Everwater Pendant

I spent a lot of time on this pendant working on an underlying structure to keep the points from flipping backward. With all the hematite and crystal in this, not to mention the freshwater pearls, it has a lot of weight to it, which is different for me because my work is usually very light. I sort of like the weight though. It gives the necklace a real presence when you wear it :) 

Thorn Lotus Pendant

Thorn Lotus Pendant

I'm still playing around with spiky textures and my latest creation uses daggers instead of spiky beads to create the effect. I had to work in an underlying structure to push the daggers forward and keep them from flipping back behind the pendant. Overall, I'm happy with how it came out, and I love the colors. The photo really doesn't do justice to the subtle mix of greens and tans. :)

Ace of Clubs

One of my hobbies is collecting playing cards and for a long time I have wanted to create a set of pendant designs to match the four standard playing card suits. Here is the first installment in my "Aces" series:

This was the original prototype design and ended up as a fully beaded necklace. However, I wanted to be able to use it as a free standing pendant as well so I refined the technique and made a second one without a beaded rope:

Overall, I am happy with the design. I think it represents the suit of clubs quite well. (^-^)

Lyndsey's Turtle Pendant (Holiday Commission)

I think it is long enough after the holiday to post these. :) One of my clients commissioned this turtle pendant for his wife as a Christmas gift, so I didn't want to post it too early in case it showed up in a web search before she actually received it. It is designed by me and officially called Lyndsey's Turtle.

He is made with an 18mm rivoli, a 10mm?(not sure, I forgot to measure it) round bead of polished fossil jasper, tilas, 3mm firepolished beads, 7mm vertical drilled drop beads, a baby spike bead (for the tail), four 6mm crystal pearls (support on the back) and assorted seed beads.

I think the back shot shows off the construction fairly well:

I hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday season! (^-^)

Birthday Star Pendant

Just a quick post to say that I'm not gone and that new content is coming soon. The picture above is a pendant I made for a friend's birthday. More of my experiments with spiky beads. :)

David's Star Pendant Tutorial

It's finally finished! \(^-^)/

Wow. That took longer than I thought it would. I worked hard to find the simplest thread path possible...it's amazing how many unnecessary stitches I customarily use in designs, though that is admittedly due to the fact that I rarely know what the finished piece will look like when I'm designing. I'm not a diagrams kind of girl. I design by the seat of my pants. (^-^)

In any case, below you will find the image for the tutorial. Keep in mind that you will need to know the Star Base, which you can find instructions for in the previous post. I'll also add a tag at some point here for "Bases" so that the base tutorials are easier to find as I add them.

Enjoy! (^-^)/

Star Base Tutorial

So, here’s the thing…normally, I try to keep the tutorials to one single image that can be easily downloaded. But then I realized that the first half of the David’s Star tutorial used a beaded component that I often start with when designing new pieces. It made sense to do a tutorial for the base separately, so I can refer back to it in future tutorials and they don’t take me as much time to complete. [ And boy did this one take time to complete. (T-T) ]

Because this isn’t a really complicated base (and to save time so I can get the actual tutorial to you lovely people sooner) I’m not doing a single image for this one, but rather, a blog post that I can link in future tutorials which make use of this base.

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Star Base
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Materials: Tila beads, Twin beads, size 11 SB, 14mm Rivoli

Step 1: Make a ring of 6 Tila beads and 6 size 11 SB in an alternating pattern as shown and tie it off. Weave the tail thread into the ring (just go around a few times) and snip it. Exit the main thread from a Tila.

Step 2: Stitch “up” so your thread is now exiting the top hole of a Tila bead.

Step 3: Pick up 1 size 11 SB, 1 Twin bead, 1 size 11 SB. Pass through the next Tila’s top hole.

Step 4: Continue to repeat step three around the circle until you are back with your thread exiting the first Tila.

Step 5: Square stitch a new Tila on top of the one from the previous round (hereafter referred to as the “base Tilas”).

Step 6: Continue around the circle adding new Tilas on top of the base Tilas with square stitch. Then “fold” the new Tilas down so they lie on top of the base Tilas.

Step 7: Leave your thread exiting a Twin bead. Pick up 1 size 11 SB and sew through the “joint hole” of the new Tila next to it. (This is the hole on the outer edge of the circle once you have folded the Tilas down.)

Step 8: Pick up 1 size 11 SB and pass through the next Twin bead. Pick up another size 11 SB and sew through the next joint hole/outer edge of the next new Tila.

Step 9: Continue around repeating step 8 until you are back to the beginning of the round. Leave your thread exiting a new Tila bead.

Step 10: Stitch “down” into the lower/inner hole of the new Tila.

Step 11: Set your Rivoli into the space between the base Tilas and the new Tilas.

Step 12: Pick up 1 size 11 SB and pass through the next Tila.

Step 13: Continue around. Then retrace the thread path several times to secure the Rivoli. Weave through your work so your thread is exiting a twin bead.

***Star Base is Finished!***

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This is a great base to build off of, so don’t hesitate to try designing with it. It is my gift to you. <3 Next time, we’ll use the Star Base to make a David’s Star pendant.
 \(^-^)/

Koi Flower

Koi Flower

I actually designed this pattern so that I could make the main "flower" and hang any charm I wanted from the base of it. Instant customization. I think that's a fun option to have with a piece of jewelry, because in the end, all of us like to have items in our wardrobe that say something about us as people. Jewelry especially should reflect who we are in a meaningful way. :)

Job's Tear Pendant

Job's Tear Pendant

This was one of many summer creations. I wish the photo did better justice to the dimensionality of this piece, but on the up side, the colors are well represented. :) The piece receives its name from the pale white seed hanging from the bottom, which is called a Job's Tear, referencing a biblical story found in the old testament and the Hebrew bible. 

This is one of those pendants which took a while to grow on me. I'll admit that I wasn't fond of it when I first finished making it, but found myself wearing it anyway. Over time, I liked it more and more. The odd thing is that it has a similar effect on my friends and coworkers. Almost no one is "drawn to it" as they are many of my other necklaces, but inevitably, it is the one that gets the most attention if they keep looking at my pendants for a long enough time. An interesting effect which adds to the overall mystique of the piece, especially given the nature of the biblical reference. I like how that almost says something about the person who interacts with this object--the way that one is not immediately enamored with the piece but comes to see the beauty of it only by considering it fully on the object's own terms.

Wow. I sounded like a "serious" artist there for a second. ;)

Deep Sea Star Pendant

Deep Sea Star

This pendant was an experiment with using two hole daggers. The double holes gave me a convenient anchor point for the rose-montes that are wrapped around the bases. This is also an example of how the recently popularized tila bezel technique can make a good base for a 6 pointed star as I mentioned in the previous post--observant readers will notice the same trick was used in the David's Star pendants which I am working on the tutorial for. :)