Wire-Wrapped Pendants

Yesterday I played around with wire again and I created two pendants, using wire-wrapping. I did some research before I went out to try to create a bezel for a cabochon from wire, just to make sure exactly how I could execute it.

My first pendant is created after a project from the book "Wire Jewelry Masterclass" by Abby Hook, and it features a spiral-like bezel. I used a gemstone cabochon from my collection, but I have no idea what sort of gemstone it is, lol.

For my second pendant I looked up some basic techniques on the internet to see how to make a basic wire-wrapped bezel, and I found one that was really handy, which I decided to use for references. I only have round wire in my stash, and the tutorial recommended half-round, which I understand would make the whole wrapping a lot easier for something like this. The round wire really made me work, as it didn't want to stay in place too often, lol, ah well, at least it's completed :P
Also, the cabochon is a Rock Crystal and the gemstone chip beads are Labradorites.

Last week I also invested in some "Gel Patina liver of sulfer", since I've been wanting to do some patina on my wire projects. And on this second pendant I had a bit of fun and made the copper go completely black, heh. Then I polished and buffed it on various places to give it more contrast.
I need to add a "fun" factor about the Gel Patina; it smells like rotten eggs, lol.

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Wire-Wrapped Ring in Copper

So I've been playing around with the latest batch of copper wire I bought last week, experimenting and trying some smaller projects from a book I also bought on that subject.
I noticed that I still had some larger (approx. 8-9mm) faux turquoise beads which I've had in my stash for ages, without knowing what I should do with 'em.

Well, I figured that I could use them to create a wire-wrapped ring with free-form. In other words; "Make the base and then see how the rest of the design could end up", since I don't sketch that often, heh.
Personally, I like the end result of it, for being my very first, own designed ring when it comes to wire-wrapping, lol.

I basically only used two different gauges to create this ring; 20 and 28. To get the right size of the ring, of course I used a ring mandrel. Also, what I did to make the ring band solid and compact, after I wire-wrapped the base with the 28 gauge wire, and finished it as I wanted, I again put it onto the ring mandrel and used a hard-rubber hammer and hammered the ring-band very intensively, all around. When you learn wire-wrapping you also get the knowledge that the more you work your wire, the harder it gets, so yeah, my band is very, very hard :).
 The rest of the design is pretty much free-form. What I did with one end of the wire is that I created a hollow leaf shape, which I then hammered flat and then polished. The swirls are just an experiment; I was so happy when my new round-nose pliers arrived that I put it to some action, lol, and that is the result :P

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Various Completed Projects

So, yes, I'm aware of the facts that I haven't been blogging much since I came back from the vacation :)

However, I've still been doing some stuff that I'm going to share with you in this post. I completed a bead embroidery pendant, which I started off just before I went on vacation. And for those who follow me on facebook and twitter, I mentioned that I finally bought myself a metal block and a chasing and a rubber hammer. And yes, of course, I've been doodling around with some wire; copper as I find precious metals are very expensive, and even more expensive to practice on.
As I went on and playeed with wire wrapping once again, I remember even why I haven't done it much to begin with; my nail are very soft (really soft, like jelly "almost") and the wire really manage to give them quite a beating, heh.

Here's the bead embroidery pendant I mentioned earlier. For the bezel I used 11/0 delicas and 15/0 Miyuki seed beads. The cabochon with the skull I actually painted and varnished; it was just black and white from the beginning, but I wanted a bit of  a personal touch to it so I painted the skull red and added some golden highlights on it on various places. I used a 14mm Swarovski rivoli to enhance the look of the piece a little more. At the bottom part there's an 8mm black onyx gemstone cab which is surounded bu 11/0 delicas and 11/0 seed beads by Matsuno, along with blue goldstone chip beads. The fringe I wanted a bit simpler then the rest; for the bottom I simply used some 11/0 seed beads in black and red together with 9mm twisted bugles, 4mm Swarovski bicones and small magatamas. For the sides I embellished with some long magatamas, to get a bit of a "tribal" feel to the piece.

When I played around with wire, I wanted to make something rather simple and basic. So I found this small project in the book "Bead & Wire Art Jewelry" that I wanted to try out now when I actually had access to a bigger selection of wire gauge then I had when I first bought this book, last year.
This project required 20 and 18 gauge wires.

This is another wire project. I saw this tutorial on the YouTube channel of Beadaholique, and I just wanted to give it a try to practice some wire working.

 This is my own design. I wanted to make something a little bit more abstract, yet not too complicated. First off, I drew the design I wanted in my sketch book where I have most of the designs I've made that aren't free-form. First I measured how much wire I would need, and then I hammered the frame flat, and used the ball side of the chasing hammer to give it some texture. I then began to join the loose parts I wanted around the main frame with some random wire-wrapping techniques (yes, I know; it looks really amateurish - only one way to learn; practice, heh). For the web, I used turquoise chip beads and 11/0 Toho seed beads in a permanent finish. 

 Oh yes, I've also been playing around with some kumihimo!
I've been wanting to play around and incorporate beads into my kumihimo for some time now, and I got my hands out of the pockets and actually did this one. I used both long magatamas and the smaller ones, to embellish the rope a bit here and there. The reason to why I didn't do a complete surrounding of beads is that I didn't have enough of the magatamas in the colors I chose to work with. Still, I personally like it. Main thing, right? lol ^^

Do you also have a lot of balls in the air at the same time?

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Back in Belgium and did some Wire-Wrapping!

I'm back home in Belgium again, after having one of the most awesome vacations ever! Seriously though! :O

Sharing some photo's I took along the way :)

We set out on Wednesday 29th of August, and we spent the entire day at the airport... Pretty much, heh. Landed in Luleå, Kallax - airport at 22.10, to after picking up the luggage go to my mom and spend the night and approx. one more night there.

On Friday my grandmother and her husband came to pick us up to drive all the way to Kiruna. We spent the whole weekend there, walking and driving around, showing my other half some stuff that definitely can't be seen in Belgium. And also got to show him some old silly childhood places :P He also got to taste the famous moose-meat-soup (älgköttsoppa in Swedish) I've been going on about for ages, and came to his senses that it is divine, lol.

On Monday we ended up taking the bus to Luleå, to go and see my aunt and cousins. My bf told me that he's never, ever sat so long on a bus in his entire life (lol, almost 5hours drive with bus), and kept saying that if he did the same in Belgium, he would end up in a completely different country!
*chough*
Anyway! ^^
We spent almost the rest of the week, till Thursday evening at my aunt's place, being social until we went back to my mom's place. She was the only one that could take time off to drive us to the airport in the morning :)

That rock is a sacrificial site where some of the Sami have been sacrificing reindeer to their deities.

So yeah! Back home, and it actually feels nice to have personal space and my lil' studio again, lol. Although, I ended up getting a darn heavy cold from one of my cousins and it's kept me in bed pretty much the entire weekend, I'm just now starting to feel a lot better again.
Went nuts on Sunday and ordered a metal block along with a chasing hammer and a rubber hammer, some copper wire in different gauges and finishes, and some additional beads that "accidentally jumped" into the shopping basket, LOL.

One of the most amazing wonders nature has created. It's called "Lapporten".

The hammers and the metal block arrived before the additional wire I purchased, so I went on and played with some older silver-plated copper wire I've been having around for quite some time. I ended making a pair of hoop-earrings which I actually rather love, heh. I used 20 and 24 gauge wire to make them, and used some 3mm firepolished Czech glass beads along with some cubic zirconia tear drops for the center of the earrings.

A long waterfall in Abisko National Park.

My grandmother and her husband in the Church of Kiruna.

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Ring: Cobalt Blue Whispers

Okey, for once I actually wanted to take my time and play around with some of my artistic wire I've been having around, collecting dust for a bit more then a year now.
So I decided to try my luck on wire wrapping a ring.

I ended up picking 20 and 24 gauge black-plated copper wire for this little project. I also decided that I wanted to incorporate some beads into the design to give it some sparkle. When I was done with fitting the ring shape itself around the ring mandrel, I twisted the access of the loose wire ends into a pair of spirals, which I then secured together with the 24gauge wire.
The beads I incorporated are a pair of Fire Polished Czech glass beads in 8mm and 4mm. The 8mm bead has an AB finish, which the 4mm doesn't.

Now... As I began wrapping the 24 gauge wire around the 20 gauge wire I noticed that the black color began popping off. I'm not really sure how to deal with this on a colored wire once it happens; I'm not really that advanced when it comes to wire wrapping, heh.
I decided to take some sandpaper and actually scrape of some colors here and there myself to give it some sort of vintage look, which in my own opinion worked out really nice for the design itself.

► Have you ever tried wire wrapping? If yes, what do you think of it? If no, why not? ◄

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