Welcome to Inside the Studio!
Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you’ll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.
Congratulations bairozan!
You have won a $25 Gift Certificate from Humblebeads.
Please send Heather an e-mail with your information.
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I decided it was time to ease myself back into making jewelry. I usually do the basic pendant on a cord. Since I make the buttons and components I don’t concentrate on creating wearables. I haven’t been making jewelry often enough so I felt a bit uneasy. Working by myself, my darling husband gets to be the one who I ask for opinion on designs.
I started out with a 48″ crepe cord I gotten from Ornamentea years ago. I looked on their website and couldn’t find them any longer. I found this source, Fundamentals, online.
I threaded the cord through a shank back Coil Button.
Tied an overhand knot so the button would stay put in the center of the cord length.
For my clasp/closure I decided I didn’t want to shorten the cord by tying knots and adding bulk. I decided to tightly wrap 24 gauge copper wire around the cord to create the loop for the button to slip through.
I used an anodized aluminum jump ring to attach the pendant to the cord. The loop was fired into to the clay pendant. I was waffling as to whether I should simply leave the necklace plain or adorn it with an assortment of charms and clapperless bells. From the final product above you can see I jumped in and attached groupings of the bells and charm with more copper wire. Some I just used small jump rings to attach them.
I love how the colors of the Pendant and cord go together so well!
Of course I ask my husband what he thought. His response “don’t you think it would have been fine with just the pendant?” Oh well, it’s a start.
*Remember any button can be a pendant or jewelry component.*
My Question is:
Have you started anything new or a re-new/redo?
Leave your answer to the question in the comments
and you could win a $15 Gift Certificate.
Have a great day!!
Feeling Sassy as usual!
Tari Sasser
Shaiha
October 11, 2014 at 3:03 amI have finished up a few designs last Wednesday but they are all for hops so I can't share them yet :(. I have those beautiful puzzle pieces that I got from you in front of me trying to decide just what I want to do with them.
Divya N
October 11, 2014 at 8:02 amCurrently I am recreating versions a mixed media design from my previous collection involving metal sheet, paper, rhinestones and beads for 2 sisters who wanted "similar but different pieces to suit their personalities".
Kathy Lindemer
October 11, 2014 at 1:39 pmI drag my husband into my creations also. He has a good eye for color. He usually ends his comments with, "but I don't know anything about jewelry".
I like how the cord you select goes so well with the pendant. I would have trouble making that type of match!
Veralynne Malone
October 11, 2014 at 1:40 pmI love it with the bangles attached….I think it would have been to plain without it…At least for me! Excellent job!
Katherine Thompson
October 11, 2014 at 1:52 pmI am always rethinking my jewelry especially since I am pretty new at this! I consistently have a pile of re-dos to do. But I like to see my changing self!
haezz
October 11, 2014 at 2:14 pmJust finished a re-do. I'd made a memory bracelet for a dear friend when her dog passed. This was two years ago and I was very new to jewelry making. Long/short, it wasn't made well and a bit dropped off so I created an industrial one that has so much more "her" and her much-missed furkid in it. But I have to fight the urge to re-do everything from my past…lol.
Kristen
October 11, 2014 at 7:18 pmI stopped making jewelry to concentrate on my jewelry supplies but since I've retired, I've started making jewelry again. I'm having lots of fun!
Lynn
October 11, 2014 at 8:22 pmI just redid a necklace that I had just made a few days previously. I kept looking at it and saying to myself "I can do better." And I did. Now I have a necklace on my table that just seems to need something more—hopefully what that is will come to me sometime soon. Love your necklace! 🙂
Becky Pancake
October 12, 2014 at 1:05 amHi Tari, I really like the coin and bell additions to your necklace. They add beautiful texture. Yes I redo and remake things often. I just did three necklaces re-purposing earrings as pendants on two of them and a old button from my mother-in-law's button box as part of the pendant on the third. I am in Jeannie Dukic's Do over challenge next week and I remade one of her necklaces into two new ones but I can't show pics of these yet.
Kristina
October 12, 2014 at 3:28 amI just finished a multistrand bracelet using a shell focal and some seed beads/pearls. It was my first time using my ball pein hammer to make a clasp and it came out quite nicely.
Katherine Thompson
October 12, 2014 at 5:20 pmThat cord is something else! I would have to keep that one myself if I had it. Re-dos are a part o a jewelry makers life. I am always eye balling my art to see if there is a better way, color, bead, length etc…
Erin S
October 12, 2014 at 5:21 pmI always have something I want to "re-do" but almost never do any of them, because I have too many new ideas I want to work on. I also have a number of "false starts" that are new ideas I'm excited about initially, and then either don't follow through or just lose enthusiasm. I'm horrible at actually finishing projects.
Heather Powers
October 12, 2014 at 5:59 pmI like the extra dangles! And I love seeing your work made into jewelry. Thank you for sharing the source for the cording, I've been meaning to look for some more of it!
bairozan
October 13, 2014 at 9:36 amI'm the lucky winner of the previous giveaway and will skip this one, so, please, don't enter me but I'd like to comment anyway 🙂 – love fabric cords, would love to use them some day, the loop idea is so clever and the colors are bright and exotic.
Colleen
October 13, 2014 at 2:58 pmI redo things frequently. It's kind of annoying, actually. But, I've finally started to post things to fb in selling groups, so it is kind of forcing me to stop waffling so much.
Louise
October 14, 2014 at 12:09 pmI'm in the middle of re-doing a necklace I made for my sister several years ago. I decided my crimping wasn't as well done as I would do it now and some of the beads were a bit dated. It's a compromise since she said 'please don't change it'!