Wire-Wrapped Pendants

Yesterday I played around with wire again and I created two pendants, using wire-wrapping. I did some research before I went out to try to create a bezel for a cabochon from wire, just to make sure exactly how I could execute it.

My first pendant is created after a project from the book "Wire Jewelry Masterclass" by Abby Hook, and it features a spiral-like bezel. I used a gemstone cabochon from my collection, but I have no idea what sort of gemstone it is, lol.

For my second pendant I looked up some basic techniques on the internet to see how to make a basic wire-wrapped bezel, and I found one that was really handy, which I decided to use for references. I only have round wire in my stash, and the tutorial recommended half-round, which I understand would make the whole wrapping a lot easier for something like this. The round wire really made me work, as it didn't want to stay in place too often, lol, ah well, at least it's completed :P
Also, the cabochon is a Rock Crystal and the gemstone chip beads are Labradorites.

Last week I also invested in some "Gel Patina liver of sulfer", since I've been wanting to do some patina on my wire projects. And on this second pendant I had a bit of fun and made the copper go completely black, heh. Then I polished and buffed it on various places to give it more contrast.
I need to add a "fun" factor about the Gel Patina; it smells like rotten eggs, lol.

Various Completed Projects

So, yes, I'm aware of the facts that I haven't been blogging much since I came back from the vacation :)

However, I've still been doing some stuff that I'm going to share with you in this post. I completed a bead embroidery pendant, which I started off just before I went on vacation. And for those who follow me on facebook and twitter, I mentioned that I finally bought myself a metal block and a chasing and a rubber hammer. And yes, of course, I've been doodling around with some wire; copper as I find precious metals are very expensive, and even more expensive to practice on.
As I went on and playeed with wire wrapping once again, I remember even why I haven't done it much to begin with; my nail are very soft (really soft, like jelly "almost") and the wire really manage to give them quite a beating, heh.

Here's the bead embroidery pendant I mentioned earlier. For the bezel I used 11/0 delicas and 15/0 Miyuki seed beads. The cabochon with the skull I actually painted and varnished; it was just black and white from the beginning, but I wanted a bit of  a personal touch to it so I painted the skull red and added some golden highlights on it on various places. I used a 14mm Swarovski rivoli to enhance the look of the piece a little more. At the bottom part there's an 8mm black onyx gemstone cab which is surounded bu 11/0 delicas and 11/0 seed beads by Matsuno, along with blue goldstone chip beads. The fringe I wanted a bit simpler then the rest; for the bottom I simply used some 11/0 seed beads in black and red together with 9mm twisted bugles, 4mm Swarovski bicones and small magatamas. For the sides I embellished with some long magatamas, to get a bit of a "tribal" feel to the piece.

When I played around with wire, I wanted to make something rather simple and basic. So I found this small project in the book "Bead & Wire Art Jewelry" that I wanted to try out now when I actually had access to a bigger selection of wire gauge then I had when I first bought this book, last year.
This project required 20 and 18 gauge wires.

This is another wire project. I saw this tutorial on the YouTube channel of Beadaholique, and I just wanted to give it a try to practice some wire working.

 This is my own design. I wanted to make something a little bit more abstract, yet not too complicated. First off, I drew the design I wanted in my sketch book where I have most of the designs I've made that aren't free-form. First I measured how much wire I would need, and then I hammered the frame flat, and used the ball side of the chasing hammer to give it some texture. I then began to join the loose parts I wanted around the main frame with some random wire-wrapping techniques (yes, I know; it looks really amateurish - only one way to learn; practice, heh). For the web, I used turquoise chip beads and 11/0 Toho seed beads in a permanent finish. 

 Oh yes, I've also been playing around with some kumihimo!
I've been wanting to play around and incorporate beads into my kumihimo for some time now, and I got my hands out of the pockets and actually did this one. I used both long magatamas and the smaller ones, to embellish the rope a bit here and there. The reason to why I didn't do a complete surrounding of beads is that I didn't have enough of the magatamas in the colors I chose to work with. Still, I personally like it. Main thing, right? lol ^^

Do you also have a lot of balls in the air at the same time?

Bead Embroidery: Polymer Clay Cab. Day 2

Yarr!
Been spending this longer weekend together with my bf so I haven't really been able (or wanted) to blog anything for these couple of days :3

♥I also took the freedom of changing some colors and images on my blog just for the fun, and since the season is changing... And yeh, I were a little bored of the old one LOL.

My last post were about an almost finished project were I used bead embroidery (featuring a handmade polymer clay cabochon) - awesome technique by the way!

So yeh, I finished it now and I'm pretty happy about it.
For the chain I wanted to attach the pendant in I decided on making a spiral rope. I just did this spiral rope like I did with the opera length necklace I did in gunmetal with some triangle beads (Thorn); I first strung on the focal beads until I got the desired length I wanted for the necklace. I used a nylon coated wire were I put the 8/0 focal beads on tho, just to give it some more strength. Then I used nymo and a size 12 beading needle, making sure I would be able to get both my needle and my thread through the 8/0's.

For the "bail" I used simple peyote stitch, and then I embellished it a little with some 11/0 galvanized silver seed beads, and again those gorgeous moonstone chips.

Bead Embroidery: Polymer Clay Cab. Day 1

I posted last week a couple of polymer clay cabochons that I've made, having in my thoughts that I would do some bead embroidery.
Here is the "almost" finished result. I'm gonna work around the edges after I've cut it out, and then I'm also gonna figure out a chain and how I'm gonna attach it.

I really enjoyed this, and found it extremely fun. And with embroidery you can work pretty much how you want, and experiment with different types of stitches.
I ended up attaching a couple moonstone chips as an embellishment as well and I really, really like it.

I chose pretty much only to work with metal like colors for this one, since I didn't want to run away too far from the theme which the polymer clay cab already had.