A Glutton for Punishment Part I

I'm not sure if I'm just a glutton for punishment or just plain crazy ! I tend to underestimate my future projects and start out thinking they will be small and manageable however they always end up becoming big, complicated and time consuming.
Several posts back ( Trouble Getting From Dream to Reality )I gave you a glimpse of a vision that I had of a black and white piece. It was a vision that danced in my head like those proverbial sugar plums in the poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas".   But what a challenge it has been, seems I never had just the right things that I needed such as strong enough jumprings, ones that wouldn't come open as soon as the necklace was picked up. So I'd order parts, wait for them to arrive, then sit down and with anticipation of completing the project dive back into putting it together. Part way through it would dawn on me that something was wrong and guess what ? ... I needed something else that wasn't in my vast supplies of beads, findings, wires and parts. SHOOT !!! DRAT !!!  And Double Dang-it !!!
So have to go look around,  find what I think will do the trick, place an order and wait some more.

Photo above..Lovely black and white Venetian glass oval bead will be the center focal point.  Only as the more I worked on it I realized that 1 - the center focal point was being buried beneath the disc bead dangle and 2 - my handmade jumprings,  made from 20 gauge silver plated copper wire, kept coming apart. 

Finally I did manage to put together the center area of the necklace and it has turned out far more complex than I had ever imagined. The heavy weight 18 gauge jumprings from Jewelry Supply that I ended up purchasing are performing well and I haven't had any open up on me yet. Yay!  Unfortunately I've just about used them all in this project and decided to order some more from a different vendor ... the new jumprings are not nearly as nice nor as strong so it's true that sometimes you get what you pay for.

Photo above ... Been busy as a bee wire wrapping black and white disc beads to use as dangles. I decided to add a larger solid back bead for the Venetian bead to hang from as the black and white oval bead needed to be longer. Yes, it's filling in nicely but still needs something.

Photo below... How about some of these Czech pressed glass leaf beads with a silver finish ?  Might add the tiny black hearts as dangles just below the leaves ?

Photo below ... As you can see I added a large black bead at the focal center to make the Venetican oval bead hang lower, it was being hidden by all the black and white disc bead dangles.  Hmm and those lovely little jet black glass hearts that have one side with an aurora borealis finish ?  Well they didn't look so hot as dangles hanging WITH the leaves so I may add them as dangles on their own ... not sure at this stage.  Besides I now need some type of large, fancy link to attach at the side of the necklace. 

Photo below ... As you can see I've attached a few of the silver leaves but it still has a lot of fill work left to be done and there's still the problem of what to add to the loops that I created beneath the silver leaves ... the loops I made to hang the sweet little black glass hearts from.

Stay tuned for Part II as things may change ... oh undoubtedly they will change!

Last Minute Preparations...

Today will probably be the last day that I'll post on my blog before going on my trip. Tomorrow will be spent packing, doing those last minute shopping trips, a quick tidying up of the house with a promise to give it a good cleaning when I return (yeah, right ! LOL). This evening I'll put my Etsy shop and Artfire shop on vacation mode. Though with all the traffic my shops receive I wonder if it's really necessary, but guess better safe than sorry, would hate to have someone place an order and end up having to wait 2 weeks before hearing back from me. No, that would be a very bad thing ! Martha Stewart would surely give me demerits for that and, heaven knows, I've chalked up far too many Martha demerits already for my cluttered workroom and untidy home...let's not even talk about the weeds in the flowerbeds.

I have my fingers crossed that I'll be able to take photos and post them as I proceed on my excursion. I am thinking that when I return I would love to have a blog giveaway, have never attempted one so really am not sure what is involved or how to go about it. The item I am contemplating as a prize is a brooch (or broach, if you prefer). It is one that I made not too long ago and is handcrafted from fine 28 gauge, craftwire, tri-cut #9 Czech glass seed beads, Czech firepolished glass beads and a lovely 6mm Swarovski crystal bead. It took me 10 hours to fabricate. Please let me know if you think it is prize worthy.

Destashing Beading Supplies

I’m contemplating changing the direction of my etsy shop...sure I’ll have my handcrafted jewelry listed (right now everything’s on sale). But I’ve been thinking about offering more of my beading supplies, also known as "destashing, doing this mainly because I wish to retire as a jewelry maker and return to being, once more, simply a wife, mother and grandmother...without all the hoopla and distractions of trying to promote, promote and promote a business. This is consuming most of my time and my life...all for so little rewards.

This blog however, I enjoy doing immensely and will most likely keep it up, perhaps even devote more time to taking photos for it...though I may wish to rename it, time will tell if I do or not.
So please feel free to leave comments on what you think of my idea to sell off my supplies of beads and findings, I would love to hear your opinions, viewpoints and suggestions. Also should you be at all interested in my stash keep an eye on my shop as I'll be adding things little by little (it takes so much time to take several photos of items...from different angles and different perspectives, up close and at a distance etc.) Above and below are piles of tiny 3mm Czech glass beads (200 beads per strand). I have these in a myriad of colors; periwinkle blue, turquoise blue, pale green, pale pink, garnet, amethyst, hot pink, yellow, alexandrite, lavender, crystal clear, milk glass, white opal and red...some have an aurora borealis finish some have an opalized finish.