Storage Woes

Because my one bead container can hold no more of the round stack-able bead containers I decided to buy another container. As mentioned awhile back, I like the Sterilite show-off storage containers. The clips are secure, and there is one central handle in the lid for ease of carrying. Plus to their #1894 show-off is the perfect size for my bead containers height wise, with just a bit of extra room on top for a few plastic bags of purchases to be sorted.

Over the past 2 weeks I've stopped in a few different Target stores as I've been out. Each one I've had little luck finding any of the show-offs. They've had other Sterilite products in their stores, but not the specific style I'm looking for.

These are the show-offs which unfortunately the company doesn't sell directly. I've even checked Target's website, but they only have one Show-off, one to large for what I'm looking for. I even stopped over to Joann's website, which doesn't have to many show-offs either. I may have to stop in their store sometime, and can check then. I'm planning on buying more of the stack-able bead containers anyways. Rings and Things does have some of the stack-able containers, but only one size. I've found I like having the three different sizes for my different beads. Though I may add some to my cart the next time I'm buying other stuff from them. (It'll be interesting to see the threads on them, the ones I've been buying got redesigned at one point and have wider more stable threads).

Pretty much what it comes down to is when I store my beads I want something to put smaller containers in. Most of the bead storage stuff out there are the kind that the lid opens all the little bead pockets at once. Sure that's fine for some beads and findings, but I have way to many seed beads for something like that. Which is why I like the stack-able containers, only the beads I am currently using are open. Even for my larger (8 to 10mm) beads I like the stack-ables for. And it's also nice that I don't have each type of bead in it's own container flying around a bigger storage thing.

I'll say, storing my beads was so much easier when I didn't have so many.

Update 10:56 PM Eastern time
Because I'm to tired for a full new blog post. I just wanted to add that I chose two of the storage cases from Rings and Things and ordered them this afternoon. I chose ground shipping to save money over air, so it'll take longer then the usual 2 days of Priority Mail.

New Camera!

My husband and I got a new camera, to replace the previous one which is pretty much shot. The light sensor isn't functioning, and the model is old enough that Olympus doesn't carry parts to fix it anymore. That's alright, we'd gotten plenty of use out of the old camera.

To celebrate the new camera, I decided to enter the "Your Designs Rock" contest over at Rings and Things. I sketched out a design earlier this month, then ordered parts from R&T the other week. Thursday I finished the necklace and earrings and will be working on submitting the pictures to the contest. I had been tempted to enter earlier, but with the camera issue I wasn't sure.

Showing off what the new camera can do:

Now this isn't the piece I'm entering in the contest. I am going to wait to show it off until later. This necklace I made back in October with beads I bought with birthday money. The lovely agate stone I picked up from my local bead store. I also made matching earrings, which I didn't take pictures of yet.

The light wasn't the best today as it's a bit overcast, but the pictures for the contest turned out well. This particular necklace didn't do to bad considering it has quite a bit of dark purple in it. As we get more settled into the house I do want to set up a light box for my jewerly pictures to decrease my dependency on sunlight. (It's now light out when I get home from work during the week, but the sun is low enough that I'm still waiting for weekends to get decent light).

Here's a close up of the stone with the second strand above it. I used silver colored copper wire to hang the stone on and did a coil at the bottom. For this shot I hung the necklace on the display stand I made this morning. I cut apart a cardboard box then covered it with some printer paper. My contest necklace has enough little hanging pieces that it photographed better not laying flat.

The only editing I did with these images was cropping and resizing.

Camera Fail

So I finally got around to getting the camera out, to take some nicer pictures of my newest pieces of jewelry, and didn't have much luck. My cell phone does have a camera feature, but it's not quite as nice as an actual camera.

But this is what I got instead. Even in this small thumbnail version the washed out colors are obvious. On the regular sized (click said thumbnail) pixels around the edges can be seen. I did have problems with the pixels the last time I used the camera, but the colors weren't nearly this bad.

I didn't adjust the image at all, this is directly from the camera and uploaded.

This is what it did to the great outdoors. We do have snow, so the ground is white, but the rest of the image shouldn't be those colors. I did take that image through the glass, which I've done before without this issue.

This (DeviantArt link) is how the camera normally takes pictures, I took this picture back in May. Again, there is no adjusting on the computer.

I tried various flash settings, with letting the camera decide to use it, to forcing the flash, and I got the same results.

Have Pin Vise...

I've been using the pin vise I bought back in December from Rings and Things, and it's quite the handy tool. I'm working on a few things at once with it.

This is one of the projects I'm working on, a purple and copper necklace. I used 22 gauge copper wire for the pendant and rings, all cut from the same length of twisted wires. I used two lengths of the purple wire and one of the copper color. For the twisting I had my nylon jaw pliers on one end, and the pin vise on the other. Once the wire was twisted I used my round nose pliers to shape the little rings and the pendant.

The next work in progress is inspired by one of the stories from Catherynne Valente's Omikuji Project, The Apple Tree at the End of the World.

I also used 22 gauge copper wire for this, twisting three strands together with the pin vise for the smaller branches. Where the smaller branches form the limb, I hand twisted them together. I twisted the smaller branches together first, then added the apples and the leaves. One apple is 8mm while the other is 6, I figured that would help give the finished tree some perspective.

I still have yet to make more branches, and once I have the tree all assembled I'll work on shaping the branches and limbs more.

The third pin vise project has no pictures. Tonight and last night I've been doing some work with 20 gauge copper wire for earrings. Using two strands (one gold color, one copper) twisted together I've made some loops, which I'll hang some beads in the center of. It was a little tricky to get the 20g wire into the vise, but still possible.

For the twisting, I found that the nylon jaw pliers work well with the pin vise. I first secured the ends into the vise. Then I slid the pliers down the wires to make sure they were even against each other. The next step was to clamp down on the ends in the jaws of the pliers. I also found that it helps to bend the wires over the far side of the pliers jaws, in a nice right angle. When I first was twisting wires together, they slid around in the pliers. Bending them helped keep them in place.

Chainmaille Set

Well, long time no post. Now that the holidays are over and I'm getting back into my usual routine here is something I've recently made. I started working on this set back in December, between Christmas gifts for friends and family. The choker is 14 inches long, with a bit of an extender chain built in, and the earrings are about an inch or so long.

The weave on these is European 4 in 1, which is a standard maille weave. The double colored diamond pattern I found in a beading magazine I picked up two summers ago. I'm not sure of the ring sizes they had recommended, I ended up picking out sizes and colors at my local bead store that I figured would work well. I've done this pattern before with these size rings, and I've had good luck. These rings work especially well with the earrings. When making a bracelet with larger rings, a single diamond unit felt a bit to heavy to be an earring, but these ones are light weight enough.


Here are the earrings, the same rings as I used with the choker. The earring findings I've had awhile now, and they happened to go well with the rings.

For the rings, I used D20 EC. The AR is 4, D is 1/8 of an inch, and they are made out of 20 gauge wire. They aren't labeled as to what metal they are made out of, but they look like aluminum (I cut one in half, it's not copper, and to soft to be steel).

As I unpack from moving and find the magazine I'll post the details for that issue so others can find the pattern. (Not that it's that complicated). The trick to the diamonds is to have the last row of rings facing the same way as the first row in the next diamond. That way they are less likely to twist around. I'm not counting the single connector ring as a row here.

Getting Ready for 2010

2010 has been on my mind a lot over this month. Part of it is what I want to set for my writing goals, but part of it is also what I want to do with my jewelry as well next year. There are new techniques I would love to learn, mostly working with resin and some basic metal working. It would be fun to cut shapes out of sheets of metal and do hammer and other finishes on it. I would like to learn how to make glass beads, but that's for another year's goals :).

Art wise, for 2010 I think I'm going to start out by organizing my supplies better. I keep my beads in round containers that stack on each other (Darice brand), and I keep all those containers in a Sterilite storage bin. The bead containers take up the whole bin, so I think I may have to bite the bullet and buy a second one, and more of the smaller containers. I have way to many beads in the little plastic baggies they came in from ordering online. (The nice thing about the round stacking containers is that only the beads I want to use are open, not everything in the same container).



Thumbnails of quick photographs of my bead storage containers. The nice thing about the Sterilite bin is that it's just a little bit taller than the Darice containers. And it also has one central handle on the lid for ease of carrying, as opposed to a Rubbermaid bin I have that has handles on the sides. The papers in with the beads are the baggie product labels. I usually cut them off the baggie then set it in with the beads. Makes it easier to order. (These pictures were taken back over the summer, and that's only my beads, not my components and Swarovski elements).

I'm also thinking of opening an online shop for my jewelery. Part of me isn't sure if I want the hassle of it, but I end up making more jewelery than I can wear. Before I do start selling I want to make sure to go over all the tax forms I'd need, so that I have that set first.

Purple Stoneware and Silver Necklace

One of the necklaces I made as a gift, which was given today, so I'm posting pictures. This one started with the purple stoneware beads, and it took awhile for me to decide what to do with them. While looking through my recent purchases, I realized that they looked nice with the silver-plated chain I bought. From there I decided to do some wrapped loops to have some Swarovski crystals with them.

The necklace is 18 inches long, counting the clasp.

Materials:
Stoneware beads
Swarovski 6mm faceted clear rounds
Silver plated twist link chain
Teal jump rings
Silver Plated lobster clasp
Craft wire - probably 22 gauge (Yes, this wire was a gift, and the only labeling the package says is "blue craft wire".)