Mixing it up! Beads, stone, wire wrapping and caged!

I found the stone in the middle at a shop in the Khan el Khallili on my latest trip to Cairo.  I liked the stone but it is sort of lumpy which makes it a bit hard to set in a ring or pendant.  Of course, I started to have ideas after working with other bead caging efforts.  I felt the stone was too small to be on its own, so I went searching for some turquoise beads in my stash.   I have a lot of fake stuff (good for fun stuff) and I have some real ones too.  It was just a matter of getting a good color match.  These are very close in color with both having the brownish veins.

Caged and wire wrapped . . . half way done!

Done!   

I added some more swirls to hide the connecting wire wrapping around the top of the pendant.

Back view.

Front View.

Lots of new ideas swirling . . . Part Two

After the "Caged Beads" class, I took a "Stacking Rings" class to learn a bit more about the process of soldering.   I liked it so much I signed up for 2 more classes learning about soldering.

Meanwhile, I've been practicing more swirls . . . along with a few other things.

The snowflake obsidian

Showing off the amethyst combined using rose gold wire with the matte rose quartz and some other practice swirls.

After all this swirling, I was looking on Pinterest for shawl pins.   Don't ask me.   I just tangent off on things  . . .  I am a tangential speaker and thinker.   I drive myself crazy sometimes.  This is one reason I try to do so many projects at one time and never finish anything.  Hmmmm, that isn't really true.  I finish lots of things.  

I am working on  a few things using a wire jig (thing-a-ma-jig??).  Now that is interesting too.   I bought this little device a few years back because I wanted to work with wire.  Seems like a good time to pull it out, right??  I have actually used the jig as background  in recent photos for some reason.  It is a metal sheet with holes in it for inserting pegs to form a design.

Instructions I read in a tutorial, said to draw a design on a piece of paper then place it on the jig.   Then insert pegs into the holes following the drawn design.  Following in design, wrap wire around the pegs to obtain the form of the desired object.

I did it twice for practice.  First with a lighter gauge silver craft wire then the heavier gauge copper wire.

After that, I tried a shawl pin design on Pinterest with the moon incorporated. Still a lighter gauge wire for practice.   I think I need a lot more practice but I think it is a good effort except the "stick" to insert in the body of the pin is too short.

More Swirls . . . . 

Lots of new ideas swirling around in my head! Part One.

Speaking of swirls . . . but I am getting ahead of myself . . .  I have been experimenting with wire again.   Wrapping, bending, jigging, rolling.   I need to try some weaving soon. Maybe today as I have a tutorial pulled up.  Yes, I have been on Pinterest saving lots of ideas along with looking through all those books I bought. Books are a great resource that I always turn to for ideas.

Then I decided to take a class (Caged Beads) in March at my favorite bead shop in Dallas (Beads of Splendor) to get back into the swing of wire work.  In anticipation, and in my usual over enthusiastic fashion, I bought several candidates for the class from the shop then went to The Rock Barrel near my house.  

This group includes 3 different versions of amethyst ( geodes and polished stones -  I love amethyst), jade, blue tiger eye, snowflake obsidian, moss quartz, lapis (I went back to get more of this), agate, matte rose quartz.

 I also pulled out some polished fossils I brought back from Morocco (2016) with the idea of making jewelry.

Here are 2 of the candidates that actually made it through the class and were all wrapped up.  These were gifted to relatives but I have more to wrap.  I love amethysts and so do they!

I need to show you another angle on the amethyst bead.   Back to the idea of the swirls . . . because they are on the top.

Learning how to make the swirls gave me an idea for wrapping one of the fossils. Not too bad.  It was snatched up by my brother's GF even while I was explaining its faults.   I dropped it and broke off the tip which isn't obvious as I positioned swirls around the pointy end.  I tried to display more of the fossil part while building a cradle that will hold it.