A QUIET WEEK...

A very quiet working week from me this week ~ I got some cabochons cut and fired, a pendant finished and wired up, but not a great deal more in the way of glass work.
It was just one of "those" weeks as far as work was concerned!  The absolutely hideous weather didn't help much either I might add.

As you may know I've been playing with beads of a night after dinner and trying to teach myself a few new things.
This bracelet got finished last night while I was sort of watching the footy.
I struggled big time with the weave that makes up the base of this and then, with a lot of help from some Facebook friends and a lot of ripping out and swearing ~ all of a sudden it just clicked.  I was one happy little vegemite!!!
175 Swarovski crystals later and some very tiny seed beads it was done. 

 

Seems like I was on a bit of a purple streak ~ these are a group of cabs for an order.  A very unusual colour combination in the glass but I love it!!

 

And lastly a wreath pendant (also an order) wired up with 14kt rose gold filled wire. It's such a pretty colour, I think much nicer than yellow gold.

 I did have some absolutely fantastic news though ~ I entered a blog competition by Karen from Skunk Hill Studio.  The first prize was this brilliant book she has written on freeform beading and a kit to make one of her awesome bracelets.  YAY!!! Doing the happy dance ~ yes I won it and my kit is on it's way across the big pond as we speak.  More fun to be had!!!!   :^)  :^)

OK ~ back to making dinner for me ~ have a fantabulous week everyone!!!! CYA.......

THE WEEK THAT WAS...

 A few new engraved pendants from me this last week, quite a few cabs that were posted to my silvermoonlyn page on Facebook and more of my learning beading bits.
I'm currently working on photos so I can get some more pieces added to my Artfire store too.

 Some of my latest cabs ~ you don't need to be a Facebook member to see these.  Just click the picture and it will whisk you away to where the pictures live  :^)

 And experimenting with pretty tiny dichroic glass seed beads.  The tubular beading is 30mm long but only 6mm across and the beaded bead is 8mm hole to hole and 13mm wide.
These could be destined to become supporting parts of a piece I'm thinking about entering in a competition later this year ~ maybe......

 

Hope everyone is having a great week and not too cold or too hot ~ I don't know what happened to Queensland's  "Beautiful one day, Perfect the next" weather ~ I'm freezing my backside off here!!!  Hoo Roo.......

MIA ~ YET AGAIN...

Yes I know hopeless!! lol. I seriously don't know where the time disappears to these days!!  I'm thinking it would be nice to be a little kid again when it seemed like at least 2 years between each Christmas and everything just seemed to go a lot slower than it does now.  It seems to me you blink and it's 3 days later..*sigh*

I've not been well again, so that's my excuse ~ it'll have to do.  Stupid neuralgia, then I snapped one of my veneers on a tooth so that was a trip to the dentist and much pain ~ purse and mouth!!  And then lo and behold the neuralgia comes back. gggrrrrrrrr.  It really does make for not feeling like doing too much. So I'm sending it out to the ether ~ please may I have a good run with no dramas and everything going along beautifully????  The rest of the year would be nice  :^)

I was also waiting on new glass to arrive and that kind of threw a spanner in the works for a bit.

Soooooooo while I waiting I decided to have a bit of a play with just plain black art glass and 22kt gold decals.  Some of the resulting pieces are a bit further down in this post. I quite like them ~ even with no dichro anywhere in sight.  If you click on the first of those pictures it will take you to the album on Facebook.  There you will find a few other pictures as well as the dimensions and prices.   I made a few new engraved pendants and got some more listings up on Artfire too.

 

Two of the twelve new listings on Artfire. I really love these heart shaped wreaths  :^)

   

Not too sure why some of these pictures look fuzzy ~ these are some of my black and 22kt gold pieces.

 

And lastly a couple of engraved cabs that are just waiting for bails.

 

That's it from me for now ~ have a great weekend all!!

NEW SLIDE PENDANTS...

I have three new slide pendants to share.
I'm loving the pastel colours ~ they are shot full of sparkles and they look pretty amazing in real life. The golden dragonflies on the pink is just so pretty and I really like how the tree of life has come up on the lavender. The new (to me) screen printed black enamel butterflies and dragonflies are also rather special. I'm just waiting on some more to arrive from the U.S. so I can have a play with different colours and types of backgrounds.

Here are some of the cabs that I was doing the other day and never got a chance to get back here to post them. If you follow silvermoonlyn on Facebook you would have seen these ones already.

OK ~ back to the glass grinder for me ~ have fun!!

NEW WIRED PENDANTS, NEW CABS...

These are some of the pendants from the other week that I sat down and had a bit of a play with.
All wrapped in Argentium sterling silver, two have the addition of stunning little metallic faceted rondelle beads.

And here sees me playing with new techniques again. The first picture is what happens when things don't go to plan ~ dichroic poo!! They looked awful!
Gary has always said you can't make strawberry jam from pig sh*t, but in this instance I beg to differ!! LOL.
The second picture is the first of the refiring ~ aiming for a major resurrection. Two more firings, a bit more glass and the cabs in the following pictures are some of the results. I have more done now, just waiting on good light to get some more pictures.

Now I'm off to list a few pendants in my Artfire studio and then back to the pliers :^)

PERSEPHONE...

Recently I took part in a Spring swap with a group of artists on FB. Most of them are based in the US, hence the "Spring" theme.
This is the piece that I did to send to my swap partner.
"Persephone" was the goddess queen of the underworld. She was also the goddess of spring growth. That's where the idea for this was born.
I've made it with pure copper wire and even though it was dead soft, it was a killer on my hands by the time it was done!! Sometimes I really doubt my sanity!! LOL.
I used somewhere in the vicinity of 11 metres of 20g wire and about 3 metres of 18g wire, and just a small amount of 14g for the hanger.
These aren't the clearest pictures in the world, but you'll get the idea :^)
**if you right click the picture and "open in new window or tab" you will get a slightly larger version.

I also made a little pendant for my swap partner's daughter to go with it. That's the rose quartz and silver one below. The copper earrings were an order to match a necklace I'd done ages ago.

Two new bracelet and earrings sets, and a bracelet, pendant and matching earrings in my favourite blue shaded glass.

And then on to playing with "experiments"!!
The orange and red cabs were a layering and multiple firing technique I hadn't tried before. I'm very happy with how they worked and more colour combos will follow when I get some more suitable colours in. The second picture is a very high firing technique which results in the "window" effect you see here. These are waiting to be wired up.

Some more pendants with channels around the outer edges, also waiting for wire and half a dozen glossy guys waiting for decals.

And that was pretty much my week and a half!!
All going well I'll have quite a few wired up and ready to go pendants next week and maybe some new glass pieces too :^)