I looked at my cluttered bead table and realized that I have a few things I could call tangerine if I removed the word orange from my current vocabulary. Doesn’t Tangerine Tango sound much more expensive than orange? While in Hawaii last week, I obtained a piece of calcite that I think borders on the topic color.

Calcite is a primary mineral in cave formations and produces those stalactites and stalagmites we learned about in school. It’s usually white or colorless but can be light yellow, orange, blue, pink, red, brown, green, black or gray.

Another Tangerine Tango piece was laying in the demolition box. This is where I keep the things that didn’t work out. I put them there when I’m too lazy to take them apart and then I can grab a bead here and there when I need it.

Although the blue beads in this piece are not natural, you can see that turquoise would be a good complimentary color with this orange.

I’m hoping that Tangerine Tango won’t take over summer garments and accessories the way pink did several years ago. I remember everything that year was pink and by the next year it was totally gone. Yet, perhaps a little tango with this tangerine might be a good dance to try in a few designs. It really is pretty nice.

Frequent and long time readers may recall that fold forming was the new technique I chose to develop last December and January during the winter lull between completion of the Fall products and the development of the Spring designs. Unfortunately, I may have moved too quickly from fold forming last year and back into rapid production for my customers. Also, I “closed” on the technique partly because I couldn’t figure out new things to do with it. I chose not to face the somewhat discouraging struggle that forces one into creative generation. I currently have renewed interest in fold forming due to a couple of happenings. Two of my lucky friends took a recent workshop with Kim St. Jean at the Texas Beadfest and their discussion of the class helped add to my refinement of the technique. Also, I gave a demonstration on the technique at a recent gathering of wire workers. Therefore, I had to practice.

The trick for me with fold forming has been trying to make something besides a leaf that would comfortably work as a piece of jewelry. First, I practiced some different ways to hammer on a few leaves and learned how to better ruffle the edges. Then I created a couple of copper cuff bracelets. I like using a long diagonal fold to start the bracelet design and following this with appropriate texture. I quickly learned that it’s important to begin with a longer and wider piece of metal than the size of the anticipated product. I folded the metal first and then cut the final bracelet shape. When I annealed the metal bracelets with a torch during the fold forming process, beautiful colors appeared on the pieces.

I’ve also been experimenting with a star shape shown in Newton-Brain’s book. First I made several pairs of earrings and then I created a larger star and used it as a pendant on a strand of coral. I gave the pendant a liver of suphur bath, tumbled it and then used the torch on it again. It adopted a very rich color.

Now the struggle is to try to develop some ideas of my own for fold formed shapes. Hopefully, I’ll have the time this year to stick with fold forming until I’ve either developed some new ideas or convinced myself that I CAN’T come up with anything new. Wish me luck.

If you are a designer or type of merchant who makes changes in merchandise with the seasons, you may be experiencing my difficulty. At the height of a given season or perhaps even before that season begins, we need to switch gears and plan for the next one. So here goes. I’m layered in warm clothes from head to toe and I have the Spring palette of colors laid out to work with. It just doesn’t seem right, but it IS necessary.

Luckily, the owner of Dovetails of Wimberley gave me the Casual Corners catalogue displaying the Spring line. I’m using it to help plan jewelry to go with the garments. Take a look at the beautiful mixture of colors shown in the catalogue.

Inspired by these photos, I began to play with the fiber I had on hand. This included yarns, ribbons and cording.

This gave me a better understanding of what colors coordinated and might work best in beads.

I’ve begun now to work with the beads matching these colors that I got from Magpie Gemstones (www.magpiegemstones.com). I can show you the one new bracelet below and the lapis necklace that just went into my etsy shop (www.dreamcatcherdesigns.etsy.com).

I used a new style armature for the bracelet and think it will be nice for those customers who have enjoyed the wave bracelets. This one is not as wide and displays more gemstones and pearls.

The lapis necklace is a piece that finally hatched. I made the pendant at least two months ago and then it sat and sat on the work table waiting for further inspiration. The blues from the Casual Corner catalogue finally led me to finish this piece. Just a few charoite beads help set off the color of the lapis and make it look more like Spring.

Today, the sun is out even though it is still cold outside. I guess I’ll have to continue to imagine the warmth of the Spring breezes. I think I’ll go put on a floppy hat to get in the right frame of mind.

The last few days I’ve been working with tree shapes. It may be the anticipation of the changes soon to occur with the leaves on the trees or simply an inclination to get away from things that are circles. For whatever reason, I’ve been working with the shape of some trees, triangles. This is always a bit of a problem since triangular shapes in jewelry mean you must deal with three sharp corners, but I decided not to let that deter me.

The first trees are a bit large, yet interesting looking. These earrings are copper triangles sweat soldered together to imitate firs. The liver of sulphur patina seemed appropriate on these.  I also made a smaller, upside down pair.   

The next pair is made of copper that spent several days turning blue. The household concoction worked well and I didn’t want to spoil the color; therefore, I chose not to solder them. That would have removed the blue patina. I made them into pretty good swingers by using the copper rings.

The last pair of earrings initiated with a picture of a pair that a friend gave me. I intended to use silver circles as part of the embellishment, but the bottle caps sitting on the work bench begged to be used. The star in the cold connection adds a little western flair to this pair. Yes, I do realize that this tree shape is upside down, but it seemed like the way to go.

Maybe the next tree shapes should be rounded at the top – I’ll have to give that some thought.

In the last line of her tree poem, Kilmer wrote:

Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

I could certainly say the same about these silly earrings.

I say “hurrah!” I think we should all wear a little purple now and not wait until we’re too old to get a kick out of it. I’ve actually been practicing for years now. Once while shopping with my young adult daughter we saw a rather rotund lady going in a store with curlers in her hair and an orange housedress on. I asked my daughter to not ever let me do that. Then, on her wedding day as we rushed around with our preparations, there I was with curlers in my hair and my lime green and orange housedress on. I went to the nursing home to pick up my Mother in that garb. I’m thinking that when I’m old no one will worry about what’s in my hair or what I’m wearing. I guess I was just practicing on that wedding day.

Today’s jewelry pieces fit with all this practicing. They’re PURPLE! As I looked around at my products and caught up on what had sold at the stores, I realized that purple goes out the door pretty quickly. See what you think about these two new pieces. The pendant at the right hangs from a lightweight strand of amethyst chips and sterling rounds. The bezel is one of those for which I became brave enough to use all sterling silver. Other pictures are in my etsy store at the following address:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/53924047/sterling-and-amethyst-pendant-necklace

The second piece is based on the colors of a specific garment at one of the boutiques. The amethyst is highlighted with just a few olive colored Czech crystals. You can see one of the larger stones best in the side picture blowup. http://www.etsy.com/listing/53963222/amethyst-and-sterling-necklace?ref=v1_other_1

Now that I’ve got my purple to wear, the poem also says I can gobble up samples in shops and wear my slippers out in the rain. It sounds like I’ve got all sorts of things to practice for when I’m an old woman. Does anyone out there want to join me?

      “Counting Flowers on the wall, that don’t bother me at all

       Playing solitaire ‘til one with a deck of 51”

It seems that each time I’ve finished a ribbon or felt flower that song pops back up in my head. I’m beginning to dislike it!

I started making the ribbon flowers after the Renegade Craft Fair that was held several months ago in Austin. One of the vendors, the Stitch Lab, taught how to make ribbon flowers and attach them to headbands. I was hooked! These are great fun to make and I just keep making and making and making them. I have a slew of them on clips and headbands at Paper Bear in San Marcos, Texas and have given many away to friends. Now I’m seeing flowers everywhere I go. I’m trying not to accost every little girl who walks by me with a flower in her hair, but it’s been fun to notice the many ways they can be attached to hair.

My daughter told me that felt flowers would be good for fall and I was off and running again. I’m amazed at the beautiful colors of felt that can be located and had fun creating numerous rosettes for the pins below on the left. The flowers on the right are flatter and I haven’t decided what they will be. The smaller ones may be added to ribbon to become bookmarks. Do you have suggestions? I’d also be interested in vending opportunities for these little beauties. Ideas?

By the way, I wait until after I leave the house to put a flower in my own hair. The concern on my husband’s face about whether or not at my age I’ve really lost it is just too much to bear.

Since I’ve been making the etched cuffs, it was a fairly easy transition to use more Fall-like designs on them. I used a Fall leaf stamp to make this copper on copper bracelet.

Sticking with the metal, I also finished a copper leaf pendant shown below. I torched the metal until it was black and, following cleaning, the leaf offered a beautiful red color. Then I soldered the little dragonfly on to one side. The challenge came in digging deep into my bead drawers to find the right Fall colors. This was made easier by spending time at a boutique yesterday.

There, I was able to match the colors to a Fall wool vest that was in stock. I find it much easier to design with a garment in front of me.

Both of these pieces are currently available on my etsy shop @

www.dreamcatcherdesigns.etsy.com

Fall is definitely here in the studio and I should be ready when the real deal comes along outdoors. Think COOL.

I don’t think I’m the only adult who still likes colors. Working as an educational consultant, I carried large containers of colors and markers that were used for various projects during the workshops. I particularly remember one group of high school teachers who got so excited about getting to color that I thought I would have to put them in “time out” to settle them down. Most of their workshops just required note taking; so coloring while learning was a treat.

I could hardly wait for my grandson to come for this past visit because I knew he was finally old enough to work with color. We chose watercolors instead of crayons and had a great time splashing it on the paper. We just worked with one color using the Driscoll Lipscomb approach from The Gift of Driscoll Lipscomb by Yamaka. In this children’s picture book, an artist gives his little friend a single color pot of paint each year on her birthday. She spends an entire year exploring it. I think it’s a good approach for little people and am reminded that “less is more”. Don’t ask who had the best time when we painted.

Color again burst forth over the weekend when I was torching some copper sheet for a necklace. I inadvertently left the torch on the piece too long and before I knew it, the piece was solid black. Yuk . . . another mess up. Since the piece was too hot to throw in the trash, I quenched it in water. To my happy surprise, the copper was a nice shade of red and following an hour in the tumbler it was quite useable. Who knew????? I used the red copper for a disc necklace like those described in the January 27, 2010 post. There was enough copper for earrings and I used some dried corn from an old Native American necklace for the chain. I also used Renaissance Wax to help preserve the color of the copper.  I like this kind of coloring. Staying with the single color idea, my grandson and I did have one other experience – painting with pudding. This was even more fun than finger painting with shaving cream and with pudding, you get to lick your fingers! Yum!  Did you know you can even finger paint your face this way?

It’s really a shame that we have to grow up. I want to go back to childhood and let someone else do the clean up. Unfortunately, I think using the torch to color is about as close as I can get to being a kid again. Yet, I could just go get my own new box of 48 crayons!

Dyed magnesite is vivid this year and I must silence my mother’s words when she asks “isn’t that pretty heavy?” Using chain with these colorful nuggets helps to lighten them and they are fun to wear. In addition to the necklace shown, I strung these with wire connectors and leather and also wired individual colors to go singly on neck wires. I’ve also made both short and longer versions of the one pictured. It’s been fun to make my own chain out of 18 gauge wire.

While it seems I should go to the bead store to find the “hot” colors for summer, I go to the boutiques. It doesn’t really matter to my customers if the bead is “hot” it really matters whether or not it compliments their new outfits. Looking at clothes and THEN going to the bead outlet makes much more sense. There is, however, a catch to this process. How do I go to the boutiques without wanting to buy the clothes? I guess I’ll just have to work on that one until my ship comes in.

The butterfly pendant is atop a domed and stamped piece of copper. I used the torch on the butterfly to give it a bit of color.

This piece is made of ruby zoisite (large chips) and kiwi. I used plated silver beads and added some blue rounds to the necklace. I regret the color doesn’t show very well in the photo

This piece took several days because I didn’t know what I was doing. I wanted to do a layered pendant and use rivets, but in the end I just have layers and fake rivets. The oval is copper and the diamond shape is brass that I stamped with Ranger brand alcohol ink to add a bit of color.

The seed bead pendant has been close to completion for quite a while. Now I can check it off the list of UFOs (unfinished objects. . . check . . . Hurray!)