tools can be found on Rio Grande’s website.)

I fired my first set of pieces all in one run, ramping up my kiln to 1700 F and holding for 3 hours. I didn’t use any special schedule for ramping up, and actually the temperature ended up going a …read more