Simply Shiny Life

I’ve been wanting to mix copper and sterling silver in an industrial feel bangle for a while, but just couldn’t find exactly the right partner. Then these fantastically HUGE coral rondelles made their entrance as the perfect mixed metal cohort.

This bangle is made of yards of sterling silver wire, copper wire, copper tubing, sterling silver round beads, mykonos silver metalicized donuts and red coral rondelles. They all sit happily on a large sterling base, closed by a swirled sterling silver clasp.  It would best fit someone with a wrist of 6 to 6 1/2 inches in diameter.

The price of silver is pretty important to me. When I started making jewelry, it was right around $12 an ounce. Now we’re looking at the $16 to $20 range.

I thought having an instantly updated spot silver chart would be helpful so added one at the bottom of the right hand navigation. Helpful huh? 

Mookaite is a really lovely stone that comes in all sorts of lovely shades. I chose several shapes and sizes in varying colors of red and golden yellow to make this necklace.

The diamond shaped pendant is wrapped in yards of sterling silver wire, and then each stone is carefully attached with sterling wire to the frame and each other.

Another long necklace from me. The chain is about 19 inches, not including the beaded pendant, which adds about another 2 inches to the total length.

The color palette on this one reminds me of a late summer sunset.

Available for sale here and here

When I was a child, my mother always kept dozens of african violets on an antique plant stand near our front door. They cheerfully greeted the sun and any visitors to our house. I had lots of ideas for Earth Day, but somehow I couldn’t get my Mother’s violets far from my thoughts. Unfortunately, I didn’t inherit my Mother’s green thumb. And earthy has never been a title bestown on me. Here’s to hoping my ode to some happy violet memories will elicit a smile and your own happy memories this earth day. And maybe, if I’m lucky, the green thumb gene that skipped me will land squarely on my son.

I really like how these shiny dangly earrings turned out. These artisan wire wrapped earrings owe their purple and green colors to some fantastic iolite and prehnite briolettes, as well as some green shaded tourmaline. All are wrapped up in many many feet of sterling silver wire.

Each earring measures about 2 inches (5 1/2 cm) long, not including the hand made sterling silver ear wire.

In honor of earth day, they are listed in the Wire Artisans Guild Team shop on etsy

Remember the Etsy Street Team Charity Challenge I blogged about?   

The Creative Glass Guild of Etsy (CGGE) and the etsyBEAD Street Team have joined forces for a creative collaboration challenge. CGGE members created create gorgeous glass cabs, beads, and pendants for etsyBEAD members to turn into beautiful pieces of finished jewelry. These pieces were then donated to the Helping Others Street Team (HOST) in order to raise money for those fellow Etsyians in need.

What started as a simple cross-promotion quickly grew into something more, something bigger, and all three teams are so excited about the challenge. This has been a few months in the making, and the results are phenomenal. We love these pieces, and hope you will, too.

In addition to promoting HOST’s cause, we’re giving away small thank you gifts, also donated from members across all three teams. We’re asking Etsy members to visit our blog (http://creativemindsforcharity.wordpress.com) and choose their favorite piece on Wednesday, April 23rd. The poll opens at 12:00am EST on April 23rd, and closes that night at 11:59pm EST, no purchase necessary. Names will be chosen randomly from those that voted, and will be announced on April 24th.

Like one of the pieces? They will be available in the HOST store, http://host.etsy.com, and all of the proceeds will be used to assist fellow Etsy members in need. You can also view the finished pieces in the Creative Minds for Charity Flickr pool

My artisan wire wrapped necklace “1000 Rainy Days Since We First Met” was featured on http://craftheart.blogspot.com/2008/04/april-showers.html .  It has since sold. Coincidence? I don’t know, but it was really nice of Tina to write it up on her blog.

The wrapped umbrella pendant is made from sterling silver and black onyx. The dangling pink heart is wire wrapped sterling silver wire and pink tourmaline rondelles.

Earlier this week, I attended a social styles training session. One of the purposes of the session was to define, at least according to the seminar provider, the four social styles.  Well, and of course, define which of the four styles one’s behavioral preferences and patterns placed one in. Once identified, the seminar went about providing a strategy guide for effectively dealing with other social styles in team and ‘sales’ type situations.

Those of you that know me at all would probably not be the least bit surprised to learn that I fall into the social category of ‘expressives‘.  Key attributes of the expressive social style include spontaneity, talkative nature, opinionated nature, faster pace, competitive nature, impulsiveness and poor discipline when it comes to using time effectively. 

Prior to this session, I had thought of myself as a driver personality, and I think I probably have components of both, but the expressive style, for better or worse for those around me , probably fits the best.

So, what does that mean to me? or to those around me?  I don’t have all the answers yet… but having a bit more self awareness, especially at social impact to others, has been a good thing. Where in the past, I have been at a loss with how to deal with particular personality types, I think I have a better tool set now for identifying how to best approach those folks. Its another kinda liberating thing in a liberating week for me.

I think I’ve found my path..at least my jewelry path.  As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve stopped making items to sell. I’ve returned to only creating things that make me happy. 

Last night I moved quite a few items from ShinyAdornments into my ShinySupplies shop. This will be a good final resting point for both destash supplies as well as an outlet for designs that don’t sell or pieces that don’t really fit into my new theme.

My ShinyAdornments shop will feature mostly one of a kind creations. More wirewrapped than not, but as with any personal endeavor, I reserve the right to create with whatever materials that inspire. It’s liberating, really.

I sat down last weekend and when the dust cleared, had completed a new wrapped necklace and a pair of earrings. I had also started a new bracelet that I finished last night. I’m quite enamored of this earring style, which I hope to have posted this week. I have some gorgeous HUGE peacock pearls calling to me and think they will work quite well with this wire wrapped shape.

Creating jewelry began for me as an outlet for work stress. While I enjoy aspects of the ‘business’ side, I don’t want to lose touch with why I began in the first place. Sometimes the marketing, selling, etc, etc, etc takes over a larger portion of my time than that at my bench.

 Its a journey, right?  And this is my current path.

Look, two treasuries tonight! Woot!

Muchos gracia to JewelryCreations and JealousyDesigns from the JET Etsy Street Team.

So, if you are a geek like me, joined at the hip to her pc, what is one to do when one’s pc goes south? Is it the mother board? Is it the graphics card? No idea…but man, its been tough living without my virtual life support.

In some ways, its been a good break for me as I don’t have the added internet distraction. I’ve finished several chapters of a novel. I’ve watched a couple more television shows. I’ve sketched some ideas for a few wrapped pendants.  I’ve washed a few more loads of laundry that would have normally waited until the weekend. So that can’t be half bad, right?

I think my friends are a bit aghast that I’ve survived this many days. Guess I’m quasi techno resilient.

~~If its not fixed by next week though, I may be singing a different tune.