Classic Stunning Chic Blues

If you like blue, this necklace set is for you (and blue if my favorite color). This stunning piece is artisan crafted of faceted graduated clear blue Crystals; accenting a Denim Lapis puffy heart pendant that has a slight cream and black grain; then a scattering of sterling silver beads and finished with a single strand of freshwater cultured Pearls. The earrings are leverbacks that have dangle charms in pearls and one of the faceted blue crystals.

Available for purchase with many other trendy and chic designs in our collections.

Working with Wire

Wire work really adds to a necklace or earrings and is usually the backbone to a bracelet. I really like working with wire because it gives a freedom to bend and mold into different shapes, twist, links, cages, almost anything to touch of flare or spice in a piece I’m designing. It can be very fund but it means having patience (loads of it), a creative and imaginative mind and being able to ‘see’ your piece within the wire are the many talents and gifts of artists around the world.

Wire is one of the essential supplies in my jewelry making business because it gives me the ability to take the jewelry beyond the normal beading limits. One of the questions I get asked regularly is do you know which is the right size and what material is best?

At first when I started working with wire, it was difficult and it much of a ‘trial and error’ method and to some degree it still is when trying out new techniques or creating new designs. But what I do is that once I have down what I’m trying to do with wire, I then write down how I did it, which gauge works best and how much wire I used. You also need to look at durability, malleability, style, color and manufacturer when working with wire before designing.

Wire is measured in gauges, from 16 all the way to 34; with 16 being the heaviest/thickest and 34 being the smallest/thinnest wires. Typically, the thicker the wire, the sturdier it will become. However, the type of material used for the wire also affects how flexible a particular gauge will be.

Rules of Thumb

*For bracelets, heavy necklace pendants designs or winding wire around very large beads, making charms or creating chain links, a 16 to 18 gauge is suggested.

*Gauges 20 to 24 are considered medium to thin thickness and are good for wire wrapping beads, as well as for constructing findings, headpins, and ear wires. This is typically the gauge used for making earrings and 20 or 22 are the best for ear wires.

*The smallest, skinniest wires are 26 to 34 gauges. They are easily manipulated and flexible, perfectly for use with small beads in embroidery and stitch projects.

You can find wire in brass, copper, pewter, or artistic non-tarnish are inexpensive and typically soft wires to work with; while sterling silver and gold filled are more expensive and typically vary in hardness’s from dead-soft to half-hard.

*Sterling Silver is great looking and made soft or hard. The only thing to remember is that silver will tarnish.

*For wire that will not tarnish and will retain its beauty and luster, try working with non-tarnish wires; it is very inexpensive and usually made from a copper core; covered with silver, gold, or colored coating that has been treated so that it will not tarnish.

*While the others run the spectrum of price; the most expensive wire to work with is gold or gold-filled, which does not tarnish. Some wire works will substitute gold-plated wire for cost effective designs.

Whatever your choice for your design, you will find that working with wire brings out the artist and craftsman in every design.

Browse our collections that incorporate metals including wire working on our website.

Spring Fling Beads

This collection of beads is great, provided from Artbeads.com for their Spring Fling. I’ve been trying to figure out different designs, but finding it’s a little harder than first thought. The ceramic beads (yellowish and blue/green tubes and creamy white disks) are great and will probably end up as spacers or earring pieces. I really like how ceramic and porcelain beads can really add to a necklace or earring.

Next up are the two purple pendants and I love the designs in both these, could go either way to look either ethnic, tribal or maybe beach. They may end up in designs with either shells, pearls or maybe even some turquoise. The tiny green oyster shells are really tiny and provide a little challenge for me. I’m looking either use them as spacers or even better earrings and bracelet pieces mixing with other sea gems. The best part is the Swarovski crystals, the Xilion is a new brilliance with colors in Cyclamen Opal, Padparadscha Golden Shadow, and Indicolite Golden Shadow colors new for me and any of these will really add that hint of ‘bling’ to any design. I’m thinking maybe the cyclamen opals will accent some turquoise and coral necklace.

Enjoy wondering through Artbeads.com for a variety of beading supplies, meanwhile I’ll keep working designs with these goodies until I find something that works.

Legal Disclosure/Disclaimer: As a reviewer of products for Artbeads.com, I received the Swarovski crystals, oyster and ceramic beads and pendants products free of charge. I have not been paid nor compensated by Artbeads.com for my endorsement of these said products. I have been asked by Artbeads.com to review these products and provide my own honest feedback, whether it is positive or negative.

Artistic Jasper Crystals

Nature’s beauty in a stunning Artistic Jasper pendant, which has been highlighted by pure faceted crystals of pink and copper and then added a hint of Swarovski black Cosmos and completed with fancy pewter beadcaps and textured toggle.

Visit our website for an array of jewelry designs.

Native Element Metal - Copper

Most minerals occur in combinations of chemicals as compounds. However, 20 or so are ‘native elements’ that occur in small quantities by themselves in relatively pure form. Most native elements are metals such as gold, which does not readily combine with other materials. Many metals typically occur in conjunction with others in ores, but these less reactive metals are often found alone.

So let’s take copper, a warm reddish gold in color, copper is the most easily recognized of all metals. It is quite soft (a hardness of 2.5 to 3), and sometimes found pure in native form, which is why it was one of the first metals people learned to use. It is the easiest to solder and is very flexible and tough. In addition, it has a very good conductivity that is only slightly less than silver.

Copper was probably the first metal used to make weapons and objects. It’s uses included making arrow and spear tips, axes and other tools that can be traced back to the forth millennium in the Middle East. The oldest knives found, dating back 6,000 years, are made of copper. Pure copper is often found in sulphide-rich veins in warm desert areas, or in cavities in ancient lava flows. Like silver, it often grows in branching masses and tarnishes quickly. Yet the tarnish is bright green, not black like silver, and a copper deposit is often revealed by bright green stains on rocks called copper bloom. As a native element, copper is quite rare, so most of the copper used today comes from ores such as chalcopyrite.

Magical and ritual lore find that copper has been linked with the divine. During ancient Mesopotamian times, it was attributed to the Queen of Heaven as well as to the goddesses associated with the planet Venus. It has also been sacred to the Sun in Babylon as well as to the early inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest. Copper can be used effectively on all chakras but is particularly effective on the heart and root chakras as preparation for meditation. It has long been used to stimulate healing. This is said to be because of the copper’s ability to balance the body’s polarity, or the flow of the projective and receptive energies. Copper’s healing applications are boundless. In Mexico, a copper penny is placed on the navel for relief of rheumatism, arthritis, and any painful condition. A metal of Venus, copper is also known to attract love and money; old pennies minted in leap years, are often placed in the kitchen of a house to attract money to the household. Copper is said to be a lucky metal because of its past solar attributions, and so can be used in combination with any luck-bringing gemstones.

Visit our jewelry collections to find your hidden treasure of luck.

*Research from various gem-mineral-crystal-metal books.

Wow – 100 Hits

Wow, what a milestone, who would have guessed!! Yesterday our website Timeless Designs had 100 hits in one day!! Thank you so much to everyone who has made purchases (and continues to do so!), browses and loves our designs as much as we do.

If you haven’t made it over yet, here’s your chance to check out our contemporary artisan crafted art-to-wear jewelry collection. Find something in stylish old and new Southwest Flair; go a little bold with something in minerals and million year old fossils of the Rock Yard; a little trendy classic mystery from Mystic Artisan, and don’t forget wire, chain and metals in Wiry Legends!

Whatever your style, bold, classic, sassy, tempting, or even bling, see what it’s all about at our website make a purchase or check the Shows page to see where we are in the area and come buy our booth. As always with our blog we continue to debut pieces, lapidary tidbits, and even throw in some techniques.

Crystal & Stone Bling

Mystical, charming, stylish and a little flirty describe these new creations in crystals and natural stones. A little out-side-the-box for this designer, we paired a lot of faceted charmed crystals with complimenting pendants, stones and metals to give them all different looks for any personality. We’re working on a few more designs in these styles, so keep checking here and the website for their debut!

Mexican Morodo Agate Pendant Faceted Crystals Silver Set

Black Agate Faceted Smoky Clear Crystals Silver Set

Brown Zebra Pendant Faceted Crystals Silver Set

For these and many other natural stone designs are available to purchase on our website.