Lampwork in All Its Moods

I love lampwork beads although calling some of the lampwork I've seen merely "beads" seems an understatement. Take the lampwork beads in the bracelet above. An amber-opal (my term) colour takes the form of a gorgeous flower bead and little "ruffled" nugget beads. Beads such as these are a joy to work with! These are by Lynn Nurge, a Texas beadmaker (hmmm...wonder what there is about Texas that makes for such great lampwork artists?). I accented the lampwork with Copper Crystal large Swarovski crystal beads and sterling silver. The bracelet reminds me of the wrist corsages that young girls wear (used to wear?) to the prom.
The next lampwork bracelet is made with some very, very nice etched lampwork beads in black and silvery-gray. With sterling silver and Silver Shadow Swarovski crystals (large Cosmic crystal and rounds about 10mm), it has a decidedly cool feel to it (good because once again the temperature was over 100 F today - a trip to the post office left me dry and drained!).
******To my readers in Finland, Estonia, and Norway - are you making jewelry or are you out enjoying what must be very pleasant weather where you are? And to my Canadian friends, I can just imagine what Vancouver must be like right now - how lovely! And to my readers in Manitoba (around Churchill, the Polar Bear capital), surely you are basking in warm (not hot) sunshine and cool breezes.
Until next time....
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Raise the Red Lantern

Or perhaps it would be more apt to say, "Raise the red jade." I had a customer who was interested in red jade, so I made a bracelet using some of the scarce red jade I had. You know me, I had to make more red jade bracelets, and although I am running out of the pretty red jade, it has caught my imagination and instead of just jade, I'm seeing red. . . anything red!
The last bracelet, the bangle bracelet, is the one I made first. The red beads were so shiny that I wanted to work with them some more (just like a magpie, I cannot resist shiny things). So. . . the second bracelet with lots of sterling silver added and expanded to two strands instead of one. Finally, I did the top bracelet with these great lampwork beads from James Derrick Reeves (surprise!). You can see these on our Jade Bracelets page.

I found a great site for ceramic beads today: Earthenwood Studio. They have great handcrafted porcelain beads and a slew of other products, too. Check them out. I already have my eye on some great pendant beads.





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Seeing Smoky? It's a Good Thing!

Yesterday when I was driving home from the studio at about 6:15 my extremely accurate car thermometer said that the temperature was 101 degrees Fahrenheit. This is jewelry-making weather because the only thing that makes sense is to stay inside under an air-conditioner. It's even too hot to lie around in the pool since the water there is as hot as any bathwater!
Dreaming of water, however, I made the first aquamarine bracelet with some great new aquamarine nuggets that I just got in from Thailand. They are a lovely mostly opaque shade of blue with very little green to them. In one of those rare cased of serendipity, I'd just received some lampwork beads from bead artist Lynn Nurge in the same colour, but with a bit of an opal look to them (but not iridiscent). I love Lynn Nurge's beads for bracelets since she handmakes tiny little beads that are as perfect as anything handcrafted can be.

I've also been working with smoky (smokey) quartz this week since the colour brown is big this Fall, and I've gotten in some great cuts of smoky quartz. I still have a tendency to want to call it smoky topaz since that it the way that people I knew referred to it when I was growing up, but what I'm using is quartz.

Smoky quartz is a very sparkling stone when faceted because it is usually transparent and it really almost sparkles like Swarovski does. It is a surprisingly versatile gemstone which blends well with other gemstones and is at home with many different colours in one's wardrobe. I especially like to wear it with lighter colours, white, cream, pale blue, pale peach and pink.
The necklace that you see here is almost all faceted topaz stones with the addition of some great lampwork beads (from a favourite artist of mine) in the colours of brown cream and silver. I especially like the large briolettes such as the one in the pendant here.
The bracelet below has matching lampwork beads which are by Tennessee lampworker Teresa Turner.
Found on the Smoky Quartz Jewelry page.
Finally, I read a review that I didn't know had been done about my blog yesterday, and while the jewelry received good reviews and the writing, the reviewer said that the black background of my blog didn't work, that it drove her crazy as did the green print (I guess she just read one entry since I do change colours). I'm taking her advice and using white print this time, but I'm wondering: how many of you find that you don't like the black background? Should I change to another, lighter colour? I'll publish your comments although because of the inordinately large amount of spam I get I do look at them first, and if the black background is bad, I'll change it!
Thanks - and everyone stay cool!

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