Coiled Coils

This was one of the projects, that were not properly planned in advance, where I didn't know what I was looking for and just experimented and went with the flow...

It's one of my older works that I never saw worthy putting on the blog (that was until somebody bought it:) - please note that all the coiling was done before I discovered the "Coiling Gizmo".

Copper Bangle with Ceramic Bead (Variation to an Old Design)

A friend of mine recently saw this older design of mine and liked it a lot, but wanted the same thing done as a bangle. So I dived into my stash of beads (do you remember how Scrooge McDuck used to dive in his money in Duck Tales? Yep, that's what it looked like:) and found another of the Ceramic beads that I used a lot with copper.








So with the exact bead (can a human fall in love with a bead? Because that's what the friend of mine said about the bead and I was worried I didn't have any left...) I had no excuse not to try a different twist on the same design:

So I posted the bangle in my Etsy shop and tadaaa - SOLD! (Well to this friend and nobody else, of course!)

Briolette Wrap Tutorial from Eni Oken

My computer is still in a coma, so I cannot post any new pictures. But I don’t want to leave my blog asleep, like I did already once! Well, isn’t this a great time to share some wonderful teachers with you?
I have mentioned this wonderful website already a few times:
http://www.jewelrylessons.com/
Go have a look, if you didn’t do it yet! I urge you! If you want to learn something new, if you want to get inspired, have a question about jewellery-making (and sometimes not only that:) and if you want to share your work with other inspired artists, you HAVE to go there, just HAVE TO!

Eni Oken is a great self-taught jewellery artist, who has a lot of knowledge to share. Together with other selling artists she is the patron of http://www.jewelrylessons.com/. You can buy tutorials for some amazing projects, but some tutorials are for free – and here is one of the free ones, from Eni Oken - Briolette Wrap:



Here is the link: http://www.jewelrylessons.com/tutorial/briolette-wrap
Although you have to be a registered member of the site, don't worry - registering is for free. You can only gain!

Are you really still reading this blog entry? Go to http://www.jewelrylessons.com/!

I Think You Know...

...what is my favourite technique so far... how many Herringbone project have I finished so far???

But to be fair, as a beginner I cannot ask for a more effective yet very easy technique.

This is a bangle made for my mum - she got a pair of copper earrings and wanted something matching.

Detail of the clasp:

Simply Red (Very Looong Earrings)

Coiling two twisted wires resulted in pretty loooong earrings, that I have adorned with some Indian and Czech beads.

BTW, I like long earrings - that's why...

Copper Frame with Amber

Once upon a time there was a beautiful copper wire-wrapped frame.
http://designbymisa.blogspot.com/2009/02/copper-pendant-project-in-progress.html

Misa couldn't bring herself to finish it. There were so many ideas and so many designs... and so many ways to spoil the frame.





Sometimes the simplest solution is the best solution. I didn't want to over-combine the design, didn't want to play with colours and -------- of course, I didn't want to regret the outcome.


I am really still not sure if this was the best I could do with the copper frame, but I'm satisfied that it is at least finished, it just seemed like a waste having the frame and thinking too much about it.

And Now You Don't Have To Imagine The Earwires!

I don't know if you've been waiting to see how these earrings would look like when finished, but I can assure you I was waiting for my package full of beads (and copper findings) like craaaazy! I have made a few other pairs of earrings with copper, but I didn't have any copper earwires and I was feeling like this shouldn't really be happening to me. I am missing one thing and it's stopping me from finishing a project.

So I have ordered not only the earwires, but also some headpins and different gauges of wires so I am 'covered'...

And the earrings? To remind you what they looked like:

And this is what they look like now!!!

Coiled Chain with Red Bead Pendant

My new coiled chain got its first use - a horseshoe shaped pendant with a few wired details: coiled beads in the links, glass bead, hammered wire paddles and wrapped citrine bead.

Coiled Handmade Chain

I have created a few pendants with the photo transfers, but I really didn't know what to "hang" them on... I didn't want to jusy hang them on a silver chain - that would be too easy, maybe good looking, but not as HANDMADE as I would have imagined.
So I had to come up with a chain I could make. I have tried the figure-8 chain previously (http://designbymisa.blogspot.com/2009/01/handmade-chain.html) and I was still looking for something more ornate...
That was the day I was coiling like crazy:
I just thought 'there must be a way to connect the coils'.... and this is what came out of it:

For The Love of Coils

This is my first try at coiled coils. I like the look of the coils (handmade, by the way - I yet have to get the coiling gizmo!) and I will definitely try more designs with them.
Here I have combined steel wire, antiqued silver spacers, seed beads and a firepolished bead to add more red to make the seed beads pop.

Detail of closure: