Obsessed with jewelry making!

The bracelets, left, an Inca Puno for my brother, and right, my first Byzantine, for my sister-in-law. The crystal/pearl earrings are for my sister, the wooden/glass beaded earrings are for my niece, and the hoop crystal earrings are for my daughter. I actually made each link, each curly cue wire, and bent each hoop. I had so much fun making these earrings. I really have a knack for jewelry making. I love the beads, I love making the rings, I love it all. I made this black and red full Persian for my friend Gina:



The orders are slowly coming in. I just sold another Rearden metal bracelet (1st version). Such a gratifying feeling when someone wants to buy your stuff.

Two More Weaves Learned!

The Orbital (bracelet $20, and earrings $10) ^^

The Inca Puno weave ($80.00)

I did learned the orbital weave last weekend, and just learned the Inca Puno weave today. It was much easier than the Persian Weave. Both of these are available in my Esty store, made to order, of course. I'm loving this chainmaille thing!

I bought a pink Fender (Squire) Stratocaster yesterday. I haven't even taken it out of the case to play it. Pink! Pictures to come...

Five Hours... FIVE HOURS! And all I got was this...

It took me 5 hours just to get to this point. I knew that the art of the chainmaille would be difficult to learn. It finally began to look like something around 5:45 am. I'm encouraged. I also know that with all the manpower, the new and improved "Rearden Metal Bracelets" will probably be $75.00. Price increase due to cost of the blue/green niobium jumprings (and the difficulty getting them), the blue/green niobium bracelet clasps (if I can find them), and the LABOR. Chainmaille is labor intensive. If I can't find the niobium clasps, I'm either going to make them, or I'll use copper.

I love the full persian weave. When I look at it, it reminds me of the railroad. I've been staring at other weaves, which I will do, but for now, it's the full persian for the Rearden Metal Bracelet. Back to the bench!

The First Batch Of Earrings Are Done!

I've been at it since 11:00am this morning! All of these are handmade. Once I got started, I couldn't stop. I even made my own earwires, out of copper (bottom right). Here are the results:

I've found my new passion. I had to physically push myself away from my work table. I'm supposed to be making the new Rearden Metal bracelets, but I'm scared to tackle assembling the jumprings (into chainmaille). I'm going to post these earrings on my Esty page. Some of them I've decided to keep (the middle picture, and the picture on the right - my mother's old pearls). Once I got the loop making down, I was off and running. I'm still having trouble with my wrapped loops, but today was only the first day... the first day. I'm not posting until I have enough to sell. I need more silver and gold euro lever earwires. I also need an anvil and nylon hammer (I slammed my finger today - still hurts). I need more pliers, at least a pair of bent chainnose and a pair of flat nose. At first, before I started, I didn't know what they were for, but after today, now I know!

Hello Fall!

Where do I start? I changed jobs! Hopefully, my new job will be a much better fit than the last job. It will free up a lot of time in the morning for me to do "my" stuff (writing, knitting, making music, and my new passion: jewelry making). From what I've learned over the last 3 years, I will not become this job. This job is just a means to fund my life. I will not take the job home with me. I do wish to get better hours though.

On the hair front, my hair is still coming out, even after the Aphogee 2 Step Treatment. To protect what I still have, I decided to go back to basics, and put on a lace wig (see above photos). Hopefully, I can grow out the weakend hair (my fault - I've pinpointed it to the color remover fiasco from a couple of months ago). Since I haven't gotten around to getting my new 12" virgin malaysian straight (from Rex, of course), I decided to cut my old 18" RVMS and cut some bangs into it. I'm happy with the results. I didn't paint the inside of the cap. I just put the self adhesive bandage around my head. I don't even have a wigcap on. I was being lazy about it, but very happy with how it turned out. My skills are still there. I thought I would have to add some lace to the back and ventilate some hair back there, but it fits my hairline perfectly. I will probably need to redo it the Sunday night before the first day of work.

Okay, even though it's knitting season (yeah!), I'm getting into jewelry making. It started with the sale of two of my Rearden bracelets. I still have enough blue metal to make several bracelets, but being proactive, I started to look for more blue metal. From there, I found jumprings, which led to learning how to make chainmaille (think Dark Ages, Middle Ages, King Arthur), which led to wire wrapping. I have an (empty) Esty store and I will sell bracelets, earrings, necklaces, and anything else I can think to make. My Esty store will also carry my handknit goods, and eventually my music (mp3s), my photography, my lacefront DVDs, and my books. I love knowing that I have an outlet for all this creativity.