White Snow Bangle

I used a tutorial from Jewelry Lessons to create this sterling silver bangle. While it took me a lot of time to do it, I found it quite easy and fun. Due to the very repetitive nature of the project, I found myself soon in a calm and relaxed mood. Before I knew it (a few hours later), the bangle was done. I think I will do another one, wider this time and with thicker wire. This was done with 18ga as base and 26 gauge as wrapping. Not sure I like the clasp, the jury is still out on that part... I'm thinking if I do one much thicker, I might not need a clasp at all...








Happy New Year everyone!

Black and white bracelet

While looking over my jewelry I realized that I don't have many pieces with classic colors, like black and white, so I made this quick, easy and fun bracelet. Goldstone beads - not exactly black, but very dark blue, and milk opal white beads. The fun elephant clasp is there to break a bit the classic style of the design.

Healing Pendant

I mentioned in my previous post about the Yellow Amphora that I worked on two similar pendants both in the shape of an amphora. Here is the second one. The picture is not high quality, unfortunately just as I didn't have time these days to be busy with jewelry, I also didn't have time to learn photography and editing (one of the things I will include in my New Year's resolution), but the pendant is really great.

I used a quartz crystal in the middle - also called a healing point, or a crystal point. I love these crystal points as they promote healing and channel the positive energy to the wearer. I have actually a large crystal on my work desk in my office.

The Yellow Amphora

I'm back after a few months of absense from wire wrapping. Sadly this is how is going to be for the next year or so. First of December I've celebrated one year since I stopped working for a boss, and started a venture on my own. Here is a blog where I'm keeping track of what I am up to since I fired my boss if you care to read :)
Until I have my earnings on auto-pilot, I need to focus most of my time on building up my business, so I don't really have much time just yet for making jewelry. But as time passes and my income increases, I will be devoting again more and more time to wrapping wire.

I've spent this weekend creating two pendant, both similar in structure however a bit different in execution. In this post I present the first one. It takes its inspiration from the Greek amphora.

The materials used are yellow jade and sterling silver. As usual the pictures are not so great...

Roxanne earrings

These earrings are huge! And the name Roxanne is simply because it was all the time humming in my head while crafting this unique pair of silver earrings. I know for some people the name needs to have a deep meaning, even spiritual in nature, but for me, this was it. And I think it fits nicely. A cheerful Roxanne, dancing in the disco with her huge flashy earrings...

Large Swarovski gorgeous red crystals surrounding a herringbone weave dangling from the center of the sterling silver frame.

New photos taken of the Eyes of Horus

I've decided to play some more with my new Canon digital camera and took a couple of new shots of the Eyes of Horus earrings that I made a few weeks ago. I also changed the earwires as the previous ones didn't seem too stable for me. These are just perfect, however.

To see more information, click on my Dawanda listing.

Two new pair of silver earrings this week

I was quite busy this week with my business, however I managed to squeeze in two quick pairs of sterling silver earrings. The green stone is jade and the red is agate done in herringbone weave with a clear quartz briolette hanging from a sterling silver chain at the bottom. I guess silver chain was the motif this week for both pairs :) I had a few shorter chain ends which I wanted to use somehow. And this is one tip for people who have lots of lose ends of wire or chain or even 1-2 beads. You can very easily incorporate them in your new jewelry pieces like I did with the chain links for both earrings.

3 Work Tips For Jewelry Beginners

I wish I had these tips when I first started out in jewelry making. While for some people these are simply common sense by now, for those who are just starting out in jewelry making these should help you make your life easier and more comfortable when working with wire or any other kind of jewelry material.

• Work directly from the spool. There are times when this is just not possible, however for the most regular things such as coiling wire, avoid pre-cutting it since you might end up with a smaller piece than you original wanted and have to cut some more. And particularly with wire the less 'lose end' wire sticks you have, the better for the piece and the wearer. Also you might be cutting a bigger piece than you need, so the remaining one will be wasted. Copper might not matter much, but silver and gold is not cheap.

• Use a magnifying lamp, such as the Magnilamp (which is extremely cheap at Amazon). Trust me the difference is amazing particularly when it comes to helping your eyes through the strain of the very small work, and making more beautiful work.

Check out the difference in the wire:

- without a magnifying lamp








- with a magnifier lamp







- with the extra magnifier setting

• Use two monitors. I know this does not apply directly to jewelry making or wire wrapping but trust me when you're many hours at your computer (especially when your craft desk or table also happens to be your pc table, just like in my case), having two monitors makes your life much, much easier. I use one monitor for browsing the internet using various tabs, and the second one for local harddrive, or working from the pdf tutorial - like in my case, I have one monitor open on Eni's older site looking at the various tutorials picture deciding on which one to do, and on the left side monitor I have the actual pdf open, ready to work.

I will post more beginner tips as I get a chance to take some more shots of various things around my craft table. I hope these tips are helpful to newcomers to wire wrapping and jewelry making in general. Comment away if you have other tips or you have other experiences with the above.

The Eyes Of Horus - Herringbone Weave Silver Earrings

Rather crappy shots but I like this pair of earrings. Reminds me strongly of the eyes of Horus. Mixed in a couple of techniques, of course my favorite herringbone weave and used one of Eni's chandelier tutorials for attaching the smoke quartz briolettes. Sterling silver corrugated beads surround the goldstone eyes in the middle.
I might have to retake the pictures in a better lighting.

Drops Of Sunshine - Yellow jade agate sterling silver necklace

I've been working on this necklace the whole week, a bit every evening after work. Today I finished the chain, clasp, tumbled it for about 2 hours for extra spark and durability and took pictures of it.

The stone is a gorgeous yellow jade briolette that matches beautifully the small yellow agate beads. Wrapped in several gauges of sterling silver wire, the chain is approximately 45 cm.
It wears perfectly with a summer dress on a tanned decollete.
To purchase, visit this link at my Dawanda shop.

Quick Silver Earrings

I made these two pairs of silver earrings during the last few evenings after work. They were fun and easy to make. The orange pair uses two lampwork beads that I bought from a UK lampworker two years ago and never got to do anything with them. The second pair uses two crystal quartz briolettes and two pink jade beads that have truly a beautiful color. Hope you like them :)


Sweet candy












Princess Charlotte

Amethyst Delights Pendant

Here is my first wire wrapping since I've started making jewelry again. The pictures are taken with my new camera (mentioned in my previous post) and while I still find darn difficult to capture sterling silver, I hope these do show the wrapping details.

The piece is inspired by Nancy Wickman's free earrings tutorial.

The stone is a gorgeous quality amethyst which really sparkles under the light. The entire pendant with bail is just a bit over 4cm (close to 2") and I've used 1mm, 0.4mm and 0.25 mm silver wire for wrapping. I hope you all like it.

A few more pictures below, including a close-up of the wire work. Loving my new camera and my new Magnilamp that allowed me to do the wrapping without serious flaws :)
Click on the images for more details.

Got myself a new camera

Today was a big money spending day. End of the month is my birthday so I told hubby I wanted a new Canon Powershot SX20IS. We bought it today and let me tell you, it is an absolute beauty and truly powerful. My previous camera was a Canon Powershot G5, but this one is like a Mercedes next to a Volkswagen. It was quite expensive as around here the prices are at least twice as much as in the US, but finally I have it in my hands. And I had to try it out right away, of course. Still loads of settings I have to explore, but the macro feature - which is the most important feature in a camera for jewelry photography - is amazing. Did I mention I'm in love with this camera?

The first guinea pig for this camera was a pendant I made the other day - which is for the scrap pile as there are loads of mistakes in it - but was perfect to see how well the macro works (and how visible the mistakes are....).
I added a second tiny pic at the top to see just how small the pendant really is and how well I could zoom it with the Canon. The whole piece with the bail is around 1.2" (~3cm) so it's really tiny in my hands. And now off to the scrap pile it goes...


Also got myself a Magnilamp from Amazon and as luck would have it, it arrived today. I'll work on a second pendant under this magnifier, which also has a small lamp, just perfect to get a good focused light under my work. I know there are many other more expensive ones out there, but for now this will do. My eyes are no longer what they used to be when it comes to wire wrapping and I really need something to see what I'm doing.
Seriously, if you don't have one of these or some other magnifier which also has a lamp, you don't know how much you could improve your work by truly seeing every single detail of your wrapping. I'm working on a new version of the same pendant but now I clearly see the wire and where it goes over the base and I can see the difference.

Gorgeous free wire wrapping earrings tutorial

Even though it's an older tutorial, I only saw this today and I couldn't believe it's FREE! It's absolutely gorgeous and my fingers are simply itching to try it out.

If you want to check it out, it's a very long jpg picture that you can enlarge onscreen. Click here to visit Aniolek's Deviant art page where the tutorial is waiting for more visitors!

Mihaflower - Pearl Flower Pendant

I made this piece during the Easter holidays. It' s a practice piece based on a tutorial by Gailavira that I purchased the other day. It's my first attempt at this particular weave and while I'm not especially impressed with my work (lots of flaws that I see), I'll give myself a bit of leeway as I haven't really attempted anything serious in over a year.

However I really enjoyed doing this pendant and I'll make it again which will be much more improved. I've ordered a magnifier lamp from Ebay as my eyes are definitely not what they've used to be when it comes to fine work, so I'll be able to see those little mistakes and correct them right away before the actual piece takes form and shape.

In the meantime this is dedicated to my friend Mihaela who was here recently in Cyprus, and gave me 4 pearls, of which I used one in this piece . Hence the mihaflower :)

Tiger Eye Earrings

Well I lied in my previous post and I made this pair of tiger eye earrings yesterday. Very basic pair, little wrapping, just to get me started again since I haven't wrapped in almost a year at all!. I might not do as much as I used to before right off the bat, but I want to get back in the swing of wire wrapping things, as this is my main passion. Internet marketing is my business. There is no reason I can't do both :)

I bought the tiger eye stones at Etsy about two years ago and just now I got a chance to use them. They are absolutely gorgeous and flawless and they have a nice size at 18x13 mm.