Long overdue post full of ear cuffs

Posted on July 16, 2010 by J. Feathersmith

I seem to have a bit of breathing space, so I am catching up. ZOMG TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY.

So.

Have some ear cuff photos!

Love the simple shape. Need to redo this to fit right.

It all started so simply.

: And it fit!

Then there was a variation. With a bead.

Several feather/leaf ear cuffs, all slightly different

And then there were more. (These are just some of the non-rejects.)

Ear cuffs in a row. Silver with feather; brass with beads (and without

A favorite pair.

Ear cuff with thinner wire wrapped around it, making a vining look.

Adding some thin wire wrapped around the main frame added some additional viney leafy bits.

Ear cuffs with multiple, layered leaf shapes

A friend suggested wrapping some excess wire back up the shape, and creating layered leaves. Needs a little refining (I dislike the indentation along the edge), but I really like the layered look.

With bonus not-ear cuff wire work:

Wire necklace made from "weaving" wire together.

This was inspired by the wire mesh I made for the sink, as well as Elise Matheson's fabulous necklace-crowns.

WordPress hates when I try to put links in captions, apparently, so let’s try that again: here is Elise’s blog (go find “new shinies” and “shiny sale” posts for jewelry goodness); here are photos of a necklace-crown.

I made a fish!

Posted on July 16, 2010 by J. Feathersmith

And who could stop with just one? Not me.

A shark, ray, and several other fish made from wire

For scale, the sheets of paper behind the fish are 11x17.

Unlike the birds, I decided to twist the two ends of the wire together to make a single wire to stick into the ground. Partly because I can’t have two wires, imitating legs, and partly because trying to get two different pieces of wire into the ground at the same kind is annoying.

I posted more pictures of the wire birds on Flickr. Like this one:

Early in the season, pansies and daffodils and other miscellanous plants help hide the little bird.

A different kind of project

Posted on June 25, 2010 by J. Feathersmith

If you’ve been stalking me elsewhere, this won’t be news, but all of my project time for the last month or so has gone into getting Artisan’s Asylum up and running. I predict this will remain the case for the near future, too.

I did the design for the website (CSS, OMG you seem so simple at first BUT NO) – which got me toying with the idea of creating actual entire themes for my own blogs, but . . . well, why? – have helped out with space planning (Revit, whee!), and even committed Art in the name of painting the walls.

I should upload a picture of that.

Anyway. It has consumed most of my available thinking and doing stuff time. And it has been fun! And it will be even more awesome when all the preliminary setup is done! But I would like to get back to those abandoned piles of lovely stone beads, and my order of wire from McMaster.

And the garden. Oh dear, the garden. It’s looking a bit jungle-like out there, and the tomatoes need supports built.

And because I have nothing else going on in July (HA. HA.), I signed up for a clothing making class – Form-Fitting Clothing Design – so that will be fun! I’ve been looking for an excuse to make a dress dummy for some time. And get shirts that fit me right!

I made a bird!

Posted on May 10, 2010 by J. Feathersmith

Bird silhouette made from wire, ready to be stuck in the ground

I can’t entirely remember where the idea came from, but a few days ago I started thinking that I could probably make bird silhouettes using the 19 gauge stainless wire I have around, and use them to mark where some of my plants are. Especially the bulbs, which are starting to go dormant. I already made some other plant markers using 14 gauge (?) wire, but that’s rather hard to work with compared to this thin stuff; I can work the thin wire mostly by hand.

The previous plant markers are spirals and loops and things, and I am bored with them, and I like birds, so, a couple rough sketches of birds were enough to get me started, and then as I was bending it, it took the final shape.

Sketches for wire birds; wire-bending tools

Serious tools for serious wire, plus sketches

I very nearly grabbed my good jewelry-making tools, but remembered in time to go get the normal tools, because they can handle steel wire without being harmed.

Silhouette of a bird; the shapes behind it are sketches for a necklace on another piece of trace paper

Sketch of a bird silhouette. Very cute. I think this one will be next.

Now I am thinking of ways to suspend a piece of beer can, cut in a wing shape, inside the silhouette; the aluminum is soft enough to “write” on (make an impression, really) with a ballpoint pen, so the wing could serve as a plant label. I’d probably need to add more wire (maybe thinner gauge) to suspend the wing/label, and that might ruin the lines a bit. We shall see.

Oh! While I am thinking about it: this weekend I (re)added a couple of ways to subscribe to the blog, meaning, get an annoying email letting you know an update has occurred; the options are in the right column here on the main blog, but they will not show up in the syndicated feed on LJ. The Add to Any button will also let you get an update through about a million zillion other ways, too, in addition to email (Netvibes, um, uh, stuff). At the present time, the update email will only send a short excerpt from the post, not the whole thing.

Pretty beads

Posted on March 13, 2010 by J. Feathersmith

I saw these lovely glass beads in one of the local craft stores (Playtime in Arlington).

Pretty pretty beads, with colors like an oil rainbow.

I kept thinking about them as “peacock beads,” because of the sort of eye shape of the color splotches, and the rainbow look of the colors, even though they aren’t peacock colors at all. Depending on the angle of the light, some of the colors are either pink OR green. Iridescence! Awesome.

Then I was waiting for a bus yesterday, watching what was going on around me, and realized what bird they really resemble:

Pigeon (aka rock dove) picture from flickr user TexasEagle

Browsing Flickr to find pigeon pictures, because I have none, I found an even more accurate color comparison:

Nicobar pigeon picture from Flickr user ucumari

Originally, I made a really simple necklace by just string the beads together on some black cord, but I’m not completely fond of it. The beads kind of swivel around when I wear it, and I think they will look better with some sort of spacer. I found something appropriate, but haven’t rebuilt the necklace yet (also I am torn between a simple beads-on-cord approach, or threading the beads on wire, and linking wired beads together).