Mixed-Media Bracelets?

So lately I've been thinking (and the thought won't leave my mind) -- I rarely wear bracelets anymore (except for my awesome geisha charm bracelet that I traded to a customer for some item descriptions), because I spend my day writing and typing and digging in the dirt and it's a very rare bracelet that doesn't impede my work. However, I love the look of a big, rattly, gorgeous bracelet (not a cuff, a bracelet-bracelet).

I also have a whole lot of single-strand bracelets that I've made to sell from a bowl at shows ... and have never sold a single one in person.


Lots of 5 at a great low price available here.

Since those are adjustable bracelets made with nice beads, here's my plan: I'll add one to three strands to the original (parallel, wrapped, or braided), then secure a cluster of unbreakable/break-resistant charms, buttons, and beads to the lobster clasp so that both sides (strands and clasp) can serve as a focal element.

Some methods I'd like to try:

1. Braiding some of my massive overstock of vintage pendant chain to make up a strand (this may be too stiff; we'll see).
2. Strips of cloth/lace/ribbon secured to a base cord with a wrapping of fine wire, as shown in winter's Belle Armoire Jewelry.
3. Leather cord -- which I've never done a thing with, ever, and feel a vague responsibility to try.
4. A wirework element making up one strand.
5. Interactive elements, like sliding beads and similar worry stones.
6. Handmade wire chain (another Belle Armoire project I've been itching to try).
7. A chain made of two-hole buttons (which shouldn't be too fragile if it's not especially load-bearing).

Instant Vintage

Available here.

What is it about this color combination that screams "vintage"?

I mean, naturally the color of the large plastic/resin buttons is very vintage -- I generally refer to that shade as "60's peachy pink," though from a quick consultation of that ever-handy resource, Wikipedia's list of colors by shade, I suppose technically it's coral.  (Random side note -- I'm that weird genetic anomaly, a colorblind female, so I can't actually distinguish a strong orange from a true red.  I have to ask M for a judgment of harmony if I'm designing in reds or greens, and it's made putting together the Mixed Media Packs for Ballet Llama something of an adventure.)

Anyway.  It's not the muted coral hue I'm referring to, but the combination of it with black.  Pink with black always looks either vintage awesome or modern tweeny "rock star" bleh to me, but this is a particular combination that M and some of my coworkers reacted to in the same manner.  Maybe it's the blue-black jet hue of the blacks that's doing it; that's also a very vintage-feeling color.

This, incidentally, is also one where I bit the bullet and included a photo on black, which may or may not have actually been a good idea:


But it looked too bizarre with black at the edges and white in the middle, and this gives a truer idea of the variation among the buttons, so this was the only way to make the contrast work.

In general, these aren't great photos. I'll need to rework the cropping, I think, and try for a deeper focus.

But hey, check out those great 1960s flapper-style rose beads!

As a matter of interest ...

While my suppliers are trying to calm everyone, the laws of supply and demand would indicate that turquoise prices are going to hit the roof again like they did in the 1980s.  China is going to be dramatically slowing its production of turquoise rough -- a couple of sources are suggesting that that country's output may fall by as much as 75%.


Available here.

While this is no doubt exaggerated, it has some interesting implications.  A lot of turquoise miners are going to lose their jobs -- but the loss of life in mining should slow too.  The environment around some of the turquoise mines should improve.

And as for what this will do in the jewelry industry ... well, turquoise was recently a Pantone Color of the Year, and it is still exceedingly popular, since it fits both the fruity jelly-bean shades that are in everything this year and the dustier ones predicted for next summer.  As the prices rise, we may see a surge in substitutes, like dyed or undyed howlite, which pleases me -- I much prefer howlite.  Turquoise may be found in fine jewelry more often than casual jewelry by the end of this decade -- as it becomes priced as a luxury, it may be paired with sterling, gold, and precious stones more often than leather, fiber, and bone.  That could conceivably redefine tribal/ethnic-inspired jewelry styles.

This will be interesting to see!

Unrelatedly, I am sick.  I do this every year, but usually I manage to weather it before the school year begins.  However, it's possible my body is still on California scheduling (UCR starts in late September) and thinks it's got plenty of time to be ridiculous.

A Little Grin

In the description for the earrings below, I actually used the one really cool thing I learned from the Etsy writing workshop: Using a quick, unusual story to explain damage to a vintage item.



Sold!

To wit: "The two large pearl beads have slightly different shades and imperfections (I like to imagine it comes of their being worn by a dangerous gang of flapper girls for a famous faux pearl heist), but this is barely visible and what can be seen only enhances the vintage feel of the earrings."


It's always nice when something you wrote makes you smile a little later on.  I got this feeling from the descriptions of some of the stick incenses for my current Elance client, too.  It's a high, like suddenly realizing that the beads are falling into an additional pattern you didn't even plan but which is perfect.  Flipping over a pancake to find you've judged just right and it's wholly fluffy, and melt-in-your-mouth gold.  Or perfectly executing a martial arts form.

Huh?

Two mystifying pieces of feedback we received recently on Ballet Llama recently:


"Item much nicer than expected."


"haven't seen them yet, I know I will like them."

...
So ... um ... vintage beads and findings from Ballet Llama are so nice that you'll be able to tell how high-quality they are before they arrive! ... even when you're ... expecting not to like them at all?

Man, I'm supposed to be the expert and I have no idea how to spin this.

Thanks to the relevant customers for their purchases and their lovely feedback, even though it confused me.  <3

Turning the evil eye, or, Multicultural beads! Yay!

My favorite big-box wholesaler recently (and by "recently" I of course mean "four or five months ago") put up an interesting article which is a brief discussion of the history of "eye" beads in multiple cultures, including African and Arabian ones. Great resource for those doing multicultural steampunk, as I find that steampunk designs are often at their best when their cultural affiliation and their salvaged nature, if any, are subtle and harmonious parts of the design. After reading it, I'm thinking of working some agate eyes into one of my "steamsonae."

I've gotten some excellent evil-eye pendants in the recent past from Lorienna on Etsy. The items come from Ankara, but I've found her remarkably speedy, and the evil-eye glass items are handmade in Turkey:


And a weird pair of earrings for your pleasure:

Available here.

Tribal Done Right

I highly recommend that readers with an interest in ethnic-style jewelry check out the Flickr photostream of Anita Quansah London, a "designer to the stars" whose work actually completely thrills me.



Her designs are exquisite; unconventional and deconstructed in their unexpected shapes, with interesting different manners of draping to adorn more than the expected parts of the body, with a beautiful use of shells and other natural/traditional materials that is both very true to the "roots" of bodily adornment and beautifully joined with more modern materials.  Her pieces combine couture and warrior looks and are just generally stunning.

Additionally, the description on the second piece, here, is a splendid example of describing this style of jewelry without being over-the-top.  She identifies what people inspired her work -- the Masai in Kenya and Nigeria -- and makes strong but not offensive connections between ethnic traditions and modern needs -- the relationship between the use of body ornament to establish identity in various folkways and the fierce, feminine draping design of the jewelry pieces themselves.  In this way she establishes "story" and makes the jewelry feel more "ethnic" or "tribal" without ever having to resort to overusing the cliche, sometimes-offensive style names.

Most inspiring drinky things

So, do you think the folks at the Jelly Shot Test Kitchen would mind if I turned everything they've ever photographed into a pair of earrings or a pendant?


Admire these fruity beauties!  The depth of field in this photo is just stunningly handled.  The gorgeously casual, utterly perfect tumbled look could probably be replicated with various sizes of Swarovski Cosmic Freeform Diamonds, dice beads and Simplicity cut beads:






The fruity shades and the very organic look of the skewers in these Watermelon Basil Martini Jelly Shots could be replicated with a stack of varying shapes of frosted resin and polymer clay, plus a messy, twisted spiral headpin in plastic-coated or nylon-coated wire.


These are their mimosa shots, glossy and tempting in this well-styled photo, and the minute I saw them, I thought that I could mimic that exactly with ball-end headpins worked into spirals (or, heck, just wire) supporting a stack of three lentil-shaped beads, maybe a lemon quartz or a nice glass, spaced with squares of thin yellow fabric.

Some recent photos with nice lighting

A couple of recent photos I've been very proud of, but which are of things in the Ballet Llama shop:


Magnetic hematite 8mm beads, available here.



Hand-sculpted polymer clay rose pendant, available here.


Retro plastic alphabet beads, available here.

Getting good photos is definitely harder on a saturated-color background, but I'm pleased with the lighting and cropping in these!

The glory that was Rome

A necklace heavily inspired by Gradiva, the novella by Wilhelm Jensen based on a Roman bas-relief; the artwork and book jointly inspired some of Freud's ideas about fetish and a Dali painting.

Here's my interpretation:

Available here.

The cameo is a vintage glazed ceramic piece I've had for donkey's years, worked into one of my nest-type bezels.  When I'm making those I'm always convinced they're not working, but they almost always do ...  The wirework on the chain is not just decorative, but secures the connections between the chain and the beading in a graceful, textural manner.

Cameos are an old art form.  In the pre-industrial age, cameos were not the molded-resin pretties we are familiar with today, but were hand-carved from ivory, shell or stones.  There is some (possibly apocryphal) record of Alexander the Great presenting his Persian lover, Bagoas, with a ring containing a portrait cameo of himself carved in chalcedony.  You can still find some natural-material cameos, like these black lip shell examples, but hand-carved ones are rarer than ever.
More on cameos, plus multiculturalism in Victorian accessories, on Monday!

Things that M hates

The most "statementy" statement piece I've ever made, which I decided, after consideration, to actually relist now, because I still really like it:


Available here.

People either love this or hate it.  It's very "tribal," though the word still bothers me.  I love how you can see the texture in the lustrous coral daggers, though it dates from before I decided I'd only buy coral as responsibly-collected focals.  I'm fond of the pyrite and chose the clearest carvings for this piece, though it does apparently weather significantly.  I did once have someone at UCR ask if I could do a long one with a few of the coral sticks for a man.  I should probably still do that; I have some beads that look like peach pits and African trade beads that these would blend well with, and it is right about time to start marketing summer items.

Colorways

Sometime in the last few months I read an article or blog post, which I cannot now locate, in which a jewelry artist mentioned having found a thrift-store copy of a book called something like Color Combinations for Oil Painters which she regularly used in her design process.

Longtime readers will be able to predict that I was a little mystified by this for a moment, because I am a Bad Artist, or at any rate one who apparently functions a little differently from most.  After some thinking, I realized that most of this is a result of my style: I generally construct around a focal, so the combination of colors I should use is in front of me and it's a simple matter of finding surrounding shades -- I can't remember the technical name for them; the shade and tint or highlight/lowlight of a particular hue, and I know there's a name for that.  It's like if I had a focal that was orange and leaf green I would select beads in blood orange and canteloupe, forest and mint to set it off nicely.

Anyway.  Even when I'm doing without focals or creating my own, I generally work from a "character" or a "concept" or a "story" (I am leery of these terms, and thus place them in scare quotes) rather than a color combination.  I make jewelry for the characters in manga I read, I dream up jewelry to go with suggested wedding themes in design blogs I run across, I pick leftover beads out of the cups in my bead board and make something with those to avoid sorting them back, I imagine my earrings based on the hairstyle they'd suit or what color M has complained about not having enough of lately.  I can come to the bead board thinking "Okay, aqua, brown and olive," as I did with this (older) piece:



But that's a challenge.  I suppose that means I should be doing it more.  But it's much more natural for me to start picking stuff out while my brain repeats "a dragonfly that landed in a glass of iced lemonade" (yes, really; I didn't have enough crystalline yellows for that one to work) or "Mempis city rain" or "that minute when they first come into Rivendell in The Fellowship of the Ring."  This is really just another part of my love affair with words: Color names are more inspiring to me than color shades.

If there happens to be any other designer like me, I have found this a handy resource: Randall Munroe's color survey worked out how people name various web colors -- sorted by colorblindness and sex-at-birth.

Other than that, I resolve that sometime this month I am going to take one of those jewelry color-choice tools and actually use it for an actual piece of jewelry.  So there, brain.

So there.

Mixed media materials

A couple of fun things I picked up last month at Two Gather Beads, our awesome local place:

The long spirally ovals are hand-painted leather rolls from Peru. The dark red and purple one will be joining some vintage buttons, a textured copper chain, and those hemp-wrapped rings behind it to become a big crazy mixed-media bracelet. The light green one -- I'm not quite sure. It kinda wants to be on one side of a multistrand necklace with the beaded strands all pulled through it.  I'm not sure I have the patience for this, though.  At any rate, the dark red-brown stripe look surprisingly good with leftover Swarovski Bordeaux crystal pearls. 

At the back: Navy Czech glass with this interesting AB effect that appears to have been applied through mesh.  It could go elegant or very industrial.  It will probably end up being part of something for M's next steampunk dress, one of the ones for Octavia: a pale blue velvety bustle gown with a darker blue polonaise, 1870s, with optional leather work apron.  In that capacity it will be joining another awesome find: mixed goldstone, which I found at the Artist's Market and Bead Store in the French Quarter.  The store, with its great selection and awesome proprietor, highly and thoroughly recommended; and some of the things I found there (including the mixed goldstone, which has exquisite desert streaks of dark gold and midnight blue with that stunning goldstone sparkle) I've never seen anywhere else before or since.

Odd lighting in that photo, no?  It was getting late and I ended up using the flash, which one really ought not; it oversaturates the colors and gives a slight film-grain effect.  On anything shiny, you get a line of bright white -- and just as you can lighten a dark photo but not darken a bright one, there's no making flash-flare on beads go away.  Ever.  You can see it on the leather even though it's satin at best.  And the leaves lying around were pinched off my flowering kale when they went crispy.  What would I do without fallen plant bits to stage photos?  Answer: not stage them.  But staging is such fun, even when it's a just a look-what-I-got photo.

I dream in black and burgundy

My customer's wedding was at the end of February, so time to show off the jewelry I made for her party!

Her earrings, wire-wrapped 14k gold fill with a hand-brushed finish.  I'd never actually done a brushed finish, so I allowed myself an hour or two to devote to learning the technique on inexpensive wire, and purchased a nice fine wire brush and file set.  I soon discovered that: (a.) it's really easy, and (b.) five minutes and a sanding block works better and looks better.  We live and learn.



I'm contemplating making up a tutorial for those.  Look for it at the beginning of April!

The bracelets were three-strand Bordeaux Swarovski pearl and black onyx with pewter toggle clasps and silver-plated charms made of crystal pearls with bead caps.
Lessons learned here:
(a.) Get the wrist measurements before ordering the supplies -- I think this customer may have gone handmade partly because she couldn't find anything ready-made to fit her very small bridesmaids.  I have a bunch of extra pearls.  But this is okay because I also learned:
(b.) Allow "wiggle room" in your pricing for stuff to sell out two minutes before you place your order.  That is not the originally planned clasp.  And I had to get the 6mm pearls much more expensively from Beadaholique when Fire Mountain Gems sold out of them since they were having a sale.
The clasp: an adventure.  I highly recommend this shop and this one for supplies; neither of them were selling multiples of the clasp, but they were both very prompt in telling me so!

I couldn't resist doing "vintage" styled shots of the jewelry.  This is the "winter" version, styled with browned leaves of flowering kale -- I desaturated, soft-focused and upped the dynamic color range for a sense of time and nostalgia:



And here's the "warmer" version, half-sepia-filtered, graduated-tinted, and soft-focused after styled with a litter of the deadheads from my apricot violas, for a sense of nostalgia, the warm blush of the beautiful and impermanent:


Pruning makes for great props. Also, I definitely want to do some more sanding of metal for the nice matte finish. 

The total of the jewelry was five bracelets and a pair of earrings: all in all, a good-sized commission, though if I hadn't been custom-sizing each one and thus redesigning a little, I'd have naturally gone stark raving mad on bracelet four.  But as it was, getting the same design with varying wrist sizes was an interesting challenge.  Much fun!

The "creative spirit" and the right to be moody

Every few days, I realize again what a small and colorless thing my life was in those three months devoid of both beading and Megan.

I tend to be slightly annoyed with myself upon this realization (once I get done being pathetically grateful to the people who made it possible for that period to be only one quarter year long) because it bothers me when people talk loftily about how creation makes their soul take wing and they only know peace when making things.  I am not that sort of person.  As an illustration, I spent the last few days teaching myself to use GIMP for absolutely no utility by making a set of classic emo-kid Lord of the Rings Livejournal icons with Abney Park lyrics -- in, naturally, an ironic and self-aware manner.  For those hours of fighting with the text-layer editor, I knew creative peace, and there was absolutely nothing lofty or meaningful about it.

(Conclusion: Among free programs, Picasa really is your best bet for the basics of organizing and screwing around with the highlights.  Also for adding text on non-busy backgrounds, but don't think you're getting drop shadows or anything special.  Strictly business.  GIMP is great fun but better for arty noodling around than businesslike photography.  Though it made great banners and icons ... more on this later.)

Anyhow.

The problem with that whole Creative Spirit attitude is that it eliminates the right to be in a bad mood.  You're left feeling guilty about your work: "I shouldn't bead!  I'm angry!  Hypnotically soothing as it is to slip the wire through the little holes again and again and again, I mustn't, because all the people who look and sound like Artists say that the best work comes when you are in a spiritually nurtured, well-organized physical and mental space."

Maybe I'd be a more successful designer if I could talk myself into the colorfully Inspired mood, but I can't.  I don't.  I am a person who screws around on the Internet for hours on end and beads when I'm depressed, except when I can't, and loves demotivational posters to distraction.  Sometimes it's not a matter of Being An Art Jewelry Designer.  Sometimes it's a matter of picking some stuff that looks nice together and beading until you're relaxed -- and maybe if you've got a pretty good eye for stuff that goes together the resulting stuff is pretty and saleable stuff.

Coming soon: a collection of my favorite wincingly bad story-jewelry sayings.

Have an unrelated picture of a memory bracelet!

Available here.

Fabric pearls through the ages

This is my fact for the day.  Not something you often think about ... fabric imitations of pearls. It's an interesting little fashion meme through history.

These are Japanese cotton pearls, from this NOS Etsy seller, whose prices are remarkably okay:


Photo copyright J.A. Hershberger.

Cotton pearls were made in the 1920s and are literally made of very tightly wound cotton thread with a nacre coating.

During the Victorian age, the finest evening toilettes might be accented with chenille balls, embroidered onto the fabric or strung in imitation of ropes of pearls:


Image from an 1870's Harper's Bazar, reproduced in Stella Blum's awesome book of plates.

All the round beading you see is chenille.  The effect was often quite luxurious and medieval-looking.

This does mean that soft fuzzy balls are perfectly acceptable for steampunk designs, historically speaking.  Hm.

So that would be today's unusual historical fashion thingy, for no better reason than that I've been thinking about imitation pearls what with the Swarovski I'm working with of late ... I like how they feel!  The weight of pearls is really hard to mimic, but those are heavy and weighty and rich running through your hands.  This is why I always let people pick up my jewelry at shows all they like:  I like my jewelry heavy, with the sole exception of earrings.  It makes me perceive it as more valuable.  Is this uncommon?

Sketching, for a given value of sketching

Still in a haze of trying to get the business going again, so a quick post today.  But here are the "sketches" for my current custom order, a pair of earrings and some bridesmaid-and-flower girl bracelets for a vintage-Hollywood-glamour-style wedding where the colors are black and burgundy and the bride will be wearing this lovely gown in silver and pale gold:

The designs will probably be in silver-plated pewter with black onyx and Bordeaux Swarovski crystal pearls.

And yes, this is how I "sketch" for almost all my custom orders.  I'm a pretty fair artist, as long as I don't try to draw feet, but I find it easier for both the client and I to see what I'm trying to show them given clear differentiation and being able to type into the sketch.

Custom order hinge plate necklace

The first version:


And the second:


The only major change is that the embellished clay bead from version one was replaced with the cool mustardy button in version two. It lies better and I think the one pop of bright yellow-gold balances nicely with the two more mellow brushed golds on the other side. I'm especially happy with how subtly the metal tones of the findings (new) and the chains (one new, one vintage) complement one another. It's also really long, which is different for me -- 28 inches and adjustable down. So it's now off to Australia. Great fun!

Style contemplations once again!

Today, I was setting out to do something with my shop announcement on Etsy that would give people some framework to experience the stuff I make.  As I'm sure I've said before, my style is sort of all over the place and you have to view a couple dozen pieces before you see the common threads.

I wound up with "Here you'll find handmade jewelry in an eclectic style that includes organic freehand wirework, found objects and (mostly) symmetrical glass-bead designs. Steampunk assemblage and bright vintage-inspired pieces are my particular forte."

*inspects it*

That looks pretty accurate to me, right?  "Vintage-inspired" is such a vague term that it does pretty easily net everything that's not covered by "steampunk assemblage," "organic freehand wirework" or "found objects," right?  Of course, I just wrote an article explaining why people shouldn't use blanket terms, but I was talking about individual descriptions.

Other style elements I contemplated noting but tossed out:

Medium-length earrings.  I don't make a lot of short ones but these are the longest I've ever made, bar the ones intended for belly dancers, like the tassels and those sweet shell and pewter leverbacks I made for M's tribal-gothic-fusion outfit for the Azkatraz ball last year, which were eight inches long and laid on her lovely collarbones.

Available here.

These are more standard for me, though still a little longer than average:


Available here.

My fondness for brass and copper.  It's still unfashionable to genuinely like these.  This is partly because everyone is now convinced that they are allergic to everything.  That's not actually the case.  Unfortunately, antique and gunmetal brass treatments do contain enough nickel to irritate some people -- but usually that's not the case in a necklace or bracelet.  I had to (stop reading if you are, M) have a crown replaced a couple of years ago and the dentist called in his entire staff to show them what a really severe nickel allergy inflammation in the mouth looks like.  I wear nickel-containing brass treatments all the time.  I just can't handle them as earwires for lengthy periods.

I'm not saying people aren't really allergic to jewelry metals.  It happens.  It's just that everyone thinks they are and it's really not the case for many of them. 

More to the point, I like brass and copper.  They weather beautifully.  All metals tarnish, people, with the sole exception of gold.  All of the metals.  All of them.  The copper-brass-gunmetal spectrum does so with a beautiful old-world grace that, in my opinion, is better than looking like it was just made forever.


I do, however, use a germanium sterling on my coral and such, because I don't want my white coral branches to stain.

Sparkle!  This is weird, because most of the other designers I really like oxidize the shit out of everything.

Really bizarre interpretations of other styles.  Even if I try to do Southwestern or Cutesy Chic or Meaningful Assemblage or something, it all comes out looking like me playing with elements of those styles.  And there's no way to put that in a description without sounding like a narcissist ("Tee hee, I'm SO unique!!!") but, on balance, I think that's something to be proud of.


And a final note.  I didn't set out to do any of this.  It just happened to be the way in which I do things.  Maybe that's my early materials influencing everything else I've ever done, maybe it's that the beads and components I pick contribute to it, maybe I'm influenced by my grandmother's crazy 60's jewelry she let me wear, but -- all those "develop your style" posts had nothing to do with this.  So anyone who's landed here by Googling "how to develop a personal jewelry style" or some such -- just do it.  It happens this way.

But if you're like me you'll have to make a blog post three years later before you get a firm idea of what your style is.

This is me killing time.

I am killing time because M's plane lands in four hours.  What should I blog about?

*bouncebouncebounce*

Oh, here's something:  I bloody hate add-a-link charm bracelets.  They steal business from actual handmade businesses, most of whom would be happy to make you a real custom charm bracelet -- often cheaper than the Pandora or Troll or Biagi bracelets in jewelry stores -- because people think that choosing from a selection of a hundred and fifty charms makes them "unique."  People, they're not.  They're really not.

I'll make a reluctant exception for stuff like this:

Photo copyright killerbeedz1.

See, that's neat.  And different.  Handmade one-of-a-kind Pandora beads still have a chance at being awesome, and at a significant discount from the factory ones.

Here, this is an awesome time-killing game.  My high score is 3300.  What's yours?

Oh, hey, shop the Stocking Stuffer Sale in my shop!


Available here, here, here, and here.