May/June Update 1

My craft activities have been hit and miss the last couple months and somehow I never got around to posting anything about them, but I have been doing a few things.  I finally finished a set of four Butterfly collages that I started sometime in 2012. 

As I worked on each collage I improved on the processed I used and was happier with each completed piece. After I finished this set of four, I decided to continue working on this theme idea and prepared four more background canvases for more Butterfly collages.  These backgrounds are again collage on canvas but with paper and paint instead of fabric and paint. I plan to make the butterflies again out of fabric collage layers. 

 

I'm not sure when I'll get around to finishing this second set of collages. Hopefully, it won't be another year from now, but I'll be sure to post something when I complete them.

 

Bracelets

The world is finally green again and I am working a a few different projects. Spring gardening, some quilted fabric patchwork projects, some butterfly collages I started last year, and more wire and bead practice. I have been making some beads out of wire and paper, wire and fabric or just wire. It's all part of my learning and experimental process. I want to embellish some other projects like handmade books or mixed media wall art with bead and wire. I'd also like to make bookmarks, purse charms or key charms. Currently I am making a variety of different bracelets as practice and shown below from newest to oldest.

This bracelet is copper wire and chain with sodalite chips, red coral beads, and red river stone beads:

A bracelet of copper, readline marble beads , and goldstone chip beads:

 

In this is bracelet I used some homemade beads I made from denim or dark blue fabric or denim fabric threads. The fabric beads are wire wrapped with natural and red copper wire. The red bead chips are semi-precious and the butterfly is red stone:

 

These are a few of the bead making experiments I have done.

Variations using pieces of old denin:

Map paper wire wrapped beads:

And assorted wire and bead links:

Finally, I also tried using galvanized steel wire from the hardware store with simple blue glass chips and red glass beads:

 

New Tree of Life

After using up 25 feet of copper wire making the chain in my last post I finally got back to this little project. I experimented combining different gauge and color wire in this piece.

 

Making Chain

I've been practicing making chain from cheap copper wire I got at the hardware store. I love how it is coming out, the weight and feel of it. But I am still perfecting my technique making the links. This I how it looks so far:

This is how the links look. I join them into the chain with two jump rings.

Wire and Bead Experiments

This no longer exists because after finishing it and admiring it for a couple days I decided I wasn't satisfied with it and took it apart. The first problem was that it was too long. When I was making the individual strands I forgot to account for the length of the closure, that I hadn't actually made yet, so I didn't know how long it would be. 

 

The second problem was I didn't like how the center beaded link looked and decided to take it out completely.

 

And finally I decided I would rather use the handmade green bead chain in some other project instead of in this bracelet.  But I learned a few more things along the way and that just makes the next project potentially better.

Never Say Never

I think I said I would not be making jewelry. Well, I went and did it anyway. But I needed something to practice on so I used some beads and wire I had on hand and made this:

Tree of Life

I guess you could say that I am in the initial obsessive stage of learning a new craft. I have been scouring the Internet and print media for information and examples of wire wrapped and beaded art forms. I feel like, and look like, I'm just wasting my time just looking and reading. But I'm absorbing a lot of information, reading about materials and tools, looking at step-by-step instructions, watching videos, deciding what I like and don't like, looking at complex designs and trying to figure out how they did that.

I've seen a lot of examples of the Tree of Life pendent, everything from a six inch sun-catcher to a tiny one inch earring. The first time I saw one I thought I would like to make it but had no clue how to do it. But as usual, all the generous people who share their knowledge on the Internet came to the rescue. I found multiple step-by-step instructions and a few demonstration videos on techniques for making this pendent. The main thing I noticed was that there were two basic ways to approach this project. Once you make your outside ring you either start adding wires at the root and work up to completing the branches or you start at the branches and leaves and work your way down and finish with the roots. I opted for the second method. It seemed to be the easier approach.

And this is my completed first Tree of Life pendent. It's nothing fancy, just copper wire and inexpensive beads. I learned from the experience and plan to do some things differently next time. This design has many possibilities with different choices for wire and beads, or in some cases no beads. The next time I post I will try to include links to some of the sources I came across, but they are not hard to find with a simple search.