Jewelry-o-Rama!

I've been making jewelry off-and-on for almost 20 years now - though I've almost always stuck with pretty straight-forward techniques (not a lot of metal-smithing for me, and never any casting - heck, I've even kept my wire-wrapping to a minimum). But old dogs can learn new tricks - or be reminded of the old ones in new, exciting ways! And the book to do it (at least for this old dog) is Bead Simple by local crafty luminary and West Coast Crafty Blogger Susan Beal.

In my quest to become an ever-better low-tech jewelry maker, it's become a reminder handbook and inspiration guide all in one. All of the projects are simple and beginner friendly, and the basic jewelry-making instructions are easy-to-follow and well-illustrated. And I love this project by Art School Dropout Jessee Malone that uses black o-rings from the hardware store!


And speaking of Art School Dropout, check out this Juxtapose Necklace from her site I just bought:


In a similar vein, I'm also working on this necklace using rubber grapes and little birds cut from a plastic lid and lightly sanded . . . and I can get it to hang well on the model, but not on my neck, so it needs a little more work, but I'm really liking the effect.

I finished teaching my Junk Drawer Jewels class this week, and actually took a soldering class from Jennifer Wells over the weekend! It was great fun, and I highly recommend it! Of course, even with all this jewelry madness, there's still room for other stuff - like the Images on Fabric class I started teaching this week! ooo . . . the sun is finally out and I am feelin' HOT!!