Amazonite pendant - SOLD

I wanted for a long time now to wrap around two circles/ovals one inside the other, one end wider than the other, but when I started to wrap on one end, the other would not stay put. Last night I had this idea how to do it, using Corra's pipa tutorial, and it seems to be working, I like this resulting pendant. Sterling silver with amazonite dangling bead. 2.5x3 cm overall.

Update Aug. 09 - this necklace has been purchased and it's now enroute to the US.

New pendants and Koil Kutter

I made today two new pendants. The first one I started last night, but I didn't like they way I did it, so I rewrapped it this morning.
It is based on the nautilus tutorial I bought a while ago from Etsy. Purple freshwater pearls and a white milk opal briolet.








The second one is a paisley pendant using the same pearls and additionally white freshwater pearls and sterling silver beads. I quite like this one.





Finally good news on my Koil Kutter. My blades purchased from the US arrived (my friend Mary on Bookmooch was so kind and sent them to me as shipping to Cyprus from the company was $25, which is crazy! Just to see the difference, putting them in a small envelope Mary paid $1.80 for the same blades...)
Today I put one of the new blades in my KK and it cut my copper and silver coils like BUTTER!! I can't believe the difference! I put all the cut rings in the tumbler, so tomorrow my next project will be chainmail again.

Featured in a small interview

A lovely interview (with moi) has been just posted on this site today. Le Bar du Vent/meherio68 is a great Dawanda jewelry seller, who decided to feature other Dawanda artists. Today was my turn. You can read here the article - if you want to know some of my 'secrets' :)
Btw, you might also want to check out her Dawanda shop, which has some really beautiful jewelry from France.

What's new?

I've been a bit quiet lately on my blog, however I did a few more things that I added to my shop.
A small sterling silver pendant with purple freshwater pearls, done in freeform wire wrapping style. It's reall too cute :)
Modified version of the original Vita pendant with adding some gorgeous freshwater pearls around the frame, I feel it fills the whole pendant quite nicely now.
Listed a double spiral turquoise chainmail bracelet I made a while ago and never got to list until now. Sterling silver, as usual.
And if you are making greeting cards with stamps, I have a whole bunch of unmounted stamps that I need to destash. Haven't made greeting cards in at least 5 years, so I'm afraid I won't be returning to parchment and to stamping anymore, I'm too much wrapped in making jewelry :)
So you can get the whole batch for only 25 Euros here. I might list some other cardmaking supplies later on, once these stamps are gone.

Jens Pind bracelet with rhodonite

Jens Pind is the name of the latest weave I've learned today. It took me yesterday close to 2 hours of frustration after which I gave up, but today I started with full force and it 'clicked' almost instantly. Must have been very tired last night for my mind to blank out so much.
I made this bracelet within the hour (of course, not counting the time it took me to coil, cut and tumble polish the rings).

Burdafashion and Dawanda

You know Burda, the big (online) fashion magazine in Europe? As of this year Burdafashion and Dawanda joined forces, and now you can access the Dawanda shops directly within the Burda website. How cool is that? Additional market for our sales!!!
If you're reading Burda fashions online, you can access my shop directly from there, through this link:
http://marketplace.burdafashion.com/shop/MarikaJewelry

Turkish Round - for him

78 Euros

I've finally mastered another weave, the Turkish round. It is a beautiful weave, not difficult at all once you figure out the steps.
After all the weaves I've done, I must say this is the one that talks to me the most. Love making this pattern.
Here is a bracelet I made 'for him', as this weave is mostly suitable for men, particularly in the size presented here. 1.2mm wire in 4 mm ID. The whole bracelet is around 20-21 cm long, but it can be shortened upon request.
Over 50 gr of sterling silver, i.e. over 300 rings one by one hand-cut and woven to create this. Does it show that I'm mighty proud of it? :)

Btw, if you ever come to Cyprus, you'll find this weave under 'Cyprus round', *grins*.

Stairways to heaven - SOLD

No, it's not about the song, but the name of the weave I've learned lately. It is also known by another name, dino snorting drano, and although it's a gorgeous bracelet weave, I'm not sure what the person creating it was snorting when it gave this name *roll eyes*. Thank got it's also called by the alternative name, which is what I'm gonna use.
It makes a beautiful dainty and slinky bracelet, and the sterling heart in the middle just gives it extra spark and character.

Byzantine and herringbone

I was busy the whole week with this byzantine necklace, a piece on commision. Now hope they will actually buy it :)
Sterling silver with a gorgeous clasp bought on Etsy. AR 3.5 on 1mm wire.
I love the byzantine, it's a timeless beautiful weave which is gorgeous either on its own, or with beads in between. This piece took me pretty much the whole week as I had hundreds of silver rings to cut.

Tonight, after all this chainmail, I wanted to do something entirely different, but still something in my comfort zone. So I picked the herringbone weave, which I love so much. The beads are goldstone, they sparkle so much in the light, they're simply gorgeous. For the first time since I make herringbone, I've used thicker wire for wrapping, it has quite an interesting effect. I might use it again for larger beads.

Free shipping in my shop

I was working yesterday on my online shop, and reduced prices on many items, plus I now offer FREE shipping all over the world on everything.
If you were looking at my jewelry but found that shipping added to your costs, now you can look again and even buy some, it's worth it :)
Not sure for how long this offer will last, but definitely for the entire March, as an offering to a new beginning, of spring.

Poppy necklace

Since I'm on a chainmail roll, here is my latest creation. Spent the better part of Friday evening and Saturday morning winding and cutting the coil to make the rings for it (two sizes, AR 3 and 6), and Saturday afternoon until late in the night I was working on the necklace. I pulled apart at times bits and pieces of it until I got the design the way I wanted it. Although it did turn out to be come something else than I first envisioned. Oh well...
I named it poppy necklace after the lampwork bead I bought from an Etsy artist, who named the bead 'poppy'. All metal, including the gorgeous heart clasp is sterling silver.

And what I'm doing as my next project? Well I'm just in the middle (ok start) of learning the turkish round mail, using bright aluminium (silver became just too expensive nowadays for learning).
Not the easiest weave to learn though...

If you're curious how to make chainmail jewelry, check out my previous post on it.