The Birds and the Beads

Yesterday afternoon one of our neighbors called on her way home from work to tell us about a baby owl she found in the road. She pulled over, scooped him up out of the road, and then waited and watched to see if the parents showed up. Eventually, when none did she put him in a box and continued on her way home.

We met her on the way, and took the look guy to a wildlife rehabilitation center where he will be cared for by a surrogate parent (Barred Owl) and eventually released back into the wild!

See below for more about when to take a baby bird to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator.

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One of my favorite places to visit in cyberspace is the Starving Jewelry Artists website. With forums, tutorials, blogs, galleries and all kinds of other goodies, it is an utterly delightful place for a bead lover to spend time. This is not a commercial website – its an open community for bead lovers to share and learn and just hang out. Hope to see you there!

These gorgeous earrings earned me three complements in the first hour I wore them out! They’re super easy to put together, and they have lots of swing and sparkle. A talent for opening and closing jump rings is the only technique you need to assemble these lovely earrings – get ready for the complements!

These earrings use Swarovski’s flat briolette pendant drilled crystals (style 6012), and TierraCast’s pinch bails (made to work with the 6012’s), plus the new twisted tube links added last week. With these beautiful floral colors, these are just the thing for spring!

Swarovski Briolette Earrings Project Instructions

I’ve been beading for about twelve years now. I started out with seed beads, but soon moved on to larger beads, and for most of this time, I’ve considered myself to be primarily a “stringer” – bracelets, necklaces, earrings and such — strung on flexible jewelry wire or headpins. For the past two years, though, I’ve started to spend more of my time and creative energy working with hard wire. I’ve picked up some hammers and a bench block, and my dad, the leather man even made me a shock absorbing leather pillow for my block, after I spent a month or two searching with no luck for such a cushion.

So I was really excited to discover this little gem (shown right) in one of my tool catalogs. They call it the “Bench Block Helper” – a three piece set that has a beautiful steel bench block, a matching nylon block, and a cunning little rubber base that is perfectly designed to hold either block, and absorb the shock and sound that comes from working wire.

And of course – I couldn’t have a bench block without some hammers, so the 123Bead tool collection now includes two beautifully made hammers. Our hammers, a lovely steel chasing hammer and a nylon hammer, have lovely polished hard wood handles, and are excellently designed tools.

I’ll be adding more wire working tools in the coming month, as well as some projects using them. You can find these hammers and blocks on the wire tools page – here.

I just finished unpacking our new lighting system – cubes for diffusing light (the 12″ one is pictured), three lighting units, and an underlight.

Erin is doing some photography right now. I cannot wait to see the results!

I’ll let her say more when she is finished playing!

I should have done this years ago, but with out further ado….

TierraCast Jewelry Components – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
My love affair with TierraCast began in 1996 when I first discovered their beautiful Celtic beads and charms, and I’ve been using these beautiful components ever since. I use TierraCast beads, toggles, bead caps or charms in nearly every project I make! These components are manufactured from start to finish in the United States, and the quality and workmanship is phenomenal – better made and better priced than many precious metal alternatives.

Visit my Projects Page to see some of the many free designs using TierraCast beads, findings, charms, toggles, bead caps and more.

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This is a fun and fairly easy project, using one of our new adjustable beading rings. For this project, I used a ring with only one loop at the top. You can buy this style of ring with more loops, of course, but I choose to use the single loop style for this project because I find it is easier to work with. The rings that have more loops are designed to have the beads wire wrapped directly on the ring’s loops. This isn’t too difficult for the first dozen beads, but once the ring starts getting full of beads, it is harder and harder to add on more beads. For this project, I wrapped each bead and closed it without attaching it to anything, and then attached the wire wrapped beads to the ring using just a few jump rings. It was much easier and speedier to complete the ring this way.

To visit this project page – Click Here.

I also spent a little time over the weekend working on instructions for finishing cord ends with a wire wrapped coil, or with a wire wrapped hook and eye set. To have a look – Click Here.